Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) and The Irish Environmental Network (IEN) are delighted to invite you and your colleagues to take part in an All-Island Civil Society Forum on the Environment.

This forum is open to all those working (in any role) in a paid or voluntary capacity in an environmental civil society group/eNGO. We would really appreciate it if you could circulate this invitation to your staff and volunteers.

The Forum is a series of five online thematic dialogues and an in-person networking day to be held in September 2024. Participants can take part in as many or as few of the sessions as they wish.

The main purpose of this project is to promote and deepen cooperation, dialogue and ideas knowledge sharing and between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland environmental civil society groups so that the sector is equipped to fully engage with, and respond to, the new environmental regulatory and governance context post-Brexit.

Each of the 5 dialogues, will be held online to maximise access. The initial dialogue will introduce the post-Brexit environment and the following four will explore a specific environmental challenge. The theme of the environmental challenge will be chosen by the participants.

In the thematic dialogues the participants will discuss possible solutions and policy responses that they believe are appropriate for introducing/implementing/exploring on an all-island basis or on both sides of the border. These solutions/policy responses will be recorded by the organisers and presented at the final networking forum.

The first dialogue will take place online using Zoom on Wednesday 14 February from 10:30am until 1:00pm and you can register for that here. The Zoom link will be issued to registered participants in advance of the session.

This first session will set the context for the rest of the series – Dr Lisa Whitten (QUB) will give an expert overview of the environmental regulatory context post-Brexit. We will follow this with a discussion on why deeper dialogue and cooperation between environmental organisations in Ireland and Northern Ireland is necessary and discussing with participants what you think is important and what thematic areas might be prioritised.

To help us with our planning we would be grateful if you could respond to the short survey available through the link below. It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

All Island Civil Society Forum on the Environment Survey

IEN and NIEL have received funding from the Shared Island Civic Society Fund to develop and deliver the All-Island Forum on the Environment.

For more information on this project, contact Sean Kelly – sean@nienvironmentlink.org