Coillte scoops international environment award
Coillte Woodland Restoration Project wins Energy Globe Award
3rd June, 2010: Coillte is delighted with the announcement today that it has won an Energy Globe Award. Coillte won this award for a recent woodland restoration project called "Restoring Priority Woodland Habitats in Ireland". This project restored over 550 hectares or 1,360 acres of rare woodland habitat in Ireland on nine sites in nine counties all owned and managed by Coillte.
The ENERGY GLOBE Awards had in excess of 800 projects submitted from 89 countries. These projects were examined by judges from all over the world. The awards aim to present successful sustainable projects to a worldwide audience. The projects that are showcased are projects that conserve and protect natural resources or that employ renewable energy. Coillte's project won the national category for Ireland. The overall global winner will be announced later this week.
The "Restoring Priority Woodland Habitats" project was funded jointly by Coillte and the EU under the LIFE-Nature programme.
Coillte ecologist, Pat Neville, remarked that "Coillte's core purpose is enriching lives through innovative and sustainable management of natural resources. We recognise the central role that forests play for nature conservation and biodiversity. We manage over 15% of our entire estate primarily for nature conservation and we are actively restoring some of Ireland's most important woodland habitats. It is very rewarding to receive such a prestigious international environment award in recognition of the successful habitat restoration project."
This year's award ceremony took place today in Kigali, Rwanda and will conclude as part of the United Nations World Environment Day on Saturday 5th June 2010. This coincides with the International Year of Biodiversity under the theme of Ecosystems Management and the Green Economy
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Tom Byrne,
Head of Corporate Communications
Coillte
Tel: 353 1 201 5231
Mob: 353 (0) 86 810 4224
Email: tom.byrne@coillte.ie
Note to Editors.
About Coillte
Coillte is a commercial company operating in forestry, wood panel products, land based businesses and renewable energy.
Coillte employs 1,100 people and owns over 445,000 hectares of land, about 7% of the land cover in Ireland.
For more see:
