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 Lough Boora Parklands
Lough Boora Parklands demonstrates how a productive and diverse landscape,
accommodating both commercial activity and sanctuaries for wildlife and
recreation, can be created from Bord na Móna's emerging cutaway bogs.
Bord na Móna has harvested peat from these bogs since the early 1950‘s and in the mid seventies started to develop these production areas for new land uses. Intensive research led to definite conclusions regarding land reclamation techniques, suitable and unsuitable crops, livestock management on reclaimed cutaway land, vegetable growing, and biomass for energy production. The research concluded that grassland and coniferous forestry would be the main productive uses for cutaway bogs.
By the early 1990‘s over 400ha of grassland and 800 ha of coniferous forestry
had been commercially developed where suitable conditions existed. At the same
time areas of cutaway which were unsuitable for forestry or agriculture were
being naturally recolonised by a range of plant species, and areas with
impeded drainage were flooding and attracting wildfowl.
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Parklands are located in the Boora bog complex near Kilcormac in County
Offaly. The bog complex at Boora covers over 8,000 ha of which 2,000 ha of
cutaway comprises the Lough Boora Parklands area.
