Our Mission is to pursue sustainable development. In pursuing this mission our mandate is to:- •achieve a high quality environment with effective environmental protection; •address climate change; •achieve effective conservation of our natural heritage and biodiversity; •achieve effective conservation of our built heritage; •protect and improve water resources and the quality of drinking water; •ensure that our regions and communities are planned and built to respect sustainable and balanced regional development; •ensure good quality housing in sustainable communities; •monitor, analyse and predict Ireland’s weather and climate; •support and enable democratic and responsive local government

Forest Friends Ireland, among other objectives, wants to bring about a change in the present status quo, whereby forestry policy in Ireland is based primarily on a monoculture, a single species, namely Sitka Spruce. To work towards the achievement of a policy based on biodiversity and continuous canopy, in accordance with the principles annunciated in the Convention on Biodiversity, at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit 1992.

Ireland’s development cooperation policy is an integral part of Ireland’s wider foreign policy. Their aid philosophy is rooted in their foreign policy, in particular its objectives of peace and justice. Their development cooperation policy and programme reflect their longstanding commitment to human rights and fairness in international relations and are inseparable from Irish foreign policy as a whole. Poverty reduction, to reduce vulnerability and increase opportunity, is the overarching objective if Irish Aid.

Irish Woodworkers for Africa (T/A Just Forests) was founded in 1989 in response to the trade in tropical timber and the resulting decline of global forests thus making us one of Ireland's longest established non-governmental development education organisations working solely on global poverty-related tropical forestry/timber issues from a local development perspective.

Just Forests uses society's dependence on wood and the on-going decline in global forests as a tool to establish links between green-house gases, the loss of terrestrial biodiversity, "development", conflict and poverty.

Since our inception, Just Forests, have always insisted that good forest stewardship is inseparable from sustainable development, and if we fail to take it into account we risk undoing all the positive work being carried out by national and international development agencies and governments to reduce poverty and combat climate change.

What has Religion Got To Do with Biodiversity?

Thinking Trees!

Just Music International Aid Project Launched

Just Forests response to the reviews of the White Paper on Irish Aid – 2012

What do Trees have to do with Music?

The National Botanic Gardens of Ireland is the leading national centre for botany and horticulture. The Gardens are situated in Dublin city and include major collections of plants held for research, educational, conservation and horticultural purposes. It received over 600,000 visitors each year and implements broadly-based national and international programmes in scientific research, plant conservation, environmental education and public horticulture. The institution also includes the National Herbarium which contains c750,000 plant specimens.

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) is the largest Agency within the Department of Environment with approximately 800 staff. This website is based on advices, and on implementation ofGovernment's environmental policy and strategy in Northern Ireland. We carry out a range of activities, which promote the Government's key themes of sustainable development, biodiversity and climate change.