Why a new survey of Clare Island?

Participants at Seminar held in the
Community Centre on Clare Island, 2002.

In this period of global environmental change, there is a critical need for baseline surveys in unpolluted environments, against which future changes can be measured. Clare Island, with its location on the extreme Atlantic fringe of Europe - an island off an island - represents an important habitat with a pure and pristine environment that can be used as a baseline monitoring site for the rest of the sub-continent. In many ways, this beautiful island is a microcosm of all that is the west of Ireland: unpolluted, yet sensitive to fundamental global changes.