Add these to your list for a summer stroll.

Two Cork woodlands are on the shortlists for the Irish Forest and Woodlands Awards in the Sustainability category.

Mallow Castle Demense and Town Park, 88 acres of woodlands and parks nestled in the heart of Mallow town, has been shortlisted for best Community Woodland, which is designed to recognise forests and woodlands that have been established and managed in a sustainable way that is beneficial to the local economy and the environment.

Myross Wood in Leap in West Cork has been shortlisted for the Native Woodland Conservation Award, which recognises excellence in the conservation and management of native forests regarded as ancient or long-established.

Five Cork-based businesses and organisations have also been shortlisted in the RDS Sustainability Awards, celebrating the work of individuals, farm families and organisations who are enhancing the economic, environmental and social development of Irish agriculture and rural communities.

These include Brown Envelope Seeds, West Cork, run by Madeline McKeever and Hannah Denholm, Cork City’s Glenbrook Farm, a free-range pig farm in Whites Cross set up by Peter Twomey and his family during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, and Blackwater Honey, North Cork, which was co-founded in 2020 by brothers Andrew and John Shinnick.

Bo Rua Farm’s Norma and Tom Dineen

The BRIDE ‘Farming with Nature’ Project, East Cork, set up in 2018 to reverse the loss of biodiversity on intensive farmland in the Bride Valley area of East Cork and West Waterford, has also been nominated alongside Bo Rua Farm, East Cork headed by Tom and Norma Dineen in Ballynoe.

The couple has embarked on a journey of farmhouse cheesemaking, utilising milk from their Montbeliarde and Friesian cows.

The awards ceremony takes place in Dublin as part of the ‘Finding Common Ground’ Festival on Friday, May 3rd.