National Biodiversity Week Ireland 2025: Celebrating Nature and Embracing Global Action
Ireland is currently celebrating National Biodiversity Week, which runs from 16th to 25th May. This vibrant, nationwide celebration highlights our rich natural heritage and serves as a call to action to protect the ecosystems that sustain life. Co-ordinated by the Irish Environmental Network, this week brings together a diverse network of partners, including Local Authority Biodiversity Officers, Local Authority Heritage Officers (supported by the Heritage Council), and a wide range of national and local organisations and community groups. With events held across the country, National Biodiversity Week invites people of all ages to reconnect with nature, learn about native species, and discover how they can contribute to protecting Ireland’s precious biodiversity.
A Week of Action, Anchored by a Global Moment
At the heart of Biodiversity Week is the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) on 22nd May, observed globally to raise awareness and promote global commitments to halting biodiversity loss. This year’s international theme, 'Harmony with nature and sustainable development', draws attention to the critical link between the UN’s 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Goals and Targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). These two universal agendas must be pursued together, in alignment with the recently adopted Pact for the Future, to ensure a healthy planet and sustainable livelihoods for all. IDB 2025 serves as a global reminder that restoring and protecting biodiversity is essential not only for environmental health, but also for social and economic development worldwide.
Ireland’s Environment and Natural Capital
Climate change is significantly impacting biodiversity in Ireland. Estimates of the economic value of our ecosystem services and biodiversity are approximately €2.6 billion annually. The decline of nature, biodiversity and insects, and the impacts, are starkly outlined in a series of international reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[1]. The impact on Ireland is clear from reports from the EPA on water quality, air quality, biodiversity and emissions. Government must treat these reports as an impetus to implement a complete shift in policy away from business as usual and towards transition and adaptation. Although initially costly, the returns and dividend we will reap from the investment is significant. It will put Ireland on the pathway to meet 2030 and 2050 targets. Without action now the challenge becomes almost insurmountable.
Rethinking Policy: Valuing Nature as Capital
Protecting biodiversity must be at the core of national policy. Ireland needs to improve its data collection methods when it comes to biodiversity and to monitor the impact of climate change in this context to protect both our natural resources and our economy. Our natural capital and ecosystems should also be assigned value in our national accounting systems. A report from the National Economic and Social Council (2024) sets out how to go about considering and valuing these often-invisible ecosystem services. The report highlights how understanding what nature contributes can help all of us, and crucially, people within the policy-making system, to become more aware of what needs to be done to measure nature’s contribution to society and the economy so it can be better protected. The report recommends that natural capital accounting, the integration of environmental data into the system of national accounts for economic activity, be used as a key tool to inform decision-making. The Irish Government needs to take on board these recommendations and at a practical level the CSO should be fully resourced to implement the System for Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) and the future compilation of natural capital accounts.
Still Time to Get Involved - National Biodiversity Week continues through Sunday, 25th May, and it’s not too late to get involved. Explore the full list of events and resources at biodiversityweek.ie.
[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/