Documentaries on KCLR
Aug 2, 2021
Nore Vision Episode 2: Citizen Science Water Quality Projects
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We hear from Amanda Greer, Envirico, Hugh Feeley EPA and Mary Brennan and Senan Gardiner both Citizen Scientists. Funded by Kilkenny LEADER Partnership CLG through the Department of Rural and Community Development and the EU
More episodes from Documentaries on KCLR
Mar 7, 2022
Episode 20 - Trees as the Route to Happiness Whether its Walking or Wood Turning
There's no doubt about it, trees give us many things and over the course of this programme series we have heard about many of these benefits. But probably one of the nicest things about trees is how they give us an avenue for our creativity, and they provide a beautiful space in which to walk.
Mick Power is National Estates Manager with Coillte with responsibility for biotic risk and we meet him in Castlemorris Woodlands just outside Kilkenny. Castlemorris is an old landed gentry estate which came into the hands of the state back in the 1920s. There has always been a woodland area on the 600-acre site and the trees that we see today are third generation trees. It contains a mix of species and is managed under a continuous cover management system. Mixtures of different types of trees are best, according to Mick, who advocates the old adage of planting the right tree in the right place.
Coillte's open forest policy is not just of benefit to them from a safety point of view, but it delivers a wonderful amenity to the public as well. Their commercial activities support the development of woodlands like Castlemorris which have mainly been set aside for biodiversity and recreation. Mick has borne witness to many changes over the 40 odd years working with trees but one of the most recent and positive developments has been people's increased engagement with nature and trees. From Mick's point of view, there is nothing as nice as hanging out with trees.
Another man who likes to spend time with wood rather than woodlands in Kilkenny woodturner Liam Kirwan. He makes everything from earrings, to bowls and uses many different types of local wood in his projects. For example, he makes pens from 32 different Irish timbers. Does anyone remember the lovely Beech tree that used to grow in the Kilkenny Castle park? It was over 200 years old when it fell in a storm and its timber was distributed to craftspeople from which they could make things. Liam makes pens from this wood, but they are very popular, and he doesn't have that much left now.
Wood from the fruit trees can look the same but others are very distinctive like ash with its pale colour and London Plane with its herring bone effect. Always cut with the grain, use dry wood and give the object the respect of a good finish is what makes a well-turned piece - that and the patience of the turner. They are a patient people- like trees.
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Feb 28, 2022
Trees: From Seed to Sawdust - Episode 19 - Community Engagement and Wellness in Woodlands with the Acorn Project
We all love nature but sometimes we don't consider just how much we are damaging it through our food and economic systems. In this programme Maura Brennan who runs the Acorn Project in Kilkenny is trying to repair this contradiction by running workshops that engage communities to care for and grow trees in their locality.
Through funding from the Woodland Support Project, the Acorn Project has collaborated with Irish Seed Savers who are running workshops to train community seed savers in how to extract seeds and get them to germinate; the seeds having been already collected in their locality during the autumn. These seeds will then be planted in tree nurseries - wooden boxes - in parks or green areas, until the saplings grow to about two years old when they will then be planted out into areas designated by the community. Jeremy Turkington is Orchard Manager at Seedsavers who takes the groups through the processes in stratifying the seeds.
Monica meets Maura in the Millenium Park, Freshford where an Acorn Box containing young saplings are growing in beautiful leaf mould compost. Using leaf mould to grow trees makes complete sense to workshop facilitator Donal O'Leary who runs Waste Down. Waste Down provides training in composting and they also sell compost too. He came to Durrow last autumn to train the tidy towns committee on how to compost leaf mould in their locality. It's always best to leave the leaves on the ground for wildlife but, if you're removing leaves from drains or to make car-parking space, then putting them in a heap afterwards to compost in a great way of getting the best use out of them.
The Acorn Project runs forest school for children to get them out in the woods playing and learning about trees and the uses of trees. This according to Maura, will benefit them by cultivating a deeper connection to nature as they grow up into adults. An exciting new project which has just begun is called Waking the Seeds and involves 20 women who are exploring their connections to the woods through art. The workshop is a co-facilitation between Maura and Kilkenny based artist Rachel Burke.
Restoring our forests acorn by acorn is the motto for Maura who believes that little things can achieve a lot.
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Feb 21, 2022
Trees: From Seed to Sawdust - Episode 18 - Exploring Engineered Wood Products in a Visit to Smartply
Engineered wood, is made, in the case of Orientated Strand Board, by taking the thinnings from softwood conifer plantations and putting it through a process whereby it is transformed into board that is as hard as any hardwood timber.
This process takes place at Smartply located in Belview Co Kilkenny where Monica meets Neil Foot. She is taken on a tour around the plant beginning first in the log yard where stacks upon stacks of logs have been delivered from the plantations and are ready to be processed. The first step is debarking, and the bark is used in heating processes further down the line. Then the stripped log is taken through a very noisy process of 'waferising', where it's torn up into wafers or large flakes. These large flakes are then dried, misted with adhesive resin, and laid down in specially orientated layers to form a woody mat. This woody mat is then pressed and a board - Orientated Strand Board (OSB) is made.
It sounds easy, but it's a complex product. Between both Smartply and it's sister company Medite, which makes MDF, 90 truckloads of tree logs come in and 50 truckloads of product leave each week. 360 people are employed between both sites, and they are the largest timber processer in the country. They are owned by Coillte who took over the running of Smartply in 2002 when the original owners, Louisiana Pacific left Ireland.
According to David Murray, OSB and other engineered wood products are well positioned to fill the need for more sustainable building construction products. Ireland needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and wood, which acts as a store of carbon is a good material to use in this respect. It's also very warm and when well insulated, can reduce heat loss from houses. Smartply produce an array of different OSB products, some are flame retardant others are made to be specifically airtight, they can be used indoors and outdoors, under the ceiling or below the floor and of course are the material of choice in timber frame houses.
Only 1 in 5 houses in Ireland are timber frame. This is low compared to the likes of Scotland where 80% of the houses are timber frame. Education in the versatility of engineered wood products may help to increase this, along with a change in policy. Why is this important to do? Because every little bit we do will go towards reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and keeping global warming to below 1.5 C and Trees are a very important part of that process.
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