FRIDAY saw members of the community come together to begin work on creating a wildlife pond on Black Mountain.
The creation of the pond will take place over the next few weeks and local people, community activists and organisations will be coming together to make it possible.
Ballymurphy man Aaron Kelly – who is behind the initiative – spoke with the Andersonstown News about the creation of the pond and the importance of biodiversity in the area.
Creation of the pond begins
“The reason we want a pond here is because the only place you can find newts, frogs, dragonflies and damselflies is around Divis, around the top part of the mountain. With still water pools at the bottom, we can start to distribute some of them insects and amphibians which is the goal.
“I want to not just have them secluded in one area, I want to make sure they have a strong population throughout the mountain not just in one wee place.
“You’ve got species like the smooth newt there, they’re endangered in Ireland, we need to provide a habitat for them.
“I’ve wanted to dig a pond for ages and one of the landowners is all for it. They’re all keen into nature. It’s a lot of people coming together – Council, Woodland Trust, Belfast Hills. We’ve got Gairdín an Phobail beside Whiterock Leisure Centre, they’ve also provided us with equipment and all the tools we need and they’ve lent us spades for this."
Aaron, who currently works with Ulster Wildlife, said his experience on the mountain helped him to get a job with the charity.
“I’m just always had nature in me, from when I was a kid," he said.
Locals come together to begin work
“It started with a litter pick and then I found a pine marten. From then I wanted to find more rare animals to stop development on the mountain, so I enhanced the mountain by planting trees for natural regeneration and enhancement through manual labour through tree planting and other things like ponds.
“I started finding rare animals around the mountain, with landowners’ permission they let me go through certain parts of the mountain.
“Through the landowners I was able to agree on getting land planted to bring more biodiversity onto the mountain so this can be through tree planting, surveying, even the landowners are taking cows off the mountain during certain parts of the year to help wildflowers grow.
Aaron Kelly, Ballymurphy man behind initiative, gets his hands dirty
“One of the landowners Niall McCann is helping me with everything that I’m doing, we’re trying to start an organisation, a group for the mountain called the ‘Black Mountain Rewilding Project’ and it’s all about rewilding the mountain.
“So some parts we’re letting it rewild itself, and letting it regrow naturally through natural regeneration and in other areas parts it’s through helping by planting trees where trees should be planted and maintaining meadows where meadows need to be maintained."
