A new species of plant has been uncovered by botanists - not in the Amazon rainforest - but in a wildlife sanctuary in County Down.

The news comes ahead of this year's Green Living Fair at Castle Espie outside Comber which is aimed at those who want to be more gentle with the planet.

Northern Ireland's first bio-diversity strategy, aimed at protecting all plants and animals on the planet, will also be revealed at the fair.

It is no secret that several hundred plants and many animals have disappeared or are under threat because of the actions of man.

The new strategy sets forward more that 70 proposals to protect the environment.

David Holyoak: Find is "very exciting"

As part of that strategy botanist David Holyoak has been listing species of mosses in the province.

He has has found several species new to Northern Ireland and Europe.

This latest one, the Atrichum tenellum, has never been seen in Northern Ireland before.

He said: "It's very exciting - one doesn't find rare species very often, so it breaks a routine of recording hundreds of less common ones to find something really rare.

"A significant part of the work I'm doing is to reveal that some species are less rare and less threatened than feared, so we can concentrate our efforts on the others."

On Saturday, Environment Minister Dermot Nesbitt will launch the province's first bio-diversity strategy at the Green Living Fair.

The fair, which takes place on 7 and 8 September, has been organised by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) with the support of DOE's Environment and Heritage Service.

Dermot Nesbitt: Will launch strategy

Mr Nesbitt said: "Everyone in Northern Ireland has a part to play because everyone here has at some time undermined the environmental diversity here, and we must all pull together and of course, money is needed to do that.

"We must recognise what needs to be done, plan for it and put our hand to the wheel".

He said the executive had adopted the 14-year long biodiversity strategy to "arrest and reverse" the alarming trends in reduction and losses of wildlife and habitat in the province.

"Locally we need to change our thinking so that we are as conscious of the need for environmental maintenance as we are of the need to service our cars," he said.

"Key to this is the preservation of our biodiversity."