Wild Nephin - the wildest place in Ireland

danwaffles

I've been reading up on stuff like 'the biggest forest in Ireland' and 'biggest national parks' and stuff like that and I came across Wild Nephinin Co.Mayo. A couple of years ago there was a bit of rewilding done, but it seems little else has happened since then. I was just thinking, how cool would it be to have a place in Ireland like Yellowstone or Yosemite, a place you could go and just get lost in nature (obviously not lost lost), just somewhere you could go camping for like a week and not see any sign of human life.
I also love the idea of reintroducing native species back into Ireland, for instance wolves. Just the idea of seeing wild animals in there natural habitat (from a distance of course) and a massive, beautiful forest excites me for some reason. What does everyone think?

Also, heres some info about Wild Nephin I got from an earlier thread
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin_project.pdf
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin.htm

Base price

danwaffles wrote: »

I've been reading up on stuff like 'the biggest forest in Ireland' and 'biggest national parks' and stuff like that and I came across Wild Nephinin Co.Mayo. A couple of years ago there was a bit of rewilding done, but it seems little else has happened since then. I was just thinking, how cool would it be to have a place in Ireland like Yellowstone or Yosemite, a place you could go and just get lost in nature (obviously not lost lost), just somewhere you could go camping for like a week and not see any sign of human life.
I also love the idea of reintroducing native species back into Ireland, for instance wolves. Just the idea of seeing wild animals in there natural habitat (from a distance of course) and a massive, beautiful forest excites me for some reason. What does everyone think?

Also, heres some info about Wild Nephin I got from an earlier thread
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin_project.pdf
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin.htm

No offence but ye can lost in our

recedite

I think its a worthy goal.
It will need a certain amount of money invested to get it going, which perhaps has been lacking so far.

Eddie B

danwaffles wrote: »

I've been reading up on stuff like 'the biggest forest in Ireland' and 'biggest national parks' and stuff like that and I came across Wild Nephinin Co.Mayo. A couple of years ago there was a bit of rewilding done, but it seems little else has happened since then. I was just thinking, how cool would it be to have a place in Ireland like Yellowstone or Yosemite, a place you could go and just get lost in nature (obviously not lost lost), just somewhere you could go camping for like a week and not see any sign of human life.
I also love the idea of reintroducing native species back into Ireland, for instance wolves. Just the idea of seeing wild animals in there natural habitat (from a distance of course) and a massive, beautiful forest excites me for some reason. What does everyone think?

Also, heres some info about Wild Nephin I got from an earlier thread
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin_project.pdf
http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_nephin.htm

Not being smart, but Wild Nephin ain't no Yellowstone. In fact, I would say that animal diversity and numbers are pretty poor up there for the size of the area. Lots of sheep alright, but don't think they count. Lol

Alun

Eddie B wrote: »

Not being smart, but Wild Nephin ain't no Yellowstone. In fact, I would say that animal diversity and numbers are pretty poor up there for the size of the area. Lots of sheep alright, but don't think they count. Lol

Yes, I've been there a couple of times and it's no wilder than the Wicklow Mountains to be honest.

recedite

It may be rubbish now, but the point is that after rewilding it could be good.
In the second link of the OP, a Swedish guy gives some interesting insights.

His Irish fellow traveller who is quite high up in Coillte, freely admits that the impetus for this project comes from the fact that it costs more to take timber out of this area than the timber is worth.

As such the proposal is that some (or most) of the existing conifers be integrated into a rewilding scheme, and other new elements added in, such as broadleaf trees and a few campgrounds and trails.

In principle I'd agree with this, but I could imagine the "native species only" brigade objecting. As mentioned some people do not even consider beech trees to be native, although I would.
Going further, would it be possible to introduce the likes of beavers and wolves? Ancient varieties of these once lived in Ireland but now you would be introducing new species or subspecies from the continent.

It all depends what people want for the future. Coillte don't really want it for commercial forestry anyway.