Neill wrote: How does a dark sky park differ from a dark sky reserve, i.e. Kerry?
Looking at the IDS website, there seem to be quite a few gold tier ones in the States, but only Kielder in Northumbria and Galloway Forest Park in SW Scotland have gold tier status outside of the States.
Hi,
The main difference is size.
For a reserve you need at least 770 km^2. A core area that is strictly protected and legally enforced can be surrounded by a typically 15km wide buffer zone that is still expected to adhere to good lighting practices. The areas must be an areas of exceptional dark skies. Because of the size and requirement for legal enforcement it is something that can only really be done on county council type level where lighting and development plans can be mandated. Some other areas in the country have looked at reserve status, but the size requirement is the problem, apart from West Kerry there is nowhere else really in the country that does not have at least a major town within a possible area; some of the sites also straddle multiple county councils which would make the bureaucracy potentially troublesome.
Dark sky parks can be of any size and on public or private land provided there is night time access. This is what all of the other areas I've spoken to in the country are aiming for.
It's important to point out that it's not simply a competition to see who has the darkest skies. Some areas that we've looked at would be bronze tier level, but their location is such that their potential for outreach, dark sky awareness, and promotion of lighting best practices may do more to educate than a large really dark reserve.
There are a couple of other designations but they don't fit well in Ireland:
A Dark Sky community is a municipality that gets dark sky status. However legally the community must be able to enact its own legislation to enforce lighting practices. In the USA small towns can mandate ordinances to accomplish this, but there is no such fine grained legal structure in Ireland. Typically the county council is as fine grained as it gets.
There is also a new category called a dark sky sanctuary. This is similar to a reserve but is designed for more remote regions in need of conservation. The only one so far is AURA Observatory in Chile. Had this been available sooner it's a designation that Kerry possibly could have considered.
All types of 'dark sky place' need access, outreach, a lighting inventory and lighting management plan in place, a commitment to meeting ongoing dark sky requirements and an ongoing dark sky monitoring programme etc.
The full details of exactly what is needed are in the pdf guidelines from
darksky.org/idsp/
hth
Al
  