Water Beetles

The Cabragh Wetlands Trust has three core objectives – conservation, education and recreation. The boundaries between them are not always clear, but it is not easy to think of anything more important for the next two generations, than a thorough reassessment of our attitude to place in and relationship with the natural environment.

A good place to start is by each community taking the initiative in understanding and conserving its local bio-diversity. Governments and councils can help, but at heart this is surely a community and individual responsibility. Groups like the Cabragh Wetlands Trust can protect fragile habitats and eco-systems from yet more human encroachment, and they can provide a forum for discussion, issue sharing and awareness-raising both among the already committed and those slowly coming round to the realization that things cannot go on as they are.

As proof of just what the Wetlands have to offer, a recent e-mail from a group conducting a national survey of water beetles told us that more species were found at Cabragh than at any other site in the county. Viewing water beetles may not be high on your list of priorities, but this is a clear indication of the importance of the site, and also of the purity of the water, and a reminder of what can be lost when roads and houses mushrooms across the countryside. We call these things developments, and so they are; but they are also destructive and we need to recognize that human progress can come at a terrible cost to the natural world that has taken billions of years to evolve.

We eagerly await more information of those water beetles.