Aims of the Project
The aim of the ‘Linking the Irish Environment’ project is to examine how to enhance the ability of the environment sector across the island of Ireland to cooperate and engage on an all-island and cross-border basis to deal with shared environmental challenges, risks, and opportunities. This report has been commissioned by the Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) and the Irish Environment Network (IEN) – the two membership organisations for the environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI). NIEL has more than 65 organisational members and IEN has 34. The report has been funded through Community Foundation Ireland (CFI) and Community Foundation Northern Ireland’s (CFNI) joint ‘All-island fund’ and has been commissioned as part of the first stage in the development of a long-term programme for the delivery of greater north/south environmental NGO cooperation and includes recommendations to help shape the way forward. This is an independent report setting out the views of the authors. The report should be read in light of the fluid and ongoing political context surrounding the NI Protocol and other post-Brexit arrangements.
Finally – while the report captures a snapshot of many existing all-island and crossborder collaborations, it has not been possible within the research timeframe to identify all ongoing efforts by individuals and groups across the island. The commissioning organisations and the authors would welcome communication from any projects not captured in this report in the hope that future research will reflect increasing efforts in this essential body of work.
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Acknowledgments
The team would like to thank the Irish Environmental Network (IEN) and the Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) for commissioning this research and the Community Foundation Ireland and Community Foundation Northern Ireland for funding the Linking the Irish Environment project. We would also like to thank our research support team from QUB and Maynooth, in particular, Hannah Elizabeth Cooke, Mark Byrne and Jobitha Prince and Environmental Justice Network Ireland’s (EJNI) Research Officer Caitlin McIlhennon. We are very grateful to our peer review panel who provided advice and editorial suggestions during the preparation of the report. Special thanks go to the survey respondents and to those who gave their time to attend the two workshops. Finally, we would like to thank our host institutions QUB, Maynooth, TUS, UCD and the steering group of EJNI for their support in undertaking this project, as well as Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust which funds EJNI’s core operations.
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