Juniper
Juniper is a bushy evergreen plant that grows on the peaty upland slopes of the Mourne mountains. It is one of only 3 conifers that have grown in Ireland since the end of the Ice Age about 12000 years ago, the others being the Scots pine and the yew tree. It is identified in the UK, NI, Mourne and Newry and Mourne biodiversity action plans as a species that needs our help if it is to survive.
Juniper is threatened throughout the UK and is on the charity Plantlife's 100 plants most endangered by extinction list. In recent years it is predicted that we have lost up to 60% of our historic juniper population from across the country. One of the reasons for this is that juniper grows very slowly and is slow to reproduce, so young plants take a long time to develop. Many of the historic juniper plants that are left in Ireland are old, and do not produce many new saplings a year. Often they are in areas where there is a lot of grazing, and new plants are nibbled away before they have had a chance to grow, or they are in areas where there is very little grazing and here they are shaded out by grasses before they can get established.
Recent work on juniper genetics carried out by scientists at Queens, showed that the juniper plants in Mourne have a totally different genetic fingerprint to the juniper that occurs throughout the rest of Ireland, including populations in Fermanagh and Antrim. This makes it even more important to protect what we have as it cannot be replaced if the plant was to disappear.
We know that juniper plants will eventually disappear from the Mournes unless we take active measures to conserve them. In 2009 Mourne Heritage Trust is hoping to hold a juniper conference to bring people together to formulate plan for active future management of the plant in Ireland. This will involve local stakeholders such as land managers, but also others from across the country with an interest in juniper, and project managers from mainland UK who have years of experience of actively managing and re-establishing the plant.
The outcome of the conference will be an active management plan for conserving juniper in Ireland, and from 2010 we will be encouraging people to get involved in the active conservation of juniper here in Mourne.
What can I do?
Currently we are in the planning phase of this project, but we welcome contact from anyone who is interested in staying up to date with what is happening so we can keep you informed.
Have you seen juniper plants growing in the Mournes? We know there are about 60 plants growing on the mountains at the moment, but there may be more in areas that were not covered in the recent survey. Get in touch if you know of juniper sites within the Mournes or the Cooley Peninsula so we can add your records to our database. www.mournelive.com/
This will help inform future juniper conservation action.
To stay up to date with the Mourne Juniper project, contact Catherine Bertrand at Mourne Heritage Trust Catherine.bertrand@mourne.co.uk or Danielle Cookson at Newry and Mourne Council, Danielle.Cookson@newryandmourne.gov.uk
For more information about juniper throughout the province contact Maeve Rafferty, Key Species Officer at Ulster Wildlife Trust, Maeve.Rafferty@ulsterwildlifetrust.org