What is Wildroutes?

Wildroutes is a participatory Limerick based urban eco-art project that began as part of the LSAD MAD SPACE proramme. It aims to encourage people to reform unused public space in the city.
We can do this by taking neglected corners of the city and turning them into something alive, beautiful and even useful.
Wildroutes aims to promote stewardship of biodiversity in the city by encouraging and enabling users of the city spaces to grow native plants and trees. These become homes, stepping stones and food sources in the city for natural ecological populations i.e., the birds, bees and other animals (and even us humans!). This increase in biodiversity allows for a healthier environment for all inhabitants of this shared space, not to mention opportunities to stop and smell the flowers in our everyday lives.

How and Why?

Wildlife such insects, birds, mammals etc., use features such as hedgerows, riverbanks and natural pathways to navigate their habitat. In this case, the habitat we’re talking about is Limerick City. These natural paths  are known as “Wildlife Corridors”  because they link areas of  wildlife habitat allowing animals to pass through spaces that may be fragmented through negative human intervention.

Wildlife Corridors can consist of a sequence of stepping stones across the landscape or continuous lineal strips of vegetation linking one habitat to another. The aim of wildroutes is to encourage inhabitants to help create these stepping stones in the City.

The first step is for inhabitants to plant wildflowers. Not only does this create awareness in the city but it means that insects and birds can use these areas as a pit stop on their long journey across town.  We all have our daily routine.  We all move from A to B to C in a habitual way. So do animals. Keep an eye out next time you’re walking by the river (Park Canal is a good place), you’ll notice paths that go in one side of the water and out the other. That’s the route the otter takes, or maybe the swans, or any number of animals that call that particular area home.

So the plan is, make life a little easier for these other inhabitants, to share this space in the city with them, to make Limerick a cleaner, greener more wildlife friendly city. Not only does the wildlife benefit but we humans can enjoy the sights and sounds of nature in the city as we pass through space along our own familiar routes. Check out the blog and links page for more info on the importance of Biodiversity and Urban Ecology.

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