Our Story
Terra Éire is an Irish nature-stewardship initiative working toward the restoration, protection and thoughtful use of land for biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and people.
Our ambition is practical: to create and steward places where native habitats can recover, ecological processes can strengthen, pollinators and other wildlife can thrive, and people can participate directly in caring for the landscapes around them.
Why Terra Éire
Terra Éire is built around the idea of stewardship: land is not simply an asset, but something held in our care. That means working with ecological processes rather than against them, strengthening native biodiversity and creating projects that can endure beyond a single season or funding cycle.
Our work is habitat-led. Depending on the ecology of a place, that can mean native woodland and trees, hedgerows and shrubs, wetlands and ponds, healthier soils, native plant propagation, pollinator habitat and native wildflowers where they are ecologically appropriate.
From propagation and habitat restoration to education and community participation, the aim is to turn ecological intention into visible work on the ground.
Over time, Terra Éire aims to develop a network of restored and protected spaces, working alongside landowners, communities, public bodies, businesses and others who want to leave a meaningful ecological legacy.
Founder
Terra Éire was founded by David Corbally, whose path into ecological stewardship has crossed a number of seemingly different fields.
His background spans construction, the creative arts, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture, Occupational Therapy, teaching, permaculture and beekeeping. Though varied, these experiences share recurring themes: practical problem-solving, creativity, education, interconnected systems, wellbeing and the relationship between people and the environments around them.
Years spent working with people through therapeutic, health-related and teaching roles developed an interest in the relationship between wellbeing, place and community. Permaculture brought that systems thinking increasingly towards the land, while beekeeping made the condition of Ireland’s habitats, biodiversity and forage landscape immediate and tangible.
Being a father and family man is also central to David’s life and to the longer-term thinking behind Terra Éire. Stewardship is ultimately about what we care for now and what we leave behind for the generations that follow.
Terra Éire brings these different strands together. Rather than being built around any single discipline, it reflects a belief that ecological restoration should be practical, collaborative and rooted in place.
David’s work with Terra Éire is increasingly focused on building partnerships, identifying land and opportunities for restoration, developing native propagation and habitat projects, and creating ways for communities, landowners and organisations to participate in long-term nature stewardship.
Collaboration
“There is room for many hands in this work.”
We welcome conversations with landowners, communities, businesses, public bodies and people who share the ambition to restore and steward land for the future.
