Biodiversity in Schools runs a number of programmes aiming to increase awareness of nature and bringing nature to schools. Founder and CEO Mark Nolan talked to Niall Gormley.
Ireland declared a National Emergency in Biodiversity in 2019, only the second country, after the UK, to do so. The declaration came as mounting evidence showed a serious decline in Irish habitats and wildlife along with a recognition that the state was failing in its role as protector.
According to a European Commission report on the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive, 15% of species in Ireland have an ‘inadequate status’ with another 15% identified as having a ‘bad status’.
The report said that species are now in decline by 15% compared to a 10% decline between 2007 – 2013, implying an acceleration in species loss.
The 2019 Article 17 report said that approximately one third of the 98 wild bee species in Ireland are close to extinction, while another 60% of birds, commonly occurring in Ireland, are now on the red or amber conservation lists.
Professor Tasman Crowe from UCD outlined to the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss that the loss of biodiversity is a gradual and localised, adding that in Ireland:
• 85% of protected habitats in here are in unfavourable condition;
• 20% of breeding birds in Ireland are in long decline;
• birds that overwinter in Ireland are down by 50% since 1990s;
• endemic species only found in Ireland are of particular concern;
The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss issued its report in March 2023 and included 159 recommendations for action by the state. By October 2024 the Government said that 90% of these recommendations, as well as 58 Calls to Action of the Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss were being implemented.
The Biodiversity National Action Plan 2023-2030 was published in January 2024 with five objectives:
• a whole of government, whole of society approach;
• to meet urgent conservation and restoration needs;
• secure nature’s contribution to people;
• enhance the evidence base for action;
• boost Ireland’s contribution to international biodiversity initiatives.
Whole of society approach
The whole of society aspect implies that many more people inside and outside of the state sphere will have to get involved.
Biodiversity in Schools (BiS) is a social business / enterprise and describes itself as Ireland’s nature conservation organisation for young people with an aim to inspire the next generation to protect nature.
Mark Nolan is co-founder (with his partner Caitriona McCabe) of BiS and I met up with him at Derrycassin Woods on the shores of Lough Gowna on the Cavan-Longford border to talk about their work in schools.
Originally from Wexford, Mark has a degree in Environmental Science from UCD and a Master’s in Science Communication at DCU. He worked at Fota Wildlife Park in Cork for a couple of years and then, recession bound and wanting to work in the science and nature area, set up Biodiversity in Schools.
“The only way that we could stay working in biodiversity was to do it ourselves,” he says about the lack of jobs for science graduates at that time.
“So we set up Biodiversity in Schools and for the first few years it was tough. You’re kind of working full time, but only being paid part time. And I also attended college part-time during that time.”
The opportunity to work around biodiversity arose from a feeling that something would have to be done about the crisis. Their ideas involved providing resources to schools, visiting schools and organising state grants and funding.
“When we were in college studying science, I think it kind of blew my mind that we were doing such damage to nature and it really wasn’t reflected with how people lived, or what the government was doing.”
“A lecturer recommended a book at the time by Edward O. Wilson, called The Future of Life, a brilliant book. I read that and I think that opened my mind to it all and to what we should be doing.”
It became clear to Mark that to get adults tuned in to nature and the challenges that it faces you have to start with them as children.
“I think our children need to be given all the tools and the information and all the positive nature experiences at a young age so that hopefully, when their time comes to being adults, that they will probably do better than we and previous generations did.”
Helping schools help nature
So they started by going to schools and planting trees or hedgerows, or wildflower meadows.
When Covid struck, Mark says that they decided to move up a gear as in lockdown many more people began to visit parks and rural areas, reconnecting with nature.
To scale up, they developed programmes and resources that could be accessed online. They also partner with businesses who want to be active in this area as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives.
They now have a number of programmes running such as the Coill na nÓg (Children’s Forest) scheme which is a native tree and hedgerow planting initiative in partnership with eFlow and operated in cooperation with local authorities.
Mark says that it’s Ireland’s largest tree and hedgerow planting programme specifically for schools. Each year tree packs are delivered to schools with resources and training provided to create mini-woodlands and native hedgerows, backed by online resources and training.
In its first two years, the programme planted 6,443 trees in 398 schools as 202 mini-woodlands and 1.5km of hedgerows.
“Everything we do, we just want to make it fun – to make it easy to try and sell the idea of nature, to teachers and young people, that it is cool. So with Coill na nÓg, teachers just sign up on the website and it’s basically a raffle. And they can win a pack of trees to make a mini woodland in the school or a length of native hedgerow. We always have too many people applying for the resources we have.”
Originally BiS would call to the schools but now that the scheme is nationwide, that is not practical. All of the resources that a school will need to do their planting is online. The trees arrive as saplings and Mark says the students are sometimes surprised when the see them, that big trees grow from such small saplings. They are native Irish trees, hawthorn and blackthorn for hedges, and birch, rowan or oak for the mini forests.
“Kids can go outside at the school and see what an Irish tree looks like and see what it looks like through the seasons, it’s leaves, it’s flowers and it’s fruits.”
Conception
The first project BiS worked on was the Pollinator Project which it still operates. The idea here is to let the grass grow so that flowers can produce pollen.
“Schools have so much land under their control,” Mark says. “And it’s just about educating the teachers, management and students to let these little wildflower little areas of grass grow to help pollinators such as bees and butterflies. You don’t have to strim everything and cut everything back every year – leave a bit for nature.”
BiS send out a kit to participating schools that will give teachers the materials to give lessons on pollinators. They also organise a competition and the winners are presented with the Golden Bee trophy. The next Pollinator Project season gets underway in March 2026. In 2025, BiS trained 8,864 pollinator ambassadors, planted 16,500 sunflowers, created 18.5 acres of no-mow meadow and reached 84,760 young people according to their website.
I put it to Mark whether rural schools have an advantage over urban schools in terms of the space available. He said they didn’t find this to be the case. Some inner city schools can be restricted but generally sub-urban and town schools have lots of place. He said that some of the older rural schools actually have very little space as the land may have been donated by local farmers, for example, and the surrounding land is a working farm. In urban areas schools have more access to public parks where local councils are working to improve biodiversity.
Creating space
Another project BiS is working on is to buy land and to do some rewilding. They are hoping that this project, ‘Space for Nature‘, will give them a headquarters and education centre where they will be able to demonstrate how biodiversity and rewilding can work. At the moment, they are on the lookout for land and they hope to get people to buy – to sponsor really – a plot of ground. You can get a certificate for various spaces from a square meter, a car space, a tennis court to a whole acre.
Must try harder
Mark says that a lot of school design is not helping biodiversity, a scenario he describes as ‘hard landscaping’.
“We think it is important that schools have hedge rows, they have trees, they build bug hotels, they have log piles – all these things that are just part of nature.
“In one way, our job is the easiest job in the world because kids love nature. We don’t have to teach children to love nature. They just love it.
“It’s only adults that you probably have to teach to reconnect with it. So like when we bring children out into a school garden and they’re picking up wood lice and they’re picking up worms… that’s amazing for me.”
BiS have many other ideas, such as nature boxes, posters and resources in Irish and English, teaching kits and design ideas for school gardens and green space. And biodiversity needs all the ideas it can get.
