1000 Better Stories - A Scottish Communities Climate Action Network Podcast: Recent Episodes
Scottish Communities Climate Action Network
Sharing stories of community led climate action in Scotland to help us all imagine a better future, beyond "the new normal".
How does a run down public toilet turn a coastal village into a multi-award-winning community with a shared vision for the future? And what does it take for this community to feel safe despite growing challenges of coastal erosion, storms and flooding?
Join Kaska Hempel, our Story Lead, for a conversation with Wendy Murray and Jerry Forteath from East Haven on the Angus coast, to hear about the incredible story of their journey with East Haven Together.
Hosts Sam Jordan (Scottish Community Development Centre) and Ruth McLaren (Scottish Communities Climate Action Network) listen alongside you, reflecting on what this story reveals about community power, climate action and the questions shaping their work as members of the Unbound communications team.
Becoming Unbound is the pilot podcast mini-series for the Unbound Scotland project, which supports community-led action on climate and health across Scotland.
Through conversations rooted in lived experience, the series explores how communities are responding to climate and health challenges - and how these stories can help shape the future of Unbound.
Transcript of the episode is available here: https://www.unbound.scot/podcasts/season-1-episode-1
Credits:
Kaska Hempel (design, production, community interview, editing)
Blip Blop Tuesday by kjartan_abel -- https://freesound.org/s/558270/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Resources:
Unbound Scotland project website: https://www.unbound.scot/
East Haven Together website: https://www.easthavenangus.com/
This vignette explores the magic of people from all walks of life coming together in a protest for a cause, demanding a better future for their communities. It was recorded on 25 October 2025, the day of Scotland Demands Better march and rally in Edinburgh, organized by Poverty Alliance. Kaska speaks to Sandy Greene from ScrapAntics in Dundee who shares her personal experience as a lifelong activist and the way a peaceful protest can resonate throughout lives of individuals involved, local communities and a wider society. You will hear vox pops from members of Dundee Changemaker Hub, protest participants and ambient recordings from the day.
Credits:
Production, interview, edit - Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Kaska's creative sound Substack podcast ("Pebbles"): https://kaykay2000.substack.com/
Scotland Demands Better Campaign https://www.scotland-demands-better.com/
Dundee Changemakers Hub https://www.dundee-changemakers.net/
Scrapantics https://www.scrapantics.co.uk/
Galgael Trust https://www.galgael.org/
In this crossover, we share a standalone podcast episode from Transition St Andrews about their reuse and repair initiative. You will hear about the programme’s projects and activities and its positive impact on students, staff and local residents within the community.
Enjoying the podcast? Share the story with others, review or rate our show.
Credits: Ruth Sanderson, Senior Communications Manager at the University of St Andrews.
Resources:
Sharing, Reuse & Repair: Transition St Andrews: https://transitionsta.org/sharing/
Transition St Andrews website: https://transitionsta.org/
In this crossover, we share an episode of the CycleHub Stories podcast A Journey of a Bike Time. Cycle Hub.Org director Scott Francis talks about why the organisation was formed. We meet David, who comes to the Dundee Cycle Hub to donate a bike with a story. We also hear from Fiona Brunton, Engagement Coordinator for the Students Association at Abertay University.
Enjoying the podcast? Share the story with others, review or rate our show.
Credits: Production, interviews and editing: Sally Pearson - volunteer for Cycle Hub.Org.
Resources:
CycleHub Stories A Journey of a Bike Time podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7uJ2e2McKNUujOYkKmIVf3?si=23d88782a74d46cd
Cycle Hub.Org’s website: https://www.cyclehub.org/
Abertay Students Association: https://www.abertaysa.com/
In this crossover, we share an episode of Edinburgh Communities Climate Action Network’s new podcast series Climate Jam. Host Eirini talks to Pianodrome’s co-founder Tim Vincent-Smith about the story behind building the world’s first Pianodrome in Edinburgh. They discuss the importance of community, circular economy and how a project needs a soul to make it work.
Enjoying the podcast? Share the story with others, review or rate our show.
Credits: Production, interviews and editing: Eirini Chatzidaki.
Resources:
ECCAN’s Climate Jam Podcast: https://www.eccan.scot/climatejam-podcast
Pianodrome website: https://www.pianodrome.org
ECCAN’s website: https://www.eccan.scot/
In this episode, Kaska Hempel explores the ideas behind the Narrating Change workshop - a creative experiment in using storytelling to bring community voices into climate adaptation policy-making.
You will hear from researcher and workshop lead Emma Yule, and community participant Luke Fraser who is based in Orkney. They share what they got out of the session, and reflect on their wider ideas of adaptation and resilience in our communities and how the current Scottish Government policy fits into the picture.
The workshop was delivered by SCCAN in partnership with King’s College London, and funded by KCL’s Impact Accelerator.
Credits:
Production, interviews, editing - Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Community Adaptation Routemap - Adaptation Scotland: https://adaptation.scot/take-action/community-climate-adaptation-routemap/
Preparing for climate impacts resources on SCCAN website: https://sccan.scot/climate-adaptation/
Scottish National Adaptation Plan 3 (SNAP3) explainer https://adaptation.scot/about/about-the-scottish-governments-national-adaptation-plan-snap3/
Climate Change Adaptation: A primer with Emma Yule on the Local Zero podcast: https://www.localzeropod.com/episodes/c2z1qopayyftugl6stj9cocguu9vsp
Luke Fraser’s “hats”:
https://www.aquatera.co.uk/
https://northronaldsaytrust.com/
https://www.scottish-islands-federation.co.uk/
Carbon Neutral Islands Project: https://cni.scot/
National Island Plan: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-plan-scotlands-islands/
UK Met Office analysis of weather in Spring 2025 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2025/double-record-breaker-spring-2025-is-warmest-and-sunniest-on-uk-record
In this cross over we share a 2022 episode of The Highland Good Food Podcast, published by Highlands Good Food Network. Host, Laura Dorantt, speaks to Anna from Planet Sutherland, Mairi from the Fearn Free Food Garden and Emma from the Auchtertyre Community Garden. They discuss the importance of community food projects, which offer a space for learning, a place to gather and grow.
Enjoying the podcast? Support us with a donation on ko-fi or simply share the story with others, review or rate our show.
Resources:
Donate to 1000 Better Stories podcast https://ko-fi.com/1000betterstoriespod
Highland Good Food Podcast (you can also find it on Podbean, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major podcasting distribution apps) https://highlandgoodfood.scot/podcast/
Highland Good Food Partnership https://highlandgoodfood.scot/
Fear Free Food Garden https://easterrosspeninsula.com/listings/fearn-free-food-garden/
Planet Sutherland https://planetsutherland.com/
SCCAN membership map https://sccan.scot/about/members/ (Community members involved in growing: https://new.opengreenmap.org/browse/sites?icon=62e6a4a3b8121f0100b0e7fa↦=62e6a19ae0fc1e0100a2a115&search=growing)
In this cross over we share the first episode of the Paperboats podcast, associated with the Paperboats collective of Scotland-based writers focussed on nature and environment in a time of climate and ecological breakdown. Host, Ian Grosz, talks with Paperboats co-founders Sandy Winterbottom and Elaine Morrison about the ideas behind the movement and its work so far.
Enjoying the podcast? Support us with a donation on ko-fi or simply share the story with others, review or rate our show.
Resources:
Donate to 1000 Better Stories podcast https://ko-fi.com/1000betterstoriespod
Paperboats collective https://paperboats.org/
Paperboats podcast https://paperboats.org/podcasts/
2024 marked the five-year anniversary of Greener Kirckaldy's ownership of their community building and 100 years of the community land ownership movement in Scotland.
This is a story of this community’s journey to community ownership and how that empowered them to do more on climate, build resilience and help people in need.
SCCAN podcast has lost it's funding. While we look for other sources, you can support us by donating through ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/1000betterstoriespod
You can also join our collective and share your audio stories through our channel - get in touch with Kaska on stories@sccan.scot.
Credits
Production and recording: Lewis Harrower
Field recording: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Greener Kirkcaldy https://www.greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk/
Community Land Scotland and the Stove Network - urban journeys digital mural - a story of community ownership https://www.greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk/project/greener-kirkcaldy-mural-a-story-of-community-ownership/
100 Years of Community Ownership story archive https://100years.scot/
DTAS community ownership support service https://dtascommunityownership.org.uk/
Scottish Land Fund https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/scottish-land-fund
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to the creative duo behind Art Moves Fife, Gillian McFarland and Kate Downes, about slow movement through landscape as a means to mobilise creative response to climate crisis, creative patience in thinking about solutions and tails wagging dogs.
You can find the audio tour illustrating the essence of the creative process during the first art move at Tayport Heath on izi.travel website or app here.
Credits
Production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Art Moves Fife website https://www.artmovesfife.org/
Art Move at Tayport Heath - blog https://www.artmovesfife.org/blog/artmove-1b
Art Move at Tayport Heath - audio tour https://izi.travel/en/browse/a20cf047-db75-4f72-93e4-9ab98171d1c0/en
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, speaks with Marie-Anne Brown, a manager at Magpie in Banchory, about embracing a circular economy lifestyle, balancing social and climate responsibilities, and planning for extreme weather.
This is a final episode in our mini-series on climate driven extreme weather and adaptation in Scotland, marking the first anniversary of the devastating October floods in North East Scotland.
Credits
Production, recording and editing: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Magpie Shops https://www.magpieshops.org.uk/
Circular Communities Scotland https://www.circularcommunities.scot/
Aberdeen Voluntary Action https://www.avashire.org.uk/
Aberdeenshire South Food Bank https://aberdeenshiresouth.foodbank.org.uk/
DeesideCAN https://www.deesidecan.org.uk/
Number One https://www.facebook.com/numberonebanchory
SSEN powering communities to net zero fund includes funding for community-led physical and environmental resilience for communities within their supply network areas https://www.ssen.co.uk/about-ssen/our-communities/powering-communities-to-net-zero-fund/
The Scottish Government’s New Build Heat Standard will now allow wood burning stoves from 1 January 2025, based on rural and island community feedback (amendment on 8 November 2024)
https://www.gov.scot/news/wood-burning-stoves-to-be-permitted-in-new-homes/
SCCAN Adaptation resources
https://sccan.scot/climate-adaptation/
We continue on our theme of climate change fuelled flooding and how we are adapting to it in Scotland. In the last two episodes we touched on responses from creative organisations and farming. Today we focus on future-proofing of newly built public buildings.
In a podcast crossover, we share an episode from CampusCast series at Fife College, which focused on their Dunfermline Learning Campus as a pathfinder project for The Net Zero Public Sector Buildings standard. It’s the only pathfinder project that incorporated adaptation into their work, supported by Scotland’s Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network. The new campus is featured in the newly published Scottish National Adaptation plan as a case study.
CampusCast hosts, Sharrell Carroll and Naomi Wadsworth, are joined by industry expert Jonny Casey (Head of Climate Ready Leadership, Sniffer) to introduce climate adaptation, highlight what they are up to at Fife College and what you can do to get started with climate adaptation.
Credits:
CampusCast: Showcasing Sustainability podcast
Hosts: Sharrell Carroll & Naomi Wadsworth
Creative Director: Sharrell Carroll
Producer, Writer & Editor: Sharrell Carroll
Project Manager: Hayley Williamson
Researchers: Sharrell Carroll, Hayley Williamson & Naomi Wadsworth
Contributors & Advisors: Hayley Williamson & Naomi Wadsworth
Additional contributors: Lucy Jackson, Ethan Moss, and the Fife College community.
Music: Uppbeat
Resources
CampusCast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/110lS6bEVS0JcEIuU6XV1M?si=6b976a1750d74128
CampusCast on Adaptation Scotland website: https://adaptation.scot/our-work/fife-college-podcast-on-climate-adaptation/
Net Zero Standard https://www.netzerostandard.scot/
National Adaptation Plan for Scotland https://adaptation.scot/about/about-the-scottish-governments-national-adaptation-plan-snap3/
Scottish Public Sector Climate Adaptation Network https://adaptation.scot/our-work/public-sector-climate-adaptation-network/
SCCAN Adaptation resource pages https://sccan.scot/climate-adaptation/
In this episode, we share a recording of a panel discussion on Farming and Water held at the Groundswell Outreach regenerative farming meet up at the Falkland estate in Fife, last July. The session explores how landscape-level, regenerative management can help us adapt to the climate-induced extremes of floods and droughts. It also touches on the barriers to implementing such an approach.
The panel was led by Ian Davis and included Alister Leggatt, Lyn White, and Cees Kamp and Anthony Ellis.
This is the second in a short series focusing on flooding and adaptation stories this month.
Credit
Recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Music extracts from “Song Shall Be Our Measure”, by Jessica Kerr, performed by herself, Kirsty Orton and Aaron McGregor
Poem written and performed by Sophie Cooke “The overpromised land”
Both works were commissioned as one of the creative inputs into the Scottish Ecological Design Association’s (SEDA) session on integrated land use at GO Falkland.
Resources
Groundswell https://groundswellag.com/
GO Falkland https://falklandestate.co.uk/go-falkland/
Videos from GO Falkland 2023 and 2024 https://www.youtube.com/@GOFalkland/videos
Video of SEDA’s session on Solving the Land Use Jigsaw Puzzle at GO Falkland 2024 https://youtu.be/8TxnHG9JwU8?si=RcNYuRmVXMDlU_JP
Integrated Trees Network - Scottish Forestry https://www.forestry.gov.scot/support-regulations/farm-woodlands/integrating-trees-network
Affinity Water https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/
“Water is Love” film https://www.waterislovefilm.org/
5 Principles of Regenerative Agriculture https://groundswellag.com/principles-of-regenerative-agriculture/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska, talks to Everyday Changemaker Simone Stewart at the Barn’s “Plenty?” Festival in Banchory last October. They discuss degrowth and snails, storm Frank’s influence on the Barn’s creative direction, and the value of improvisation and community in an emergency. One year on, they also reflect on the impact of last year’s flooding which interrupted the festival.
This is the first in a short series focusing on flooding and adaptation stories this month.
Credits
Recording, interview and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Storm Babet Stories from Angus https://sccan.scot/blog/storm-babet-a-watershed-moment-for-angus/
The Barn https://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/
Newton Harrison’s The Deep Wealth of This Nation, Scotland https://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/artist/newton-harrison
Becoming Earthly at the Barn https://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/article/becoming-earthly-at-the-barn
Far Orchard Network at the Barn https://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/article/the-far-orchard
Manfred Max-Neef’s fundamental human needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Max-Neef%27s_Fundamental_human_needs
What is degrowth? A beginners guide by Eilidh Connolly The Barn blog ttps://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/article/what-is-degrowth-a-beginners-guide
Degrowth reading list from Creative Carbon Scotland https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/springboard-2023/reading-list/
Degrowth in Scotland on We Talk podcast (early 2022) https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nico-ndlovu
In this cross over episode from Harbour Voices podcast by Open Road, we hear a story of Hans Unkles' all electric lobster boat.
This is first episode in Harbour Voices Festival of the Sea series which gives an important historical perspective to the stories of Torry People's Assembly we published recently.
Credit
Open Road
Resources
“Harbour Voices” podcast: https://www.openroadltd.com/projects/harbour-voices/
“It’ll never work - an all electric electric lobster boat” documentary https://itllneverwork.boats/
SCCAN collection of climate-engaged podcasts in Scotland: https://sccan.scot/blog/on-the-way-to-1000-better-stories-ten-scottish-climate-podcasts/
Retrofit coordinator, Matthew Clubb, talks through benefits and options of the retrofit project for Torry in Aberdeen. This is a recording of a talk from GO Torry! event in June 2024.
Credits
Recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Listen to "GO Torry - growing resilience one year after peoples' assembly" https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-736yg-16bfd67
Community-driven regional retrofit support services:
- Edinburgh: https://www.edinbric.scot/
SCCAN Members Skillshare presentation: https://youtu.be/6vP8lU_ZykA?si=26qExfvvdq3SBWOQ
- Aberdeenshire: https://nesfit.org/
- Glasgow: https://locohome.coop/
SCCAN Members Skillshare videos: https://youtu.be/AjQLdnk82Vo?si=KQSG93qfrsO2yXEJ
Our Everyday Changemakers interview with Tom Nockolds Loco Homes https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-nf6kq-1493f27
Our Story Weaver, Kaska, revisits Torry in Aberdeen for a GO Torry event, celebrating community's growing resilience in the wake of People's Assembly and its Declaration last Spring. We hear of RAAC and retrofit, outdoor classrooms and stealthy resistance, poetry and community with a heart.
Credits
Production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
1000 Better Stories podcast episode about Torry Peoples’ Assembly of May 2023 – putting “just” back into “just transition” https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-5q33x-14be025
NEW! Torry Assembly website – with:
- Tullos poetry zine from GO Torry event https://www.torryassembly.net/tullos-poetry-zine-1
- Declaration of Torry Peoples’ Assembly 28th of May 2023 (PDF) https://www.torryassembly.net/s/Declaration-of-Torry-A6-booklet-v1-2.pdf
- Updates on the retrofit project https://www.torryassembly.net/about-retrofit
Information about Torry Peoples Assemblies on the Grassroots to Global website https://www.grassroots2global.org/torry-peoples-assemblies
Communities Assembly training by Grassroots to Global, early 2024 – SCCAN video series https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL727H-1nm_P25ueYx18ikvYroPMTGZ91-&si=dfN-nYxvbbaKQ3Ra
Just Transition Communities Project (NESCAN Hub) https://www.nescan.org/just-transition-communities
Station House Media Unit https://www.shmu.org.uk/
Friends of St Fittick’s Park https://saintfittickstorry.com/
Aberdeen Ethnic Minority Women’s Group https://www.abdn-emwomen.org.uk/
North East Scotland Mammal Network (FB group)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/335588875705435/
The Bridge Centre, Torry FB page https://www.facebook.com/thebridgecentretorry/
Social Juice https://www.social-juice-cic.co.uk/
St Fittick’s Park court appeal fails https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/aberdeen/news/st-fitticks-lose-legal-challenge-over-park-development/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Gareth Allenby from YMCA Glenrothes about weaving climate action into life journeys of young people experiencing homelessness and the joys of judging coleslaw competitions.
YMCA Glenrothes Healthy Living Garden project was one of the community groups that received a small community grant from the Fife Climate Action Hub last year. Apply for your grant here: https://fccan.org.uk/community-climate-grants/
Listen to our story about First Year of Fife Climate Action gathering https://scottishcommunitiesclimateactionnetwork.podbean.com/e/year-one-of-fife-climate-hub-deepening-the-network-for-action/
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-gareth-allenby-ymca-glenrothes/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Healthy Living Garden at YMCA Glenrothes https://www.ymca.scot/glenrothes/garden-open/
Sustainable Growing Event, Fife Climate Festival, at the Healthy Living Garden https://fccan.org.uk/events/ymca-glenrothes-fife-sustainable-growing-event/
Seed and Development Fund, Fife Climate Hub https://fccan.org.uk/community-climate-grants/
Climate Hubs Across Scotland https://sccan.scot/network-building/
Year One Of Fife Climate Hub - deepening the network for action (1000 Better Stories episode): https://scottishcommunitiesclimateactionnetwork.podbean.com/e/year-one-of-fife-climate-hub-deepening-the-network-for-action/
In this Edinburgh Fringe special, Kaska speaks to Lewis Coenen-Rowe about the trees and myths that inspired his deforestation opera STUMPED, becoming an artist activist, and about the importance of coming together for storytelling like this to help us imagine a better future and take collective action.
STUMPED is showing at the Scottish Storytelling Centre starting this week and each performance ends with a short reflection from a different invited expert or community group involved in caring for trees and forests.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/stumped-at-the-fringe-stories-trees-and-collective-action/
Credits
Interview and production: Kaska Hempel
Music: Exerpts from STUMPED by Lewis Coenen-Rowe, performed
Resources:
Lewis’ website https://www.lewiscoenen-rowe.com/
STUMPED opera on Insta https://www.instagram.com/stumpedopera/
STUMPED opera on FB https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557738514898&paipv=0&eav=AfZnr8aawmI-pzLrXUqtBT8rRZPKYyr8XH0MzRopZFZWSG8u_4NpXcaSEijReX9dubs
Made in Scotland Showcase https://www.madeinscotlandshowcase.com/
Creative Carbon Scotland https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/
Scottish Storytelling Centre https://www.scottishstorytellingcentre.com/
Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforests https://savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk/
Kaska Hempel reports from the Fife Climate Hub gathering in celebration of their first year. We hear how they have built on longstanding partnerships, welcomed new faces and the critical importance of leadership from governments in support of the urgently needed community climate action.
Consider this leadership when voting in general election on the 4th of July.
Reviews of party manifestos on environment:
Carbon Brief (Energy and climate only) - includes SNP and other minor parties
https://www.carbonbrief.org/uk-election-2024-what-the-manifestos-say-on-energy-and-climate-change/
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth UK (energy and climate, nature and environment, homes and transport, justice and democracy) - only Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/system-change/general-election-2024-manifestos-final-scores
Credits
Recording and production Kaska Hempel
Music Victoria Hume, Oblivious Structures from Radical Abundance album. https://www.lostmap.com/products/victoria-hume-radical-abundance
Resources
FCCAN - Fife Climate Hub
https://fccan.org.uk/
River Eden Partnership
https://www.riveredenfife.org/
YMCA Healthy Living Garden
https://www.ymca.scot/glenrothes/garden-open/
St Andrews Botanic Gardens
https://www.standrewsbotanic.org/
The Curnie Clubs
https://www.facebook.com/FifeCurnieClubs/
Big Green Market
https://www.facebook.com/BurntislandGreenMarket
Climate Action Fife
https://www.climateactionfife.org.uk/
Fife Environment Partnership COP conference
https://www.fife.gov.uk/news/2023/fife-environmental-partnership-hosts-fife-climate-conference
Fife Environment Partnership
https://www.fife.gov.uk/kb/docs/articles/have-your-say2/community-planning
Paper Boats
https://paperboats.org/
Women’s climate action
https://womensclimateaction.net/
Kathleen Jamie’s poem What the Clyde Said After COP26
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/what-the-clyde-said-after-cop26/
SCVO Scotland
https://scvo.scot/
SCVO Growing Climate Confidence resources including Climate Scorecard for Socially focussed community organisations
https://climateconfident.scot/
Climate Cafe
https://www.climate.cafe/
Victoria Hume Radical Abundance
https://www.lostmap.com/products/victoria-hume-radical-abundance?utm_medium=order-details&utm_source=customer-accounts&utm_content=name
Oblivious Structures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmc8woJ6ppg
“Less is more how degrowth will save the world” by Jason Hickel
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441772/less-is-more-by-jason-hickel/9781786091215
Climate Outreach - Leadership on Climate
https://climateoutreach.org/britain-talks-climate/climate-big-picture-2024/leadership/
Climate hub stories on 1000 Better Stories channels:
Climate Action Hub Pilots - connecting local communities for change
https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-kqdw6-12e1778
Edinburgh Communities Climate Action launch day (blog)
https://sccan.scot/blog/edinburgh-communities-climate-action-launch-day/
TsiMoray Connect the Dots conference (blog)
https://sccan.scot/blog/join-the-dots-tsimorays-annual-conference-connecting-ideas-people-moray/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Rebecca Gibbs from SCCAN about rollerblading for sanity, turning NET zero into NOT zero and the invitation to get into climate adaptation planning with us.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-rebecca-gibbs-sccan/(opens in a new tab)
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Rebecca can be reached on rebecca@sccan.scot
NEW! SCCAN Adaptation for Communities resources and news
https://sccan.scot/climate-adaptation/
Storm Angus - contribute your stories of impacts of recent storms on Angus
https://www.angusclimatehub.co.uk/storm-angus
Climate Regional Networking Project
https://sccan.scot/network-building/
Cadence Roundtable
https://cadenceroundtable.org.uk/
Pollock Park
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/article/4187/Pollok-Country-Park
Galgael Trust
https://www.galgael.org/
Not Zero - How net zero targets disguise climate inaction (Report PDF) https://whatnext.org/research_pubs/not-zero-how-net-zero-targets-disguise-climate-inaction/
Prof Kevin Anderson on Net Zero
-Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEk0uQ7nPV8
-In depth video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUwSNuHlve8&t=3s
Carbon Capture and Storage explainer from Juice Media
-(sweary version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8&t=2s
-(PG version) https://youtu.be/ThnLghO3Pv8?si=EBXIgUAa8dKZ3ddf
Roller Stop https://rollerstop.co.uk/
Climate Psychology Alliance
https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/
National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+]: New Zealand Community Emergency Response Hubs
https://youtu.be/yNdF9kWG1A4?si=H1yg5xeJId8eAAhq
Adaptation Scotland Community Climate Adaptation Routemap https://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/how-adapt/tools-and-resources/community-climate-adaptation-routemap
Flood Mary
https://floodmary.com/
Global Assembly
https://globalassembly.org/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Alex Daniels from Transition Dundee about gleaning, fair access to fresh food and his favourite glut-busting recipes.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-alex-transition-dundee/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Register for 1000 Better Stories Collective skillshare with Manuela and Daniel from Maxwell Centre in Dundee, 30 May, 1-2pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/904908354247
Gleaning Project at Transition Dundee
https://www.transitiondundee.com/gleaning
The Gleaning Network
https://gleaning.feedbackglobal.org/
West End Community Fridge
https://www.transitiondundee.com/community-fridge
Campy Growers
https://campygrowers.uk/
Kris Harbour off grid living
https://www.krisharbour.co.uk/
Transition St Andrews
https://transitionsta.org/
Roasted cauliflower dip
https://www.cookincanuck.com/roasted-cauliflower-dip-recipe-vegan/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Paul and Chloe about making dreams come true and turning the forgotten patch of land into a safe place for community connection and play.
The story is the last one in the five-part Dumfries series of Everyday Changemakers.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-paul-and-chloe-sandside-community-garden/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Sandside Community Garden facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/sandsidegarden/
Gilbert’s coffee grounds composting project on Cycling Dumfries website
https://cyclingdumfries.wordpress.com/2023/06/12/trailer-tuesdays/
Scottish Government’s Adaptation Plan consultation, closes on 24th of April
https://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/news-events/stories/scottish-national-adaptation-plan-public-consultation
Adaptation Scotland
https://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/
Tenth consecutive monthly heat record alarms and confounds climate scientists, Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 9 Apr, 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/apr/09/tenth-consecutive-monthly-heat-record-alarms-confounds-climate-scientists?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0Afp1lIWMzhzDZIChyxx0m-ji3_rgn-MtISK2lPJj0nTmB0MJ1i3qOZ6A#Echobox=1712642938
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Martin O’Neill from The Stove network about coming home and creative placemaking with his community.
The story is the fourth in a five-part Dumfries series of Everyday Changemakers.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-martin-the-stove/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
The Stove https://thestove.org/
Midsteeple Quarter stories and studies https://www.midsteeplequarter.org/midsteeple-quarter-resources
Newly published Creative Placemaking report based on the Stove’s work https://thestove.org/how-creativity-culture-can-support-communities/
What We Do Now creative placemaking network https://whatwedonow.scot/
Post-covid Open Hoose programme which launched 10 community-driven initiatives, including Climate Kitchen https://thestove.org/projects/ongoing-projects/open-hoose/
Dumfries Climate Kitchen https://climatekitchen.co.uk/
From our archive - another scottish example of community-driven town centre regeneration story 1000 Better Stories Podcast: Carolyn Powell, Huntly Development Trust https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-6e2tu-142d6cf
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Rachel Cooper of The Crichton Trust about taking large strides and small steps in their journey towards their zero carbon future teeming with life.
The story is the third in a five-part Dumfries series of Everyday Changemakers.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-rachel-the-crichton-trust/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
The Crichton Trust https://www.crichton.co.uk/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Tom Burns, Marketing Officer from Shax, about the circular economy with a heart.
The story is the second in a five-part Dumfries series of Everyday Changemakers.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-tom-burns-shax/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Shax https://shax.org.uk/
Circular Communities Scotland https://www.circularcommunities.scot/
Investing in Volunteers Award https://investinginvolunteers.co.uk/
Volunteer Friendly Award https://volunteerfriendly.co.uk
The Crichton Trust https://www.crichton.co.uk/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Sally Hinchcliffe, a founding member of Cycling Dumfries.
The story is the first in a five-part Dumfries series of Everyday Changemakers.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-sally-hinchcliff-cycling-dumfries/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Cycling Dumfries https://cyclingdumfries.wordpress.com/
Pedal on Parliament https://pedalonparliament.org/
UK cycling embassy https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/
Sustrans https://www.sustrans.org.uk/
Cycling UK https://www.cyclinguk.org/
Sally Hinchcliffe https://sallyhinchcliffe.net/
Atmospheric river event 8-9 Oct 2023 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2023/2023_07_scotland_rain.pdf
Storm Babet 18 - 21 October 2023 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2023/2023_08_storm_babet.pdf
Kirkpatrick McMillan, inventor of the pedal bike
Video story of the bike reconstruction and journey in 2023 https://youtu.be/pfvocT7rfQ4?si=50bFhanJxAstxAGN
Blog on reconstructing the bike in 2023
https://off.road.cc/content/feature/bike-check-kirkpatrick-macmillans-rear-wheel-driven-wooden-replica-13181
On Cycling Dumfries website:
https://cyclingdumfries.wordpress.com/2023/10/03/there-must-be-something-in-the-nith-water/#more-17037
BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-19423947
Dell McCLurg of the Merkinch Community Council reflects on turning life's challenges into local activism and the creation of the community's Merkinch Local Nature Reserve.
The story is the final in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with a variety of grassroots organisations involved in climate, biodiversity and social justice action across Inverness.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-dell-merkinch-community-council/
Credits
Interview, edit and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Friends of Merkinch Local Nature Reserve https://www.facebook.com/merkinchreserve/
Merkinch Local Nature Reserve Ticket office http://www.merkinchlnr.org.uk/htm/old_ticket_office/old_ticket_office.php
Merkinch Community Centre https://www.merkinchcommunitycentre.co.uk/about/
Networks of community organisations:
Scottish Communities Climate Action Network https://sccan.scot/
Development Trusts Association Scotland https://dtascot.org.uk/
Highlands and Islands Climate Hub https://hiclimatehub.co.uk/
Highland Good Food Partnership (also a great podcast!) https://highlandgoodfood.scot/
Highland Community Waste Partnership https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/highland-community-waste-partnership/
Circular Communities Scotland https://www.circularcommunities.scot/
Incredible Edible Network https://www.incredibleedible.org.uk/
Community Woodlands Association Scotland https://www.communitywoods.org/
Community Land Scotland https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/
Jon Dixon from the new Holm Grown and Maria from Knocknagael CIC talk about shielding their green spaces from the wave of urban sprawl in Inverness.
The story is the 4th in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with a variety of grassroots organisations involved in climate, biodiversity and social justice action across Inverness.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-jon-holm-grown-amp-maria-knocknagael-cic/
Credits
Interview recording: Kaska Hempel and Craig Dunn
Edit and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Holm Grown https://holmcommunitycouncil.org.uk/holm-grown-a-community-growing-space/
Holm Community Council
https://www.facebook.com/Holmcommunitycouncil
https://holmcommunitycouncil.org.uk/
Incredible Edible Inverness https://www.facebook.com/IncredibleEdibleInverness
Incredible Edible Network https://www.incredibleedible.org.uk/
Knocknagael Ltd https://www.knocknagael.org.uk/
Community Asset Transfers https://www.gov.scot/policies/community-empowerment/asset-transfer/
Community Land Scotland https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/
Highlands and Islands Climate Hub https://hiclimatehub.co.uk/
Highland Good Food Network https://highlandgoodfood.scot/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Gina and Mike at Aultnaskiach Dell about the ways they have been taking care of their tiny, urban woodland.
The story is the 3rd in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with a variety of grassroots organisations involved in climate, biodiversity and social justice action across Inverness.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-gina-and-mike-aultnaskiach-dell/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Aultnaskiach Dell website https://www.aultnaskiach.org.uk/
Community Woodlands Scotland https://www.communitywoods.org/
Case study: Aultnaskiach Dell as the Scottish Land Commission case study (includes video and report) https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/our-work/governance-ownership/community-ownership/aultnaskiach-dell-community-woodland
https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/news-events/news/municipal-forests-v-community-woodlands-reflections-from-2020-national-student-award-winner
Local press article about the early days of the Dell SCIO https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/inverness/673891/20000-appeal-launched-to-save-natural-habitat-in-inverness-city-centre/
Abriachan Forest Trust https://www.abriachan.org.uk
An audio story of Abriachan Forest by Mairi Mcfadyen and accompanying essay on land ownership in the Highlands http://www.mairimcfadyen.scot/fragile-correspondence/2023/audio-piece
Mairi’s presentation for SCCAN storyteller collective audio skillshare https://youtu.be/HwHo0fjlKjQ?si=szJ25FvAaQo259Xt
Case study: Abriachan Forest
https://www.forestpolicygroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Abriachan-FPG-case-study.pdf
Community woodland case studies by Community Woodland Association, including Abriachan Forest https://cdn.forestresearch.gov.uk/2022/02/community_woodland_case_studies_scotland.pdf
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Everyday Changemaker Louise Marshall, the producer for Dance and Accessible Arts at Eden Court in Inverness.
The story is the 2nd in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with a variety of grassroots organisations involved in climate, biodiversity and social justice action across Inverness.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-louise-eden-court/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Eden Court Climate of Hope project, for COP26 https://eden-court.co.uk/news/climate-of-hope-a-beginning
Ink Asher Hemp https://eden-court.co.uk/news/back-in-my-day
Anthropocene by Gym Jam Theatre https://www.gymjamtheatre.com/home/projects
It’s Not That Radical by Mikaela Loach https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61645827
Louise Marshall https://eden-court.co.uk/profile/louise-marshall
“Not in My Back Garden” performance by Eden Court’s Community Engagemnet Groups for COP28 https://www.highlifehighland.com/blog/eden-court-climate-emergency-performance-hosted-at-inverness-botanic-gardens-this-weekend/
The Eden Court’s statement of commitment to climate action https://eden-court.co.uk/news/climate-emergency-commitment?fbclid=IwAR3P5rmOgbJ_BbivDSCwSrmHnVVm7JJxfIrVIzCHFlRaJAqYVOm_1sq_j0g
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Iain McKenzie, a volunteer and Vice Chair of Inverness Foodstuff.
The story is first in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with a variety of grassroots organisations involved in climate, biodiversity and social justice action across Inverness.
Transcript
See our website:https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-iain-mckenzie-inverness-foodstuff/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Inverness Foodstuff https://invernessfoodstuff.co.uk/
Highland Good Food Partnership https://highlandgoodfood.scot/what-do-we-do/
Highland Good Food Podcast https://highlandgoodfood.scot/podcast/
Cafe Artysans https://www.cafeartysans.org.uk/
Cafe 1668 https://www.highlandtsi.org.uk/cafe
Velocity Cafe (videos) https://www.velocitylove.co.uk/films
Active travel maps Inverness https://www.velocitylove.co.uk/active-travel-maps
Highland Community Waste Partnership https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/highland-community-waste-partnership/
In this crossover episode, Katie Revell, a podcast producer and a member of SCCAN's Story Circle and the Storytellers Collective, shares a bonus episode from her Testing Ground podcast series.
It features an interview with Mairi Macleod, a Glasgow-based writer who works in both Gaelic and English, and her short story, Seasickness, or Cur na mara. Mairi’s story updates the traditional Scottish folktale, The Selkie Wife, for an age of climate crisis.
Testing Grounds series focuses on the collaborative response to the climate crisis by the Nordic Alliance of Artists Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA). Mairi’s work was commissioned by NAARCA.
Credits
Testing Grounds is produced and edited by Katie Revell and includes original music by Loris S. Sarid and artwork by Jagoda Sadowska. The short story was commissioned by NAARCA from Gaelic writer Mairi Macleod.
Transcript
See our website:
https://sccan.scot/blog/seasickness-cur-na-mara-a-story-by-mairi-macleod-crossover/(opens in a new tab)
Resources
Testing Grounds podcast: https://testinggrounds.buzzsprout.com/2113331
NAARCA: https://naarca.art/
NAARCA blog about Mairi and her commission: https://naarca.art/2023/08/14/testing-grounds-bonus-episode-seasickness-cur-na-mara-a-short-story-by-mairi-macleod-now-available/
Our SCCAN intern, Madeleine Scobie, interviews three more people from Arran Eco Savvy. During her visit to Arran, she talked to Jess Wallace, Sustainable Food Coordinator and Nikki Harris, Eco Savvy shop manager. She also spoke with Stuart Wallace, ebike mechanic, online in October.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-jess-nikki-stuart-arran-ecosavvy/(opens in a new tab)
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Madeleine Scobie.
Resources
Arran Eco Savvy website: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/
Zero Waste Cafe: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/about-arran-eco-savvy/current-projects/zero-waste-cafe/
Zero Waste Cafe video: https://vimeo.com/796376962/ce499f02e2
Sustainable Food Places: https://www.sustainablefoodplaces.org/
Arran Eco Savvy Community Shop: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/community-shop/
Community Shop video: https://vimeo.com/826523465/3f3863284a?share=copy
Circular Economy: https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/topics/circular-economy
An illustrated interview with Wally: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/news-events/eco-savvy-news-events/arran-eco-savvy-bike-mechanic-wally-wallace/
Active Travel Hub: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/about-arran-eco-savvy/current-projects/active-travel-hub/
Active Travel Hub video: https://vimeo.com/799647519/663c6e3da1
20 Minute Neighbourhoods project: https://www.ourplace.scot/about-place/themes/20-minute-neighbourhoods-home/20-minute-neighbourhoods
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Hollis, a volunteer involved in Dundee’s Wee Forest project.
The story is the final in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with members of Dundee Community Garden Network (Grow Dundee) recorded this June, and an audio tour exploring the meaning and impact of community gardening.
You can find a draft of the audio tour here:
https://izi.travel/en/ff0a-dundee-community-garden-network-draft/en
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
We are looking for micro-story contributions about your community’s climate and social justice achievements this year so that we can include them in the next few episodes. If you or your community organisation had some proud moments, if you managed to create real glimpses of what’s truly possible or if you simply kept going against all odds please share it with our audience. You can record your message at this link (up to 90 sec): https://www.speakpipe.com/1000BetterStories.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-hollis-dundee-wee-forests/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Wee forest project info on Nature Scot website - including a few wee videos from primary schools involved in creating them. https://www.nature.scot/climate-change/nature-based-solutions/wee-forests-part-tinyforest-global-family
Wee Forests in Dundee (University of Dundee press release) https://www.dundee.ac.uk/stories/wee-forests-make-big-impact-dundee-community
Earthwatch Europe - tiny forest project https://earthwatch.org.uk/program/tiny-forest/
Tiny Forest research and citizen science https://tinyforest.earthwatch.org.uk/tiny-forest-research
The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571?login=false
Sugi project - Pocket Forest has a podcast on community https://www.sugiproject.com/podcast
Wee forest zine jam https://allevents.in/mobile/amp-event.php?event_id=10000528390950557
Dundee Climate/Changemakers Hub: https://creativedundee.com/2023/09/dundee-changemakers-hub/
Dundee Community Gardens Network map https://growdundee.blog/75-2/
Social Action Inquiry Scotland documentary about Dundee Community Gardens Network (Fruit Bowls, Ninewells and Maxwell) https://youtu.be/LFrZPtmgssA?si=kjQcQCG88fQfXd5d
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Harold, one of the core volunteers running Fruit Bowls Community Garden.
The story is the fourth in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with members of Dundee Community Garden Network (Grow Dundee) recorded this June, and an audio tour exploring the meaning and impact of community gardening.
You can find a draft of the audio tour here:
https://izi.travel/en/ff0a-dundee-community-garden-network-draft/en
Tune in next week for the final story from the Fruibowls Community Garden.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
We are looking for micro-story contributions about your community’s climate and social justice achievements this year so that we can include them in the next few episodes. If you or your community organisation had some proud moments, if you managed to create real glimpses of what’s truly possible or if you simply kept going against all odds please share it with our audience. You can record your message at this link (up to 90 sec): https://www.speakpipe.com/1000BetterStories.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-harold-fruit-bowls-community-garden/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Fruit Bowls Community Garden Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/fruitbowlsdundee/
Fruibowls Garden in a blog by Repollinate: https://www.repollinate.org.uk/2022/08/10/beds-for-bees-fruit-bowls-community-garden/
Froglife https://www.froglife.org/
Repollinate https://www.repollinate.org.uk/
Bonnie Dundee IYN https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/neighbourhood-services/environment/beautiful-scotland/bonnie-dundee
Dundee Community Garden Network/Grow Dundee https://growdundee.blog/
Scrapantics’ loose parts play https://www.scrapantics.co.uk/play
Fair Growing Green Video https://vimeo.com/778473010
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Gisela de la Espada, a garden coordinator for Yusuf Youth Intitiative’s Victoria Community Gardens, forstering diversity among their volunteers and nature.
The story is the third in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with members of Dundee Community Garden Network (Grow Dundee) recorded this June, and an audio tour exploring the meaning and impact of community gardening.
You can find a draft of the audio tour here: https://izi.travel/en/ff0a-dundee-community-garden-network-draft/en
Tune in next week for a story from the Fruibowls Community Garden.
Transcript
See our website: https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-gisela-victoria-community-gardens/
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Victoria Community Gardens (Yusuf Youth Initiative) on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaGardensYYI
The Big Lunch (Eden Communities) https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/the-big-lunch
Eden Project Dundee https://www.edenproject.com/new-edens/eden-project-dundee-uk
Trellis Scotland (gardening for wellbeing) https://www.trellisscotland.org.uk/
Keep Scotland Beautiful https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/
SRUC https://www.sruc.ac.uk/
The MAXwell Centre, Dundee https://maxdundee.org.uk/
Green Health Prescription Scotland https://www.greenhealth.scot/
Dundee Community Garden Network (Grow Dundee) https://growdundee.blog/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Rowan, who works for Uppertunity with their Growing Spaces Group. Uppertunity supports individuals with learning disabilities, autism and mental health barriers.
The story is the second in a 5-part series of weekly interviews with members of Dundee Community Garden Network (Grow Dundee) recorded this June, and an audio tour exploring the meaning and impact of community gardening.
You can find a draft of the audio tour here:
https://izi.travel/en/ff0a-dundee-community-garden-network-draft/en
Tune in next week for a story from the Victoria Community Garden.
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Transcript
SCCAN website https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-rowan-uppertunities-growing-spaces/
Resources
Uppertunity Growing Spaces Group https://uppertunity.org.uk/growing-places
Uppertunity website (including ReBoutique and Serendipities project) https://uppertunity.org.uk/
Uppertunity on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Uppertunity
The Circle https://thecirclecic.org.uk/
History of the Dudhope Castle, including reasons for its nickname “People’s Castle” (Video) https://thecirclecic.org.uk/the-history-of-dudhope-castle-film/
Barnhill Rock Garden http://www.barnhillrockgarden.org.uk/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Catherine Lawson, one of the volunteers behind Bonnie Dundee (In Your Neighbourhood) group.
Credits
Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel
Transcript
See SCCAN website https://sccan.scot/blog/everyday-changemakers-catherine-lawson-bonnie-dundee-iyn/
Resources
Audio tour of Dundee Community Garden Network (DRAFT): https://izi.travel/en/browse/ff0a9bcf-009d-4c1d-baaf-19e3e1d7e056/en
Bonnie Dundee Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BonnieDundeeBloom/
Bonnie Dundee Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bonniedundeebloom/
Bonnie Dundee website https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/neighbourhood-services/environment/beautiful-scotland/bonnie-dundee
Bonnie Dundee IYN (It’s Your Neighbourhood) write up on Keep Scotland Beautiful
https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/community-and-place/its-your-neighbourhood/find-out-more-and-take-part-in-its-your-neighbourhood/2023-entrants/bonnie-dundee-iyn/
A map of groups and places participating in Beautiful Scotland and It’s Your Neighbourhood (IYN) https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/community-and-place/its-your-neighbourhood/beautiful-scotland-and-its-your-neighbourhood-map/
The Art-Science Orchard at the back of the Science Centre/Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre https://dundeeurbanorchard.net/art-science-orchard/
Dundee Urban Orchard (DUO) https://dundeeurbanorchard.net/about/
Pocket Gardens at Slessor Gardens, Dundee (Bonnie Dundee takes care of ‘Reflections of the Tay’) https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/service-area/city-development/slessor-gardens
Urban rewilding projects at Dundee Botanics https://www.dundee.ac.uk/projects/rewilding-dundee
Dundee Botanics - Urban Arboretum https://www.dundee.ac.uk/corporate-information/botanic-garden-and-grounds-strategy
Interview with Kevin Frediani about the Botanic Garden’s role in future-proofing Dundee’s green spaces https://youtu.be/hXGuLwSFtg0?si=K1Df5oU0DjA5a-QQ
Kathi Kamleitner reports on her summer visit to the Wild Seas Weekend in Argyll and the Seawilding project which is fast becoming a template for community-led marine regeneration efforts around Scotland’s coastline.
This story was funded through our mini-grant programme. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot if you are considering applying for one.
Kathi’s publishing a sister Seawilding story on her own podcast Wild for Scotland this week - see the link in the Resource section to listen.
Credits
Interview and recording: Kathi Kamleitner
Co-production, editing and sound design: Fran Turauskis
Resources
- Seawilding website: https://www.seawilding.org/
- "Long Time Coming" episode on Kathi's Wild for Scotland podcast https://www.wildforscotland.com/seagrass-restoration-loch-craignish/
- Coastal Communities Network website: https://www.communitiesforseas.scot/
- Argyll Hope Spot website: https://argyllhopespot.scot/
- CROMACH website: https://www.cromach.org/
- What's a Marine Protected Area: https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/protected-areas-and-species/protected-areas/marine-protected-areas/scotlands-marine-protected-area-network
- Seawilding on the Rewild Podcast: https://pod.link/1668050136/episode/c4660a0178b228b228ffb1be3263127f
- Film about Seawilding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tid73gH2i
Transcript
The first time I snorkelled through a seagrass meadow was in a quiet corner of a sea loch near the village of Tayvallich. I was one of eleven people participating in the snorkelling artist residency hosted by the Argyll Hope Spot.
The seagrass meadow I saw that day was a bustling hub of biodiversity. Deep-black brittle stars wrapped their lanky arms around blades of seagrass or long strings of sea spaghetti.
Scallops shells littered the seafloor. Many were empty and long abandoned by the creatures that built them, but I also spotted living scallops as they sifted water through the narrow opening between their shells. On their outside, pink serpulid worms peeked out of their white tubes, spreading their fan-shaped crowns towards me. But as I moved closer and they noticed my presence. The worms closed the lids at the end of their tubes and the scallops sealed their shells shut. And in an instant, life was hidden from my sight.
A little further, I spot a green shore crab scuttling away and hiding beneath a tumble of seaweed. On the tips of the seagrass, I spot juvenile snakelock anemones, their green tentacles blending in with the fresh green of the meadow. But their purple tips give them away as they sway from side to side in the movement of the sea.
And I knew that everywhere around me, magnificent creatures are hiding in the thicket of the seagrass, whether I could see them or not.
Snorkelling in his vibrant habitat in Argyll, was the beginning of my learning journey about seagrass meadows and the benefits they bring to coastal ecosystems underwater and above the surface.
I learnt that they were once much more abundant in Scottish waters. Research estimates that we have lost about 90% of Scotland’s seagrass meadows, but in places where they are given a chance they recover, they can inspire new hope in the face of the climate crisis.
Back in August, this journey took me to the village of Ardfern, some 20 miles north of where I first encountered seagrass meadows.
Here, on the shores of Loch Craignish, a local community-led marine restoration project, called Seawilding, is working to bring seagrass meadows and native oyster beds back to the rugged Argyll coastline.
I’m here to attend the Wild Seas Weekend, a two-day event that showcases some of the work being done in this region by Seawilding and other nature conservation charities and organisations. The village hall is bustling and across the two days, I meet many people who are passionate about the sea and the coast. I speak with students who research the effects of marine sound pollution and let a volunteer show me bits of seagrass under a microscope. I look at the rubber model of a flapper skate that covers an entire table, and drop my jaw as I find out it’s actually life-size. I speak to folks who restore coastal oakwoods and watch as a handful of oysters clean the muddy seawater inside a tank over the course of the day.
I join guided snorkel and paddleboarding sessions to see the seagrass meadows up close, And follow Seawilding founder, Danny Renton, and several volunteers to the shoreline at low tide, to hear about survey strategies and their native oyster release programme.
At the end of the first day of the festival, I sit down with Philip Price, who is the Communications Manager for Seawilding. I ask him how Seawilding grew out of the local community and how their work in turn impacts the people who live and work in this area.
___________________________________________________________________
[Interview with Philip Price]
Philip: So that's a very good question. So when we say it's a community led charity, it's because it's been built from the community and it employs the community. We're all, we all live here and we've all started working for Seawilding, but how that came about.
So, um, about eight years ago, we started an organization called CROMACH. Which is the Craignish Restoration of Marine and Coastal Habitat, which I'm always quite impressed I can remember it. Um, and basically what that did is it gave the community a voice on how we manage our inshore waters. Because prior to that, prior to a lot of, a lot of like minded people doing this, is that the only people that were giving voice to the local community in terms of how we manage our inshore waters were the commercial operations, so your fish farmers, your, your, um, fishermen, your creelers. Now, they should have a voice, but they certainly shouldn't be the only voice. And for a long time, they were the only voice influencing political decisions. Uh, and that's led to a really badly designed management system for our inshore waters. And that has resulted to catastrophic declines in virtually all our commercial fish species.
So we came up with CROMACH as an antidote to that. To say, listen, we live by the sea, we work in the sea, we're not a commercial operation in terms of exploiting the sea, but we should still have a say in how our sea, because I'm swimming in the sea every day, I take my kids in the sea every day, I would like to have a say in how my home is run.
Um, the problem with that is, We ended up doing, and it's very important work, but we ended up doing lots of consultations. Um, lots of talking to people, lots of saying no, we don't think that's a good idea. We don't want another fish farm. We don't want dredgers to come into our loch. And that's fine, and it's important, and it gets the conversation going, and then somebody has to take a balanced decision, you know, balancing up the economic interest, the jobs, and the impact on the environment.
The problem with you as a volunteer doing that is, it's very hard to see the light at the end of that tunnel. And there is light at the end of that tunnel, I'm sure of it, but we needed something more positive than that. We needed to kind of have something that we could really get our teeth into and go, we are making a difference.
Um, and that's why we wanted to start Seawilding. So, one of our community decided to, uh, trial an oyster, uh, restoration project. Got a bit of funding, that was Danny, our CEO. Uh, when that was successful, he then came up with the branding Seawilding. Um, we separated from CROMACH, because CROMACH was just a, a group.
Uh, and we, and he created a, a SCIO, a charity, which meant we'd get proper funding, employ people. We were all doing voluntary work for Seawilding when it started out and then gradually we got some part time work And we gave up our previous businesses and jobs and become full time now.
Kathi: That's fantastic and I think with what you're saying about being part of that decision making process and even though you don't have an Immediate or direct commercial interest in it.
You should still be part of that conversation because it's your home. Coastal communities are obviously Especially in Scotland, but also around the world, affected by climate change in a different way than, um, people who live in the cities that are maybe further away from the sea or higher up, um, in the mountains as well.
Because of course we've, you notice the sea level, because of course you notice the sea level rising way before we will, um, a bit further away. And I think... That's probably one of the reasons why it's also so important for coastal communities to be actively engaged in that. Is there anything you would add? Like, why is it so important for coastal communities to be involved in that conversation?
Philip: Well, what you said, I couldn't say any better, so I completely agree with that. But also, we have to pick up the pieces. You know, we're the one on the beach picking up all the rubbish from the fish farm and the, and the gloves that are thrown over the side from fishing vessels.
Um, and I'm not saying we shouldn't have fishing. I'm not saying that at all. But, you know, often communities are left to, to, to mop up. Um, you know, if, if there's a toxic algae bloom in the loch, it's our pets that are going to suffer. Our dogs that go in the water. It's our kids that are splashing around in it.
If there's, um, if, if, if, if, I run a tourism business, or I have a self catering accommodation, or I run a hotel, and there's nothing for anyone to see when they come up and visit, because all the dolphins have disappeared because they're using, uh, acoustic deterrents. Then, or there's no fish for them to eat.
That has direct impacts on our, on our lives. Um, so we have to have a say, otherwise coastal communities will break down, because the fishermen and, and the commercial interests of the sea are in decline because they've overfished it. We don't have the fish stocks we used to because they didn't manage it correctly.
So it has to be done in a different way and the only way you're going to get done in a different way is not by relying on the same voices to tell you how to do it. So you need new voices and that's why I think it's absolutely vital communities have a voice in how their home is being looked after.
Kathi: That's a great way to put it and probably something that could be said about many things in the world in just the right way. Thinking about renewable energy conversations and things like that as well.
Philip: Yes, most definitely.
Kathi: Um, Why seagrass?
What makes seagrass so important and what role does it play within Scotland?
Philip: So seagrass is one of these incredible, sort of, keystone species they call it. Basically, it just means it's really important for a whole load of other animals to survive and thrive. And why is that? Well there's a couple of things going on there.
So if you can imagine the seabed as this sandy bottom. It's very flat and it doesn't have very much structure. So... To enable animals to get shelter, or to get food, or for things to grow on things, Um, you need, you need structure. Particularly in the sea actually, that's why you always get loads of life around.
Um, uh, pontoons or boats, whatever. Um, so by planting seagrass, you create this incredible 3D structure in an otherwise sandy based seabed. But the other thing seagrass does is it draws carbon in from the atmosphere and, and sequests it into the sediment. So you've got the bonus of more habitat for loads of different species, including...
Lots of juvenile commercial fish species and you have this kind of carbon sucking ability as well.
Kathi: And that's because it photosynthesizes, right? Like a tree up on land, that's what the seagrass does under water.
Philip: Yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, um, I'm not, I'm not a scientist. I don't know the exact ins and outs of it, but the general gist as I understand it, is it, it, it's slightly different to a tree.
So a tree pulls carbon out of the atmosphere and creates wood essentially, or grows leaves. Um... There's something goes on with the seagrass that it does that too, but it also feeds the carbon into the sediment through its rhizome structure, which is its root structure and That means the carbon is locked away.
So even if the plant dies the carbon doesn't get released So so long as you don't go and dredge the seabed then that carbon stays locked away forever Well for for as good as ever in terms of a human lifetime and so it's really exciting from that perspective
Kathi: and seagrass in Scotland then specifically Is there a lot of it around?
Um, I assume that a lot of it has been lost as well, otherwise you wouldn't be doing the work that you're doing.
Philip: Yeah, so, so we think, and the science has kind of, um, has led us to this, this thinking, that we think that around the coast of the UK, roughly 95% of the seagrass has been lost. Some people think it's between 60 and 95%, but certainly when we've surveyed the seabed here to identify how much seagrass we could have, In terms of suitable sediment and depth.
And we've compared it to what seagrass we do have. We find we're about 5% of what we could have. And that is why we're really passionate about trying to improve that 5% to a lot more.
Kathi: Yeah, and so you've mentioned dredging as one of the things that might damage seagrass meadows. Is there anything else that you think has happened?
And why we now have so much less sea meadows, seagrass meadows?
Philip: Yeah, so, so, um, so dredging, they used to specifically There's lots of different types of dredge, and you can dredge to clear rivers, dredge for scallops. The, the problem with dredging for scallops, it doesn't often clear the seagrass out, but it creates these plumes of sediment that smothers seagrass and makes it vulnerable to disease.
So that's one problem, but then in some places they specifically dredge the seagrass to clean the beaches and make it nicer for people to go in the water. So that, those are the pressures that have resulted in seagrass disappearing. The other thing is, uh, anchorages, yacht centres, like, like we're sitting in front of here.
Um, pollution events, these all weaken the seagrass and then they become vulnerable to disease which can wipe out big, large chunks of seagrass, uh, bed. So, it's probably a massive variety of different things.
Kathi: And now let's move on to the other species you work with, the native oysters. Again, can you explain what they are and why they're so important?
Philip: So it's a very similar story there. So, so the native oyster is a mollusc, essentially a snail with a, with a slightly different shell. Um, and it's very easy to dismiss that as a, as a snail, but actually And the same with people that study snails. When you get into these animals, they're so fascinating. The fact that this little blobby thing can create a shell that's totally bomb proof is pretty incredible.
But they do the same thing as seagrass. They create structure in an environment that would be lacking structure otherwise. So... Oysters like to grow on oysters. So if you've got a really healthy reef, what happens is the baby oysters grow on the adult oysters. They become adults. So you've then got two levels.
And then the next, like, generation growing that, you've got three levels. So you end up having multiple levels of oysters, which allows lots of nooks and crannies and surface area for all sorts of animals to, to live and exist in. So from that perspective, oysters are... incredible. Um, but then they do this other thing that the seagrass doesn't do is and they filter the water, they clean the water, they takes, they take nutrients out of the water and allow the water to be clearer.
And actually we find that has a nice benefit for the seagrass because it lets more light in and hopefully will benefit our seagrass in the future too.
Kathi: So it's really about restoring an ecosystem not just individual species.
Philip: Yeah, so when you're a person from Homo sapien We're very good at trying to concentrate on one thing at a time and unfortunately ecosystems just don't work like that.
Um, and we're only learning that now. So instead of conserving a beetle or conserving a tiger, you've got to think ecosystem level now. And that's why we're restoring the seagrass and the oysters because we believe that's the bedrock of an ecosystem. Rather than saying, right, we want to restore herring or juvenile cod.
It's like, well, We're hoping they'll do that themselves once we've built the foundation for where they can have their young and rear their young.
Kathi: Absolutely. Oh, that makes so much sense. And, um, we've seen today in the village hall an example of how efficient oysters are at cleaning water. You had a tank set up with...
A handful of oysters chucked in basically and some seagrass as well and when I arrived in the morning you could barely see anything in it because the water was so mucky and silty I guess and now as we left it was completely clear and you could just see every detail and that's all the oysters, right?
Philip: Yes, exactly what they're doing. And that, so you think, so you think, this is really interesting. So that's actually the first time I've seen that demonstration done, even though I've been working with Seawilding now for a couple of years. And, uh, I've read about it and I knew they did that, but to actually see it is mind blowing.
And then you, then you think about the world that we live in now compared to the world we could live in. The world we live in now, we have maybe, I don't know, Half a million oysters around the whole country, maybe? I don't know. In little pockets of population. Compare that to two or three hundred years ago.
We would have had billions of oysters. Literally covering our shorelines. Think about how much of that tank has been cleaned in just a couple of hours. They're doing that to our entire ocean. So the clarity of the water back then must have been phenomenal. And I think that's what drives us forward.
Is like, imagining this pristine, almost utopian sea that we can have again if we just change a few things and fix a few things.
Kathi: That's amazing and it's, it's so inspiring to think. It's, it is about that big picture thinking and that future vision but it is within reach.
Philip: Oh yeah.
Kathi: It's not just something that happens in 300 years.
Philip: Yeah and I think that's, that's That's one of the nice things about the sea particularly so on land your time scales for regeneration can be quite long but we're finding in the sea that you can get a big difference I think a little bit quicker so our seagrass meadows we think five to ten years we can see some really big improvements.
Even in a year, we've seen a doubling in our, in our biodiversity, in our, in our restored seagrass compared to the mud. Um, and the same with, same with the oysters. We're seeing sort of 40 to 50% increase in biodiversity where we've got oysters and yeah, these are tiny little areas at the moment, but uh, but the benefits happen very quickly in the sea 'cause it's an interconnected habitat.
So.
Kathi: Yeah.
Philip: It's properly exciting.
Kathi: And it's almost like running a little experiment in one small area, and then being able to think about, okay, how do you then scale that and make it.
Philip: So that's exactly what, where Seawilding are at the moment. So, we all want to go landscape scale, but at the moment, We can't put our finger on the right methodology for doing that because some, because we'll have these questions in our mind.
Well, is it better to put an oyster down at 10 grams or 20 grams or 30 grams? Is it better to plant seagrass by using rhizome transplanting, which is the roots, or is it better to do seeds and baggers? We just don't know the answers to that yet. So at the moment we're conducting huge experiments, um, which is also restoring habitat at the same time, but we're just trying to monitor which is the most successful of that habitat restoration. And then we can push the button and go, right, now we can go for some really big funds to make this happen on a landscape scale.
Kathi: Incredible. And so do you want to walk me in basic, uh, simple to understand ways through the process of restoring a seagrass meadow? What's required and what steps do you have to take for that?
Philip: So, the start off point is surveying. So you, you, you survey an area to see if you've got any existing seagrass and to see if the seabed is suitable for seagrass restoration. That's your first two steps.Then you're going to get permission from NatureScot because you might be interacting with an existing seagrass bed which is protected, and you've got to come up with a fairly robust plan on how you're going to do that restoration.
Then it gets interesting. What is the best way of doing that restoration? We don't actually know yet, but we're trialling various methods. One method is to go out at exactly this time of year, and we're sort of mid August now, and collect seed from this plant before it's fallen off the plant. So you've got to get that timing pretty good.
You then put those seeds into a tank, allow them to fall from the plant that you've harvested in the tank, and then you sweep them seeds up. You store them seeds till it's time to plant them, which we think is probably either October or the spring. We're not sure, we're experimenting with both. And then you either plant the seed directly into the seabed, or you put it in little bags that protects the seed from predation or from being washed away, and then put the bags on the seabed and they rot away, allowing the germinating plant to come through.
Um, or, so that's using seed. The other way of doing it is going into the seagrass. You can do this at any time of year. You can harvest individual plants under license from NatureScot, and then you plant those individual plants out on the sediment, uh, and with the hope that what happens is the rhizomes have survived that process.
They then... Because they kind of have been slightly stressed by it, they think, God, I need to grow now. This is, this is bad news. We need to grow. So it sort of sets off a super growth pattern that allows the rhizomes to interconnect and put shoots up in the gaps. So you then get an infill in the meadow and you get hopefully a proper seagrass meadow resulting from the individual plants that you put out.
Kathi: So when you're in a seagrass meadow, does that mean... That one plant actually has multiple shoots, or is it individual plants that you're seeing?
Philip: So, um, it can vary. Sometimes you've got one shoot, one rhizome, one root system that can have 10 or 15 plants coming off it. Sometimes you've got one plant and one root.
It can really vary. But what you get when you put your hand into a seagrass meadow and you're trying to dig out a root is this massive interconnected root system. It's so wonderful. And then you start thinking, hold on a minute. What's one of the biggest problems we have with, uh, the ocean, the sort of coastal communities around here, and a lot of it, not so much here, but certainly down south, is coastal erosion.
So if you put this huge network of roots into this very fine sediment, it locks it all into place, so it's going to be a massive boon for coastal erosion. So we think it's another huge advantage of restoring seagrass.
Kathi: That's so interesting, that's the second time now that I thought about an episode earlier in the season that is about bogs.
Philip: Oh right, yeah, yeah.
Kathi: Peat doing similar things in terms of locking carbon away into the soil or into the ground. And now also seagrass, um, being one of the measures against coastal erosion in the same way that, that, peat and that is, is, is a, as a measure against soil washing away. So it's, that's really fascinating.
Philip: Yeah, no, it's really interesting. And also it helps mitigate against storm surges because the root network is really strong. The plants take energy out of the waves, which means you're not blasted with the same energy in a wave that you would be otherwise. So, benefit after benefit, hopefully.
Kathi: Um, can you tell me a bit or describe some of the challenges that you face in your work? And that could be practical challenges in the water or maybe more, um, challenges in, in the face of other people being part of that conversation and, and how decisions are being made.
Philip: Yeah, it's a good, it's a really good question. The challenges sort of vary on a daily basis almost, but the main challenges we face, I think, from a practical point of view is, like we were discussing before, is figuring out the best way of doing stuff and having to work at seagrass time or oyster time.
If we trial a seagrass thing, we have to wait 18 months to see if it works. It's just what we have to do. So, and then if we trial something one year and it's super hot, and we trial something the next year and it's super cold, then that skewers our learnings quite heavily. Um, so we're, we're trying to create that fine balance of doing and learning at the same time.
Because we can't wait till the science is perfect, um, but we need to rely on the science to make sure we get the best methodology, so we have to both do and learn, and that's the approach we're taking, but, but, the, the main challenge is that, like I said, that time scale that you have to work at. In terms of external influences, um, I think still, it's changing now, but I think at a regulatory level, The concept of rewilding and rebuilding habitats rather than conserving habitats still hasn't fully sunk in to the point of where they're like, yeah, I get this, let's do this.
We still have to play the convincing game on oyster restoration rather than just conserving a wee pocket of oysters there. And we still have to play a little bit of a game on the, well, we've got seagrass, why do we need to put any more in? Well, yeah, because there's not very much. And we think we need to help it.
Um, that is changing. And within a lot of the kind of regulatory organisations, um, there's some really good people doing good work, uh, who are super supportive of what we do particularly. Um, but, but that has been a little bit of a challenge in the past. And then, going forward, at the moment, most of our work doesn't come in conflict with any commercial interest going on in the loch.
However, at some point in the future that may happen. So we're going to have to maybe persuade, or... Or come up with compromises with people who have commercial interests to try and change either what we do or what they do, so we can both flourish in the loch. How that happens, we won't know yet, but that will happen at some point.
Kathi: The future will tell, I guess. Um, how do you... Sorry, I'm gonna do that again.
You already mentioned, you know, that there's a few different local groups and obviously Seawilding has grown out of another local group as well. How do you engage with different organisations and groups, community led or otherwise? Uh, in the local area and, um, I'm thinking for example, the, the Friends of the Sound of Jura,
Philip: Yeah.
Kathi: Or the Argyll Hope Spot, who are two organisations I personally have made experiences with. So how does that kind of network function?
Philip: So, so the, so the Argyll Hope Spot's interesting because that's the kind of label that we all live under. So we are, we are Argyll Hope Spot, Friends of the Sound of Jura are Argyll Hope Spot. It, it governs our whole area and it's a label we all fully believe in and get behind because... We're living in an environment that isn't good as it could be, but it has hope that it could be a lot better. So that's kind of the basis of the Hope Spot. So in terms of communicating with other organizations like ourselves, then the, uh, The easiest way to do it is through this wonderful thing that's been set up, that help us set up actually, which is the Coastal Community Network and they are run to support and connect individual community groups around the country so we have a bigger voice and we have Uh, shared learnings.
We have, um, you know, all the way down to practical phone calls where you can phone somebody from a different group and go, Well, you've done seagrass. How did you do that? Or, um, how do you set up a website? Where did you get that information? Or we've got a fish farm application. How do we, how do we, um, get through that and, and find out if it's a good or bad one or whatever?
So the Coastal Community Network, the CCN, has been vital for that.
Kathi: Mm. And beyond kind of the local area or beyond the maybe the grassroots level as well, how do you engage with, say, local councils or businesses with commercial interests? Um, or even, you know, government bodies, uh, I'm thinking of NatureScot and things like that - how does that function?
Philip: So being part of CCN allows us access to these government bodies. So that's, that's our route into that. We're also part of the Scottish Rewarding Alliance. Um, so that's another way into lobbying politicians. We've also developed some personal relationships with particularly the green MSPs like Ariane Burgess who are super excited by what's happening here and want to help us and support us as best they can, which is very lovely.
In terms of the commercial conversations, one of the routes we're going down at the moment as a community So this is not Seawilding, but this is more a CROMACH thing, is to, um, try and create a demonstration and research marine protected area in Loch Craignish. And that gives us a mechanism because we have to engage all the stakeholders, all the commercial interests in the loch, to get that through.
Um, and we have to go to them and say, this is our plan to improve the health of the loch, are you on board? Um, and if they say yes, then we have to come up with some projects that we can work on together that will hopefully improve the health of the loch. So that's, that's probably the main mechanism for the local commercial and business interests that we're using to kind of build those relationships to try and improve the loch. A a, a very quick example is working with the Ardfern Yacht Center to help communicate where the seagrass beds are to, um, yacht, yacht, yacht people sailing in their yachts, so they don't anchoring the sea grass.
Kathi: Mm-hmm.
Philip: So it's a very simple example of working with the, a local business.
Kathi: That's brilliant. And I, I like how you explain or, or describe, you know, on the one hand, it is about local community getting involved and not just having these decisions made top down. But on the other hand, you kind of still have to play by the rules, um, and play the game a little bit and then use the mechanisms that exist to your benefit and in new and different ways. And yeah, that's that's really inspiring. Um, can you talk a bit more about the networking aspect that you do with other community groups or other charities as well, and maybe some of the training you deliver or, um, yeah.
Philip: So, one of the ways we'd like to see Seawilding expand as a, as a, um, either as a, as a charity, but, but mainly to see our, what the work we're doing, see oysters, seagrass, habitat restoration, expanding, is to motivate, to train, to help other communities to do this themselves.
And as part of that, we run training weekends, um, every year, inviting other communities here so they can learn firsthand how we're doing what we're doing, the mistakes we've made, uh, the successes we've had, and then hopefully they can build similar projects in their own communities. Um, CCN are very good at facilitating a lot of this as well.
So they do monthly calls and restoration that we can all attend and share best practice again, share mistakes. They run a big event every two years where we all go to, called Gartmore. Um, that allows us to network there to, to have presentations, either give presentations or receive presentations about particular successes or failures or whatever.
So there is- that networking is, is working very, very well. The main problem we have as a, as a community force is capacity. So, um, the mistake we've probably made a little bit at the beginning is believing that the community can just do this voluntarily. You can't. The community can do it, and communities all around Scotland can do it, but they have to be supported with providing jobs to do that.
Um, otherwise... You get burned out very, very quickly. And we found that with Seawilding. You know, I'm about the most passionate person in the world about rewilding. And I was holding down a job, got a family of three kids, trying to volunteer for Seawilding. It, it was, it got to the point where it wasn't fun.
And I still kept doing it because it's important, but you need to get paid people in these roles that allow them to really drive this stuff forward.
Kathi: Absolutely. And I think that's the same in so many different sectors as well. And, you know, I've personally gone through that process myself of constantly having the conversation about, Oh, but you're passionate about this. Don't you enjoy doing it? But like you say, at some point, it just gets too much in order to give it your all. You need to be able to fully focus on that and still be able not to worry about your livelihood.
Philip: Definitely. And it's okay to enjoy something you get paid for. I think we've got this weird attitude in Britain where we need to work really hard and be really miserable working. It's like, well, surely if you're lucky enough, and I understand my privilege. I have huge privilege. Um, but. If you're lucky enough to have a job that's fun, that's a good thing.
Kathi: Exactly.
Philip: It's not a bad thing.
Kathi: Yeah. And then being able to harness your passion and your expertise and your, you know, innovation as well into something that will change the world is amazing. And being paid for it.
Philip: Yeah, we're very lucky.
Kathi: How fantastic.
Philip: Very lucky. I have to say, we are very lucky.
Kathi: Um, There are obviously a lot of restoration projects, not just seagrass, but including seagrass as well in other places in Scotland, and it seems like they're all kind of doing it slightly in different ways.
There's some that are led by national agencies, some like yourselves, led by grassroots community groups. Can you maybe comment on the advantages and disadvantages of your process or your, your approach and where you think you might be able to learn something from how it's done elsewhere.
Philip: Yeah, so, I think the, the, the advantages of, of being this kind of community startup, if you like, is that, for instance, very, it can be a very simple thing. If I want to go down... Down to the water there, and I have to walk through that field. I know I speak to Sandy Ritchie. That's who owns that field. Like, I don't have to ask anybody.
I don't have to get their permission. I can just give them a call or Whatsapp them and go, can I go down your field and, um, put a, you know, a wee cage out of oysters and do a trial there. And they'll be like, yeah, no worries. Um, Whereas if you're an agency coming in, you have to get permission, you have to figure out who owns that field, you have to ask around and they'll be like, Oh, who are you coming in and doing this?
You haven't built up that relationship with everybody in the community that - you haven't built up that trust. Um, so that's a huge advantage. And then, you know, we've got a really huge mixed skillset. We're not employed to do a certain thing. We've come to this because we want to make something happen. So if we're, um, if we're having to fix up the boat shed, we don't have to get a builder in and we've got the skills within the team to do that.
Our marine scientist happens to be a tree surgeon, so he can top some of the trees, you know. So, you know West Coast community You tend to find multi skilled people and which means you can just get stuff done quicker. Then we don't have a massive decision tree to go up and down. So if we want to change a poster, I do a lot of the communication stuff and, and the website stuff and I'll just check with one person.
Do you think this is alright? Yeah, it's alright. Job done.
Um, whereas if we're a part of a big organisation, then if I want to change the website, I have to go to the web designer that's been employed by the big organisation, and then I have to check with the manager of both the web design and of my manager, and then I have to get permission from all of those to change a couple of words.
So that's like two weeks work to do something I can maybe do in five minutes. (Kathi: Yeah.) So we're really efficient, um, with money. And we're really quick to do stuff.
The disadvantage, I would say, of our approach is that we have to create all our own resources. So that obviously takes a bit of time. Uh, and getting access to big funds to really push this forward.
You need a track record to do that. You're not gonna be given multi-million pound projects. If you're just a wee start up with a few shnees in Ardfern that are looking to get a project up and running, chucked a few oysters in and thought, Whoa, what's this? So we've had to build up that kind of trust and track record with the wider funding community, which we're starting to do now. But if you're WWF, let's say, you have that track record, you know, you're a trusted, uh, funded organization. So if you're saying, well, give us a million pounds and we'll deliver this project, they'll probably go, well, you've done it before. Yeah, let's, let's see you do it.
So, you know, there are advantages and disadvantages.
Kathi: Absolutely. There's a question kind of in the back of my head that I would love to ask. And I'm hoping. Well, it actually matches up with another question I also want to ask. Yeah, yeah, thank you. That was shit anyways. Wait for that to leave.
What even is that? It's like a little quad bike or something. It goes straight up the hill. Or a lawnmower.
Um, there's a question on the back of my mind, and I kind of have two ways of asking you. One is, is there anything... And if yes, and I hope your answer is yes, what gives you hope?
Philip: Uh, yes, actually, lots gives me hope. So bigger picture stuff, we have this climate crisis, and we have this biodiversity crisis.
Uh, and on one hand you could think, oh no, you know, we're maybe looking at human extinction if we don't sort this out. But the other hand is if we do sort this out, what is it going to look like? It's going to look incredible. We're going to have very low cost energy. We're going to have beautiful air quality. We're going to have abundant wildlife. We're going to have farming systems that work with nature for people and for wildlife. This is a utopian vision, and it's not like we could have it. We have to have it to survive. And actually... For some reason that gives me huge amounts of hope because we're either not going to succeed and go extinct or we're going to succeed and have this incredible world that we're going to have forged for our generation possibly, definitely for the future generations. So in terms of are we going to be a good ancestor for them?
Then we have to be and if we achieve that then we'll be a brilliant ancestor for future generations. So it's gonna be super exciting. So bigger picture stuff that gives me real hope.
On the local level, I've got real hope too, because we did a survey recently, and it turned out the vast majority of the local population care about their loch, and wanted to see it better, wanted to see it healthier, and that's enabled us to go down this D and R MPA that we were talking about earlier, the [demonstration and] research marine protected area.
So that's, that's a game changer. People didn't have that care - years ago. You know, they're either too hard at work just surviving, or it just wasn't in their sphere of knowledge or thinking or whatever it was. A nd then you go and swim in seagrass and you're like, imagine there being more of this stuff. It's so awesome. And then you watch those oysters clean that tank out and you're like -
the sea could be like this, you know what I mean? So, if we can achieve even half of what we need to, the world's going to be a very wonderful place. So, yeah, definitely full of hope.
Kathi: That's amazing, and you've almost answered my second way of asking this question, and that would be if you could paint me a picture of what the world would look like, the way you envision it, um, being able to do all these things, and I think that was, that was pretty much what you did there, so.
Philip: So I'll give you a wee, another wee analogy you might find quite useful. There's a, there's a... Uh, we're doing these interviews with people about what the loch used to be like. And the amount of life in here is just, used to be phenomenal. And there's a wildlife boat trip that would go out of Craobh Haven, which is just over the other side of the peninsula.
And he would go out of here, and he had to go at five knots, because there were so many seabirds around his boat, he would have killed them if he didn't go that slowly. Just hundreds, thousands, as far as the eye could see. They don't exist now, they've gone. There's no food for them. Um. So yeah, what does it look like in the future?
Well, I go out on my boat, I can't go five knots because I'm going to crush these millions of seabirds. And then, there's pods of dolphins, there's huge populations of orcas, there's great whales back on our shoreline, and there's flapper skate the size of three meter wingspans flying around the loch.
That's what the future looks like.
Kathi: Amazing. So how can people get involved?
Philip: Good question. We have various volunteer days throughout the year which are all on our website, so you can sign up to any of that. For people that live locally, we have Other things that are a bit more tide dependent or a bit more, um, need a bit more training.
So like Monitoring our oysters you can get involved with that. You can always give us all your hard earned cash. That's always good. So you can do a bit of that. And actually just you know a lot of what's nice about what we do and what's really important is that if the message is shared. A) it gives us validation which helps us fundraise from big funders, like government funding, um, but also it just gets that message out there that the sea is an incredible place and we need to really love it.
It needs our love. It really needs it now. So , if that's all you can do is just look at what we do and share it and, and, and come and learn a little bit about it and, and talk to your friends about, about the pressures and the, and the wonderfulness of it and, and what needs to change in it, then that's a good thing to do.
Kathi: Brilliant. We'll put all the links in the show notes to the website, where to donate, where to find out about upcoming events and social media as well. Um, I do encourage people to follow because, yeah, like I said, the visual images and videos you share with Seawilding, it's, yeah, it makes it really approachable and, and relatable, even though I live quite a good distance from the sea, so it's quite nice to see that as a reminder and, and be immersed in it that way. Is there anything else you would like to give listeners on the way, whether it is about the future, or Seawilding, the work you do, or anything else?
Philip: Um, I think it's, yeah, I think it's just to hold on to that hope. Somebody today actually mentioned to me that the best reason for hope is it gives us the drive to take action.
And we need to take action, but if we do take action, it's going to be really good. So, let's just... Yeah, use that.
Kathi: Brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Philip: No problem, thank you.
Kathi: Amazing.
___________________________________________________________________
In just two days I learnt so much about rewilding out seas. Why it’s important, how it might be done, and why it is crucial that local communities are at the forefront of this movement.
We will be sharing lots of resources to learn more about seagrass in the show notes of this episode. First and foremost, you’ll find the links to connect with Seawilding, how to join them as a volunteer and other ways to support their work.
You’ll also find links to other community-led initiatives on the coast of Argyll, a few articles and videos you might find interesting, and other podcast episodes about seagrass.
One of them is the latest episode on my own podcast Wild for Scotland. It’s called ‘A Long Time Coming’ and takes you on an immersive journey on Loch Craignish. I’m taking you out on the paddleboard to learn about native oysters, we’ll hear more from Philip about the creatures that live in the seagrass, and we’ll go snorkelling to encounter some of them. You can find Wild for Scotland wherever you listen to this podcast right now.
Seagrass meadows are not just something pretty to look at if you’re fortunate enough to snorkel or paddle past one. They can do so much for our climate resilience and can help us take hopeful, solutions-led approaches to dealing with the biodiversity crisis and coastal erosion. In times where it is easy to feel disconnected from the people and powers that seem to be setting the agenda at the top, projects like Seawilding bring the conversation back to the ground level, and invite us to participate.
And I hope that listening to this episode has inspired you to do just that.
One of our Story Weavers, Lesley Anne Rose, interviews community artist, Andrew Crummy. Andrew is one of the team of behind the vision for the The 360 Center, an inspiring community led project to transform the site of the former Cockenzie Power Station in East Lothian.
Credits:
Interview and recording: Lesley Anne Rose
Edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
SCCAN Member of the Month blog about 360 Centre: https://sccan.scot/blog/member-of-the-month-the-360-centre/
The 360 Centre http://www.the360centre.com/
The Great Tapestry of Scotland https://www.greattapestryofscotland.com/
Andrew Crummy https://www.andrewcrummy.com/
John Muir Way https://johnmuirway.org/
Siccar Point https://www.geowalks.co.uk/siccar-point/
Sustaining Dunbar https://sustainingdunbar.org/
Sustaining Musselburgh https://www.facebook.com/sustainingmusselburgh/
This is a cross over episode from the Disrupting the Doughnut of Doom podcast by our friends at EMEN (Ethnic Minority Environmental Network). Podcast host, Andrew Williams, interviews Thalia Groucott from Glasgow Food Policy Partnership. They discuss how what we eat, and how we grow it, affects the climate, the countryside and the communities we live in.
Resources
Listening matters – a collection of climate-engaged podcasts from Scotland: https://sccan.scot/blog/on-the-way-to-1000-better-stories-ten-scottish-climate-podcasts/
Disrupting the Doughnut of Doom podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jXi3tU4hVmSjehCGA72oj?si=ad08bff3b31446b3
The Good Food for Glasgow podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/49vlwtpxg2e0xZtXguoUpn
Inclusion, Race, The Climate and Food episode of Good Food for Glasgow podcast featuring Andrew from EMEN: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3f8cGVcFO4lIhEimKqt46M?si=47ba961a553e42ac
Ethnic Minority Environmental Network: http://theemennetwork.com
Glasgow Food Policy Partnership: https://glasgowfood.net/
What is deliberative democracy, and can it help your community involve more people in creating a better future for all? SCCAN Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, explores the idea in this story from the People’s Assembly in Torry, as the community stand up against becoming a sacrificial zone yet again.
The Assembly took place at St Fittick’s Park over the weekend of 28 and 29 of May this year, and it was facilitated by Open Source. It was a part of the multi-partner Just Transition Communities pilot project, coordinated by North-East Climate Action Network (NESCAN) Hub and funded by the Scottish Government from their Just Transition Fund.
Interviews, recording and edits: Kaska Hempel
With special thanks to NESCAN for the use of recording of Alison Stewart’s speech, from the North East Communities Just Transition project partner Knowledge Exchange event 31 May, 2023.
Resources:
NESCAN https://www.nescan.org/
Grassroots to Global/Open Source https://www.grassroots2global.org/open-source
Assembly Catalyst training with Open Source in Aberdeen, apply by 4th of October https://www.grassroots2global.org/training
Declaration of Torry People’s Assembly May 2023 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVnCe8YBD4PV1uThl411Ahzfbu1gejtA0LHoro-9eBg/edit
Scottish Government’s Just Transition Fund https://www.gov.scot/publications/just-transition-fund/pages/overview/
Lesley Riddoch’s column on Torry People’s Assembly in The National, May 2023 https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23514047.torry-one-deprived-areas-lose-park-just-transition/
XR Scotland statement on reasons for leaving Scottish Climate Assembly Stewarding Group in 2020 https://xrscotland.org/2020/11/xr-scotland-can-no-longer-endorse-scotlands-climate-citizens-assembly/
First Torry People’s Assembly 2021 report by Scott Herrett and Susan Smith https://www.grassroots2global.org/thinkinghome/torry-assembly
People’s Torry Assembly Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesAssemblyTorry
People’s Torry Assembly Twitter https://twitter.com/Torry_PA
Grampian Community Law Centre, Robert Gordon University https://www.rgu.ac.uk/news/news-2022/5411-grampian-community-law-centre-prepares-for-torry-launch-in-scotland-first
A mini-doco by ReelNews "They're killing our kids!" Save St Fitticks Park, including Climate Camp visit to St Fittick’s https://youtu.be/jtvfbc-2GT8,
Friends of St Fittick’s Park https://saintfittickstorry.com/
Greyhope Bay Café in a doco by Sara Stroud https://vimeo.com/639311933
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kaska Hempel: Hello. You look interesting.
Why don't you tell me what you're doing here?
[00:00:09] Speaker 1: What we're doing here, right at this moment in time, is directing people to where the actual assembly really is. But, on the greater scheme of things, I think there's...
[00:00:20] Kaska Hempel: Oh, there's a sign!
[00:00:21] Speaker 1: I think the... how can Torry reclaim the power to make this a healthy community to live and grow up in? That's the main thing that it's all about.
[00:00:31] Liam: Yeah, I'm Liam. I'm just a volunteer for the weekend. So I've not been involved in any organisation. I was like, it's good to help out, but yeah, learning a lot and it's a great community event to meet people that are quite active in activism circles around Aberdeen.
It's a little melting pot. I'm from just south of Aberdeen and I live in the north. I got involved with Friends Of St Fittick's Park, who are one of the main activist groups organising the event today. The green space we're in, St Fittick's. It is earmarked for demolition company called Energy Transition Zone.
My degree was in Conservation Biology, so I'm really interested in the biodiversity here. It's won awards. There was £300, 000 of spending from the council to enhance biodiversity at this site. It's done incredible. Yeah. It's not a very clear cut issue. It involves a lot of discussion around the power that oil and gas has in Aberdeen, who the council is serving.
There's vast amounts of money changing hands. Yeah. It's got a lot of interesting climate and community justice aspects where you go, who is this for? who's it going to benefit? who's suffering?
[00:01:56] Alastair: Sup, my name's Alastair. Well, you can have a badge with it.
[00:02:01] Kaska Hempel: Yeah, unfortunately we can't see it.
[00:02:03] Alastair: Yeah, so I'm just helping out too. I've come up to Aberdeen for a couple of days to do whatever. Put tables up, or move chairs around, or anything like that, just to help the People's Assembly to run as smoothly as possible. It's also, you know, to try and help with... Yeah, if we live in a democracy, then we ought to be able to ensure that what goes on is actually for the best for all people, not for a small minority who are going to make a lot of money.
And, you know, got to exploit the poorest even more, if I've understood correctly. That's what I think is happening. Yeah, if you... basically, if you go over there, it's by the old folks home, by the Balnagask.
[00:02:50] Kaska Hempel: Hello, it's Kaska, one of your Story Weavers. That was me making my way to the day one of Torry People's Assembly at St Fittick's Park in Aberdeen on Saturday 27th of May, earlier this year. We'll hear more from the gathering later, but first let me ask you... do you know what People's Assembly is? Or deliberative democracy?
Well, before I embarked on this journey, I was not quite sure myself. So let me share with you what I've learned as I've dipped my toe into the Nescan's Just Transition Communities project. The project that was conceived last November and with support from the Scottish Government's Just Transition Fund, Nescan, or North East Scotland Climate Action Network, along with several partners, embarked on a pilot year.
Here is Alison Stewart, Nescan's Hub Manager. Explaining the transformative thinking behind it at the Knowledge Exchange Get Together for the Project Partners in June this year.
[00:03:55] Alison Stewart: When we talk about getting to net zero, there is a tendency to limit ourselves and our imaginations. We need to think bigger, we need to think holistically, we need to think collaboratively and inclusively, and we need to think of systems change.
When we discuss what a just transition means, the main barriers to change, to transition, It's that our current decision making processes are flawed. They allow for vested interests to dominate the conversation and create an elite few who determine the process and the pathways to net zero and the changes that we have to make.
The people are not generally represented in this, but if we want a just transition, all sectors of our society, workers and communities need to be involved on an equal basis in our decision making processes. We have an opportunity, while getting to net zero, to create the society that we want. A fair, just, equal, biodiverse, healthy and thriving one.
And we need to seize this opportunity with both hands.
So Nescan Hub is playing our part to ultimately create, over a few years, a toolkit for communities and decision makers. So by the end of this process, we really hope that communities can run these processes themselves. The ideas, plans, and outcomes can then be fed into wider and bigger decision making processes.
[00:05:19] Kaska Hempel: While we wait for the recordings from this gathering to be published by Nescan on their website, along with their reflections on the pilot, let's immerse ourselves in the Assembly process itself. In this episode, I take you along for a visit with People's Assembly in Torry, which was facilitated by Open Source.
Before I headed out to experience the Assembly itself, I spoke to Eva, one of the people who helped facilitate the Assembly with the community. I wanted to get to grips with the concepts and the process in theory. To start, I asked her to introduce herself and share her own journey into this work.
[00:05:59] Eva Schonveld: I'm Eva Schonveld. I live in Portobello in Edinburgh, and I work for an organisation called Heart Politics. Particularly on facilitation of deliberative democratic processes through a group called Open Source. It's been quite a long journey. There are a few key moments. The ecologist did a supplement on climate change, probably at the end of the 90s, that hit me like a ton of bricks.
And I really wanted to do something about it and wasn't sure what. And then I read another article, probably four or five years later, in Permaculture News. That Rob Hopkins had written about the work that he did at Kinsale and suddenly I kind of thought oh, this is great, It's so positive and you know, we can work and make our communities better places as well as doing something about climate change. So I managed to shift my work to be working mostly in that for quite a few years and then burnt out and came back slowly into climate action in different ways, but particularly with Extinction Rebellion, which is where, you know, I first came across this idea that we could use democracy really differently.
I think I'd already started thinking about politics and about how toxic the political system that we have is now and how it doesn't do anybody any good, including the people who are in it. And, you know, we get very bad decisions out of it. And I'm really interested in the kind of emotional and cultural underpinnings of that.
And I think that came together with the Assembly work that the Extinction Rebellion really highlighted. And our group was forming, and via Extinction Rebellion we had two representatives on the stewarding group of the Scottish Climate Assembly that the Scottish Government put together and, you know, had quite a lot of input into that, I think making it quite a lot better than it would have been.
But eventually our two representatives decided to leave because they felt that basically the people who were going to be Assembly members weren't going to be allowed to deliberate properly. The thing was increasingly being skewed towards existing government policy. Which is kind of understandable, but not very democratic.
And so we have set out to explore how Assemblies might be part of a different way of doing democracy. And that's what I'm working on at the moment.
[00:08:38] Kaska Hempel: That's really interesting. I'm already sort of spotting a bit of jargon that I think it will be quite useful to explain to people. So, if you could explain what deliberative democracy means?
[00:08:50] Eva Schonveld: Yeah, it is one of those kind of catch all phrases that sort of means, you know, if you deliberate, you mean you think really deeply and carefully, and I think there is something about slowing down and moving away from the kind of party political Punch and Judy kind of politics, you know, it's the top layer of what we see in government because it's not the only thing that happens in government to something, you know, and here's where it gets a bit vague.
For me, it means much more inclusive, and it means being open to a much wider range of how people understand things and process ideas. So, you know, a lot of what happens in mainstream politics is very verbal, is very written, but that's not necessarily the best way for us to process information, or certainly not all of us.
So for me, deliberative democracy then broadens out into a... really interesting, rich exploration of how can we be really inclusive in the decisions that we make? How can we make sure that we set them up so that people don't get reactive, but actually are listening to one another and to the information they're hearing, and have time and space to really think about and come to shared understandings of what's really going on, and then move towards kind of good better decisions.
So yes, it's a bit of a catch all phrase.
[00:10:15] Kaska Hempel: So you already mentioned the Citizens Assembly on Climate that Scottish Government put together a few years back, a couple of years back now. Can you explain what that involves and how is it different to People's Assemblies or more grassroots driven Assemblies work that you've been involved in?
[00:10:34] Eva Schonveld: Yeah, so Citizens Assemblies are one of the more popular forms of alternatives to mainstream democracy. And they're one of the most sort of clearly... delineated. So with a Citizens Assembly, people turn up because they've been, well, A, invited, and then B, they've been sortitioned. So the sortition process, I don't exactly know how it happens, but the intention is to try to get a representative sample of the population of whoever's being consulted here.
So you'll select for different demographics, for age and education and race and gender. And you'll try and say, ok, so we have got, I don't know, 56 percent of women in Scotland, so we'll want to make sure that 56 out of 100 people in this Citizens Assembly end up being women. So we're trying to sort of build a mini picture of all of us within the group who become members of the Assembly.
And no one else joins. It's a closed group that normally lasts over several weeks. It's normally around a hundred people. And there's a kind of phasing of it where there's input from across a spectrum, which is also really important. So you'll have an input of people with different views, but who have some kind of expertise, some reason to be the people who you'd go and ask about this particular subject that we're looking at.
So that people can compare. And the idea is that, you know, people are presented with these different ideas, and then they deliberate. They talk in small groups and talk in big groups and have different, you know, there's different methods of helping people work through the material that they've got to come to some kind of shared opinion.
And obviously it's rarely 100%, but it can often be quite high. Just because this process of filtering and boiling down and taking time and throwing ideas around together tends to move people towards more common ground, tends to move away from the polarisation that we're used to in politics at the moment.
[00:12:47] Kaska Hempel: So that's the Citizens Assembly and that's usually put on by the government and feeds into government policy in some way.
[00:12:55] Eva Schonveld: That is partly because they're quite expensive to put on, just the sortition process itself can be pretty expensive. So, and it has tended to be governments who've done that or local authorities.
We're very interested in the idea of Citizen led Citizens Assemblies because we felt that the government was not able to put its own agenda to one side when it hosted a Citizens Assembly. And then People's Assemblies are, again, a kind of catch all phrase for like a big meeting. For us to try to bring that together into something that feels like it's a contribution towards something that's really democratic.
The outreach phase is as important as the actual Assembly itself. Letting people know that it's happening. Giving people an opportunity to feed in, to have views on what it is that we should be focusing on. And trying to make the process itself as accessible as we can. It's all part of trying to make this feel like it's legitimate.
And in some ways it can't be. Because there'll always be people who get left out. And so what we see with People's Assemblies is that they're particularly good at generating policy ideas. There may be places where people want to take decisions, and you wouldn't say, well, you know, you guys can't decide to start a community garden even though you found a bunch of other people who really want to do it at the People's Assembly.
Of course, decisions may be made there, and may lead to action in communities. But, in the bigger picture, It may be that, you know, communities can come up with ideas for how their local economies could be transformed. Or what changes of National Policy would be needed in order to make community life be more meaningful and fulfilling, and be less damaging to the environment.
So that's how we're seeing those. So People's Assemblies really good at generating ideas, and if you connect them up across different communities, then become quite a powerful voice which is part of our kind of theory of change. And then you could have potentially Citizen led Citizens Assemblies to make decisions around the kind of policies that have been generated by local People's Assemblies.
So within our movement, we're relatively well practiced in these kind of processes of helping people to think creatively, to listen to one another, to make decisions that lead on to action. But in terms of interacting with democratic systems as they stand, we're... right at the beginning of that. And I think the work that we're doing in Torry is, it's our first step into seeing how this community could get more of a voice that feels like it genuinely comes from an informed position of what people in this community
feel about particular issues and that could potentially lead to change. Torry is just south of the river in Aberdeen and is a community that has been in the news quite a lot recently and it's quite an extraordinary place to go to because it does feel like it has ended up at the sharp end of some very bad decisions over the last 30, 40 years.
[00:16:21] Lynne Restrup: I bought my own two comfy chairs. They're much comfier.
[00:16:26] Kaska Hempel: Oh, yes.
Lynn, who I found at the welcome desk once I got to the Assembly site, filled me in on what it's been like to live in a place treated like a sacrificial zone for decades. Wind was picking up at this point, so there's some noise from the tent flapping around in the background.
[00:16:48] Lynne Restrup: I'm Lynne Restrup. I'm a long time Torry resident.
I've lived in Torry for nearly 50 years. I live in Balnagask Road and my extended family lives in Torry. My mum lives in Torry. My sister lives in Torry. My oldest son still lives in Torry. And I really love the community, but I've seen a huge change in it in the last 50 years. It used to be...
It always had its problems but it's kind of seems to have lost its heart a bit. I think people have got a bit demoralized with having all the good things in Torry taken away from us and having all the rubbish things sort of put in our community, things that other communities really wouldn't want to have.
And It's after a period of time, I think people just get a bit demoralized about the fights. So some of the things that historically have happened in Torry, like we've lost access to the sea on one side of us. Back when they demolished old Torry, the tanks were built for the oil and gas companies down there.
This was a huge part of Torry heritage from being an old fishing village, so we lost that connection with the sea then. In more recent times, we've lost one Primary School, our only Secondary School, we've lost our outdoor Sports Centre, we've lost our indoor Sports Centre.
We used to have more Medical Practices in Torry.
We've lost a lot of our retail in Torry. We've lost a lot of our community in Torry because people have moved out of Torry due to a lot of the changes that have been happening. We had a huge thriving Polish population for a while, but due to Brexit and Covid, a lot of them moved away, so we lost a lot of our new Torry folk, which was a bit of a shame.
And I think once you lose a Primary School and once you lose a Secondary School, it stops young families wanting to move into Torry. And unfortunately, since they've put some of the less desirable things in Torry, like the water treatment plant, the incinerator, and we've lost our access to the sea on the other side of Torry, which with the harbour development which nobody in Torry wanted. We all fought against that but the Harbour Board got its way. So, to lose your part of your history with the connection with the sea, to lose a Primary School and a Secondary School, have an incinerator built right beside one of our two remaining Primary Schools.
Basically, if you were in the school playground and could kick a ball hard enough, you could hit the incinerator. So, Torry's community, we're an aging population. I'm 60 now, so the fight that I'm doing is not necessarily for my benefit. It's for our younger community members. Because it's going to be a dying community, because nobody with young families is going to want to move here.
So, instead of having a thriving population of people who lived for generations in Torry, loved living in Torry, and even when they moved away had really fond memories of being in Torry, we're just going to be seen as a place that people only live in Torry if they have to. And as soon as they get the opportunity to move, that's what they're gonna do, because to be honest, if I was younger, and I'm raising my family now, I don't know if I would want to stay in Torry, and that really breaks my heart to say that.
I personally don't see how you can create anything green, truly green, by destroying the only green space that a community has. So I think the loss of St Fittick's Park is the last straw for a lot of people, and it's galvanized a lot of people. They've thought, well, we've put up with this, we've put up with that, but actually, you know...
It's not, it's not alright. We're not just going to say, okay, well, just lose our park as well, because at some point the community has to say, enough is enough. And I think that's where we are.
[00:21:10] Eva Schonveld: And one of the main things that people say when you go and ask them, shall we do an assembly in Torry? is don't bother, it won't work, and the council never listens to us.
So, that is life in Torry. And basically it's not okay. It's not okay in Torry and it's not okay anywhere else. And so our Assembly is an attempt to encourage people, encourage people who live in Torry to come together and give it another try. And it's not like we're the first thing to come along, but we hope that it may be a way to bring people together across a wide range of different interests and focuses and say, what is it that we can do together?
[00:21:55] Kaska Hempel: Let's just talk about logistics. How does one actually organise an Assembly the way that you're helping people? Is there a set format?
[00:22:07] Eva Schonveld: There's not a set format. It has to be tailor made to the particular community, but that doesn't mean that there aren't phases and areas of work that you can expect to come up.
And the first ones is outreach. I think it's almost impossible to do too much outreach. And we've come up with a completely spurious statistic which is like 90 percent of the work of an Assembly happens before the Assembly. At 10%, well, maybe 5 percent is in the Assembly and then there's a whole bunch of follow up as well which probably is another 90 percent actually.
But I think because we're talking about Assemblies, we can get caught up in thinking about, so what are we actually going to do in that meeting? And obviously that's really important. But finding out where people are in the community, finding out what's important to them, finding out what would make it possible, or even desirable for them to come along to an Assembly.
Speaking to people who are not like me, who are not, you know, who's not like oneself and finding out where they're at and taking all of that information on board to develop something which is going to be as accessible and meaningful to local people as possible is massively important.
[00:23:28] Kaska Hempel: You've been involved in organising this assembly today. Why did you get involved? What
prompted you to spend your precious time, no doubt, because it was a long, long process, wasn't it?
[00:23:46] Speaker 3: It is. I mean, I'm full time work. I have a mum, an elderly mum, who I look after. I have grandchildren as well that I look after.
So I don't have a lot of free time. You know, we've been doing this for months. Every Saturday, all day, Saturday evenings, different events, going and talking to people. It is a big commitment. But I feel it's worth it for me. Because Torry really suffers a lot from social issues.
It's a really poor economic area. It's people with ill health. People rely on food banks. People are really struggling with the cost of living right now. There's a lot of unemployment, people are balancing huge, huge pressures in their personal life and not everybody has the mental strength to actually devote time to this as well because if I was a young single mum struggling to feed my kids, put food on the table, or pay my rent.
You know, I don't know if I really would be that bothered about constantly fighting with the council, getting involved with an assembly in a way to try and bring those voices together. And I feel that I kind of have to do it for maybe people who would like to do it as well.
[00:25:03] Kaska Hempel: How did you find the whole process of going through preparation?
Do you think that in any way helped the community at all?
[00:25:12] Speaker 3: As I said, I've lived in Torry a long time, but even I wasn't aware of all the pockets of really good things that are happening in Torry. I've met some amazing people in the preparation and the running up to this. People who really are community minded, that are really looking at problems in the local area, really trying to improve things.
They're small voices working on small projects, so I would like to think that the Assembly is going to give them a platform for us to find out about more about what they're doing and for them to tap more into the community support. I love the idea of an Assembly because we all feel like what we have to say is not being listened to.
And so maybe it takes folks coming in from the outside to shine a light. And for us to feel that bit more empowered than we were before. So I would like to see this as a jumping off point.
[00:26:15] Kaska Hempel: And you're talking about people coming from the outside to facilitate it. And also to, you know, report on it. How do you feel about that?
[00:26:27] Speaker 3: To be honest, to start with, I was a bit like, hmm, is this somebody else that's coming in and trying to take power away from people in Torry and tell us what should be good for us and what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing? And actually it's not been like that at all. It's been the real education.
For folk from the outside to go into a community and actually ask them what they think the issues are and try and sort of say, well, you know, if you did have more help, what could we do? You know, you tell us what we could be doing to help. And actually having anybody coming into a community and offering that level of support is quite unusual, I think.
And I think that they've brought, sort of, expertise as well in terms that we didn't have before. And also just somebody really actually taking an interest in Torry and people from the outside thinking actually it's not okay what's happening, not just in Torry, but in some of our other communities that are under threat.
No, I think it's easy for the council or whatever to dismiss it as just people in Torry just complaining, but when other people are seeing that same thing happening. It almost like validates what we're feeling. We're not just making a fuss over nothing. I met a few people today and talked about some of the issues, and people are actually quite astounded about the really bad things that have happened in Torry, and about the accumulative effect of one thing after the other sort of being placed in Torry.
I think a lot of people came along thinking it was just about the loss of St Fittick's Park, but there's a whole history behind it.
[00:28:18] Kaska Hempel: So that's the work you've been helping with in Torry, is that right?
[00:28:21] Eva Schonveld: Yeah, that's a lot of what we've been doing. So we've got a comms group and a logistics group and a outreach group and we have a programme group.
So the programme is, you know, what you actually do once people, you've got people through the door, what is it we're going to do together? And it's helpful if that focuses around a question. So you use all that information, all those conversations that you've had when you've been listening to people in the community to go, okay, so what are they saying the really important issues in this community are?
And is there a way that we can focus this assembly, so we touch on most of those. I think certainly with Torry, we've tried to create quite a wide question. So our question is, how can people in Torry reclaim the power to make this a good place to grow up and live in? So the question is around reclaiming power, but it's also around health.
It's also around young people. And these were things that came out from the conversations that we had. This is kind of like, there's no point. The council never listens to us. Those are issues of power. So once you have your question, you can focus your assembly. So how are we going to help people to look at that?
How do we reclaim the power? How are we going to help people to look at what is it like to grow up healthy in Torry? What would that vision of a healthy community be? And so you may want to have an input phase. You may want to have people speaking at the beginning about maybe possibly a range of views.
It kind of depends. That's where the Citizens Assembly and the People's Assembly may be most different. You may not need a range of views. You may just want to give people different opportunities to think about different parts and in Torry we've decided to hang the whole of the outputs of the Assembly around a declaration.
The declaration has different parts to it and one of them states the situation in Torry. What has happened and where we are just now. Another part states what do we want to change and who's responsible for that because I think there's a lot, you know, something that as a transition person I'm all about what can the community do together?
And this just has not washed in Torry. I think people do things and they have done things for the community and will continue to. But they're furious with the council and there's a social contract that has been broken and people aren't just going to let that go. So it has to be dealt with. What is it the people in Torry want from the council?
On their own terms, reasonably, you know, with a timeline that has been thought through and is reasonable. So we're not saying you have to change everything tomorrow, but within this reasonable point of view, we want you to have addressed this. So that's the declaration would encompass all of those things.
And then there's another piece of work which is more kind of inward facing, which is what is the community going to do about this? So both what kind of tasks and projects might we want to happen in Torry? But also if the council don't do what we said, what's our next step? You know, are we going to move into petitions or going and standing outside the council?
Or are we going to go and put our bodies on the line and block roads? You know, these are the kinds of things that people in the community might want to think about. And these are ways of reclaiming power. And so it's important that we explore them. And not everybody in the community is going to want to do everything, and that's another, you know, that's another plus, because we can potentially imagine different people doing different things.
[00:31:56] Kaska Hempel: As you might have figured out by now, I turned up on day one of two of the Assembly, which was all about, according to the programme, looking at the issues we face in Torry and creating a declaration of what needs to change, and then celebrating.
By the time I arrived at the assembly tents, the morning session was wrapping up and people already shared thoughts on problems and on things they would like to see in Torry. Each thought carefully written down on a large paper leaf to contribute to the Torry Assembly declaration tree on display. Now, focus was shifting towards the most imminent issue, the situation with St Fittick's Park. I was just in time to catch a walking tour of the place, led by Richard Caie, a member of Friends of St Fittick's Park and the Community Council.
[00:32:50] Speaker 2: Look at these tours, and we haven't lost too many people. Okay. So is this bit staying here, or is it being developed? This bit of stage here. Yeah.
[00:33:00] Speaker 1: And is the proposal then to move the, like they're saying they're gonna move the wetland or something? Yeah, that's the wetlands. Yeah.
[00:33:08] Speaker 2: These are the wetlands.
Swamp reeds look.
[00:33:15] Kaska Hempel: Wow. Yeah.
[00:33:16] Speaker 2: Bone rockes could be in Florida. That one that was up around. Yep. Right. The East Tullos Burn starts its life up in the Tullos Estate. It's all the waste from just water waste. The infrastructure there is 50, 60 years old, so nobody really knows what goes into it. That's a typical colour.
It actually runs alongside the railway in a culvert. And this is where it certainly comes out. And between 2010 and 2014, there was a lot of discussion about this area, a lot of good consultation, and this is the end result. All the wetlands there are artificial. They're all being ploughed out by JCBs.
And there's about 200 yards of reed beds till we get up to the next bridge. And the reed beds filter everything out. And every now and again people come and remove the mud and the excess plants. It does work. If you look at the colour of the water and then our next stop up in the bridge. Compare the colour.
If you want to taste it, carry on, but I would not recommend it.
Right, hurry up at the back there, come on. Right, if you come back here in a couple of years time, unfortunately, this might be fenced off and from here all the way, that big triangle there, that's all going to be an industrial estate. The factory's going to be here, somewhere, and all those trees are going to get zapped.
So it's sort of from here to the white state, it's all going to be industrial, up to the railway. So, this is a very popular area, people come here with barbecues, we've got facilities for children there, baskets, ball, court, nets, that's all going to get zapped as well. So we'll next stop at the bridge.
Next lot of the burn goes under the bridge and we're going to have a look at the quality of the water, see if all this, all the weeds here have improved the quality of the water.
[00:35:39] Kaska Hempel: Hiya, would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? No, okay. Are you from Torry?
[00:35:44] Annie Munro: Yes, I'm Annie Munro, 1978. I came up from Fife.
No, I like this, I'm down here a lot, with Rosie a lot. I had another dog as well. So quiet and they want to take it away. They took the bay away, they've taken dunnies away. As you could walk up and around. There's a path that comes from here, right up to dunnies.
Kaska Hempel
That's really upsetting, isn't it? Do you think this Assembly today is going to make a difference?
[00:36:15] Annie Munro: Do you know something? I hope so. Community Council, I'm on that. I've been on different ones. But it's apathy. It's because when we didn't have a Community Council when they said about the incinerator. But people go, they're going to build it anyway. And they do. So, what can you do? But I think this is a really good thing.
It's bringing different views, sort of thing. Because before you just sit there in the Community Council and you'll go,
Oh la la, the community councillors are there and you'll say to them, but...
look, see the ducks?
[00:36:53] Kaska Hempel: Oh yes, that's the best thing, it's right in the path. Beautiful, look at all the beautiful flowers in there.
[00:36:58] Annie Munro.: I know, I know, the gorse. They'll come, look. They think they're getting fed. Oh, the water looks so much cleaner here. Yeah, cleaner, doesn't it?
[00:37:08] Kaska Hempel: So you said you're feeling hopeful about this process?
[00:37:12] Annie Munro.: Well, we need to get into people's houses.
Yeah, we need to get people involved.
It's okay saying you're here, but you don't stay here. You know what I mean? We need the people that stays here.
[00:37:26] Kaska Hempel: How do you think you can do that?
[00:37:28] Annie Munro.: I don't know. I stay on the block and not one of them know anything about it and they're not interested.
[00:37:33] Kaska Hempel: Why do you think that is?
[00:37:34] Annie Munro.: Well, they don't come down here. They don't see this. A lot of folk don't even know it exists. My daughter didn't even know this existed until I brought her down.
I used to come down here most days with her.
[00:37:46] Kaska Hempel: Is it because you've got dogs? You've had dogs that this is a space you can use?
[00:37:50] Annie Munro.: There's a lot of people come down with their kids. I've seen them in here with their push chairs and everything. Yep. Summer holidays it's used a lot more than it is now. This is all going to go.
Yeah, it's frustrating, isn't it, Richard?
[00:38:04] Richard: Nobody listens. We've got all the lovely consultations.
We've had three master planning sessions. Absolutely everybody there said, no, we don't want it. But, tick in the box, they've held a consultation. I was saying in BBC Scotland a couple of days ago, if they can take this away from a community, then no green space in Scotland is safe. A lot of people live on, sort of, the other side of down nearer to the city so they don't naturally sort of walk this way And, I don't know. We can't really get a lot of engagement going. We've got a wonderful Assembly, been well publicised, but yet, we haven't got all that many people. So, I think it's a universal problem.
[00:38:50] Kaska Hempel: Oh, look at that! That's so amazing!
The flowers over there as well, willow...
[00:38:55] Richard: Marsh, what do you call it, marsh, marigold. And if we look at St Fittick's Church over there, I've got relatives buried there. So it is local to me. Do you have any idea how old it is? Oh, I think 1809 it stopped. But it goes way, way back. I'll tell you the story of St
Fitticks.
Right folks. St Fittick's, Bay St fittick's. He was an Irish French monk that washed ashore. Up to 1906, they used to have a well on the beach and in the preceding hundreds of years it was very, very popular with the locals because it was a holy well and the church clamping down on all this nonsense and there was real trouble, real antipathy towards that because this was our well and they couldn't stop the locals from
drinking the well. As you see, what I'm saying now, even though we're way up, we can't see the sea. So if you're down in the park, you can't see the sea, you're hemmed in. And then, roughly where that big lump of earth is, that's where the new factories are going to go. So that's going to be even more hemmed in.
So far as we know, they haven't done an Environmental Impact assessment, health, Quality of Life Assessment, Health Inequality Assessment. But even if all those are negative, you sort of know we're just going to be ignored. Nobody's going to stop the massive project like this just because you get a few negative reports.
And the bottom half of that community wood, which was planted in 2010, 2014,
is going to get chopped off. And that's where the new wetlands will go. They will abut directly onto the new factories. So it just doesn't make any sense at all. The good news is the rich people who are doing this don't live here, so it won't affect them at all. Oh, we need to be thankful for that . But it's been a great community fight and I think the community will just keep on fighting.
This is our land. Right, lunch onward.
[00:41:13] Kaska Hempel: So what are you guys doing?
[00:41:18] Speaker 1: We're kind of just volunteering to... I think it's general help out. Specifically, we were gonna, if there were kids that were like, 18 to 16, that weren't wanting to sit through that, we were gonna like, take them to do physical activities and stuff.
But, because there's not a huge demand for that at the moment, we're just helping out with whatever odd jobs is available. Which is? Which is soup! We're gonna refill the soup with just the red roll.
[00:41:53] Kaska Hempel: I wanted to go back to the processes of talking to each other. You mentioned emotions and difference, maybe difference of opinion. How do you tackle these? In a meeting that's obviously going to have that kind of diversity of voices and strong emotions in it. Is there techniques or approaches that you use or you recommend people use?
[00:42:16] Eva Schonveld: Well, there's a whole range of different things. And I guess one of the most fundamental ones is having people in the room who've thought about this stuff before. Because cultures... spread a little bit like yogurt cultures. We infect people with how we're feeling. And if there's enough of us who are feeling this is important, we're taking this seriously and we really, really want to listen to one another.
We want this to be the kind of meeting where everybody's voice gets heard. Then that kind of transmits itself in some weird magical way. And so not to say that, well, you use magic, of course. So having enough people who are taking responsibility for and holding the space, who've got a sense of this is how we want to do things.
Creating processes where people get to listen, but not too much, and where they get to speak, but not too much. So using facilitation. So that it's not just the people who are confident, or the loudest voices who get to speak, but where quiet people get space too. And also, creating different ways for people to express themselves.
So again, like I was saying before, you know, some of us are really, really comfortable going on at length with chat. Whereas others might actually prefer to draw, or might prefer to do interpretive dance. And I think we're away, we're away from that. But actually, there is something about using the arts, you know, and that happens loads in other cultures.
When my husband works in Kenya, when they take a break in the meeting, everybody sings. Everybody gets up and sings and dances. That's how you take a break. And the kind of dropping of petty issues and of tiredness. And of distraction and the bringing of everybody into the same space in the same moment feeling like we're together.
That something like that does is like we have so much to learn from other cultures. And again, I think it's a while before that will be the way that we're expecting to do things in our communities. But I bloody well want to work towards it because it's important. It's really important. You know, if you ask somebody, would you change your job next week?
You're going to be an MSP, you know most people were going no way because they know how toxic and stressful that kind of work is, but making our collective decisions should be something that we all feel like being involved in, and obviously sometimes it's going to be boring, but it is something about ways to make these processes feel more approachable, feel more fun, feel more engaging.
[00:44:51] Speaker 3: We are doing some leaf printing to make a big banner for the park. This is a fern. They've all, it's just a bunch of stuff that I've collected up and pressed and dried out. And then if we pop it onto the fabric over here.
[00:45:07] Kaska Hempel: So, how come you're involved in this?
[00:45:10] Speaker 3: I live in Torry.
And, like, the park, we walked around here loads during lockdown and everything so quite familiar with the place and enjoyed spending time here. So I've been sort of involved with the campaign to save the park and I knew somebody who was part of organising this thing and she asked if I want to come down and do like some, I'm also an artist, a textile artist so...
[00:45:32] Kaska Hempel: Oh wonderful, hence the banner.
[00:45:33] Speaker 3: Hence the banner.
Are you coming? Are you coming? Right, I'll show, I'll
show. You can have a go at that.
My hands are
messy. Yeah, I'm not very good at keeping clean with this. There we go. Should we have a look? Oh, that's lovely. You can see all the nice little veins from the
leaf in there. That's very cool.
Did you want to help me?
We carry on colouring in all the letters using the leaves. Does that sound good?
[00:46:10] Speaker 2: If you just arrived in this morning, we were looking at all the problems that Torry faces. And what do we want? On the tree there, you can see the problems.
They came out in small groups. And on the second tree, you've got what we need.
So that's what you miss, young lady. But instead of that, you're gathering all that to just go with it. And we're going to go into a session now.
[00:46:31] Kaska Hempel: After lunch, people gathered again to hear more on St Fittick's Park situation, this time staying in the assembly tent to hear from a number of speakers with relevant experience.
I've selected the most powerful excerpts from their presentations here. Despite being invited, neither the Energy Transition Zone company nor the council representatives turned up to contribute. Instead, Eva kicked off the session on behalf of ETZ, drawing on their contributions elsewhere. She donned a hard hat to better get into the role.
There's a little bit of generator noise in the background, which was used to power the laptop with her presentation.
[00:47:14] Eva Schonveld: Maggie McGinlay, ETZ Chief Executive, said on Radio Scotland yesterday that a small part of St Fittick's Park is needed by ETZ because of its location next to Aberdeen South Harbour. ETZ will work closely with the community to minimise the development of St Fittick's Park But maximize the impact in terms of jobs in a way that ensures ETZ are protecting and enhancing biodiversity and looking at other facilities that will enhance the park overall.
My hat is off, I'm not ETZ anymore.
[00:47:50] Kaska Hempel: Next up was Hannah from Grampian Community Law Centre. A part of Robert Gordon University's Law School.
She's been working with the community on challenging the rezoning of St Fittick's.
[00:48:02] Hannah: So, obviously the planning process, as many people who have become involved with St Fittick's Park have found out, is not particularly user friendly. It is very tricky to use and understand. And it is not made for the lone person. So we have this process, which is designed to be democratic, where we have a new local development plan comes into play every once in a while. And around about 2019, 2020, we had the emerging local development plan for Aberdeen.
But as the new plan emerged, there was very quickly decided amongst decision makers that the park would have a different use. Obviously, things had developed with the port so we had the port taking over the Bay of Nigg and starting to creep, and then the powers that be decided, actually, that park looks just fine for a load of industrial units, so we'll have a bit of that as well. And obviously there's some money behind it.
So, I guess it feels a wee bit like a fait accompli. You know, it must feel like that to the community. It feels that there's no hope. We're done here. It's, you know, the decisions made. But actually, you know, we've been working for months now with the Friends of St Fittick's group to understand what legal avenues there are to challenge this.
And we have got avenues that we're investigating. So, this is not the end. This is very much the beginning. And it's going to be a long road ahead. That's a big process. I've just been through it with another community campaign and it's stressful. And it's time consuming. But if we don't stand up to these things, then no land in Scotland is safe, as Richard very wisely said on Radio Scotland yesterday.
[00:50:04] Speaker 1: Do you want to just turn to the person next to you, just because you've heard two quite different presentations. Just take a moment to think, to share what that feels like, having listened to the person with the hat, and then to Hannah, yeah? What did you get out of that? What were the differences in what was being said?
What were the different feelings with that? Just turn to the person next to you, just for a moment. Yeah.
[00:50:27] Scott Herritt: So my name is Scott Herritt. So I'm here representing Defence Sympathetics, which is this sort of campaign group, what got set up to protect the park. So, I moved to Torry about two and a half years ago, and I can remember going down into the park, and it was just before the, obviously the harbour's been getting built.
But I can remember going down into the park one day, a bit like today, walking down, and it's a really sunny day, walking down the hill, and there's just this natural amphitheater bowl looking out to the bayonet, and I just thought this is amazing. Like, this is an amazing place. And I basically ended up living here.
And so now, if you go down there, that is gone. That is all gone. Even though it's in the water, it's affected the park. And that's what's gonna happen if they take a third of that park and stick a long, big factory in which no one knows what it's for. So, I'm really, really, really angry. And I'm really angry because of obviously what's happening.
But I'm also angry because ETZ Limited decided not to come and look people in the eye. So I actually helped put another Assembly on which was more focused on basically looking at this idea of a community asset transfer of the park. And two years ago we asked them to come and present their plans.
And they said that the plans weren't ready so they didn't want to come. Since that time, it's been two years, and they've said exactly the same thing. So, I'm going to leave that up to your own conclusions, like what that actually means. It's not about any transition, it's about a private land grab of our land, of public land.
We all own this land, collectively, in common. That is what it's about. And that happens, not just in Aberdeen, that happens across the world. And we need to stop that, and the only people who are going to stop that is people like you. And I appreciate there's people, there's a mixture of people in from Torry and from outside of Torry.
This is happening in your communities as well. But the only way to change that is... likes of you getting together, wherever your communities are, and trying to sort of do something about it, and not relying on people in suits, in big offices to try and do something about it. It's only going to change if we do something about it.
As you probably can recognise from my voice, I'm not from Aberdeen, I'm from Grimsby. And so Grimsby's a place where it's like transitioned, and it's transitioned from fishing to basically nothing. And so it's had a big impact on parts of town which I grew up in. And so I think I just wanted to sort of highlight is that the Friends of St Fitticks support the real need for an energy transition and this idea of a just transition. And Aberdeen itself has gone through lots of different transitions. So, you've had like, obviously you had the granite industries, the ship building industries, the mills, the fishing, and then obviously you went into oil.
And so all those transitions have been imposed on the people, and the people have been in control of those transitions, essentially the same people who want to control this transition now. We have to find a way to control that and direct it so it's actually to the benefits and to the needs of people.
So whatever comes next, we need to try to find a way that we're sort of part and parcel of what happens. And I think, why not start that in here, in Torry? This, what we're doing today. That's what should happen. It should happen everywhere. So that's what I'm going to say.
I'm just wondering, do you want to say anything?
[00:54:18] Speaker 1: It really angers me that we've been selected yet again to sacrifice our space and our heritage and our nature for money, and I'm really pissed off about it. Sorry, I get a bit emotional.
If you all know me, you know I do cry a bit. So to say we are now responsible for Aberdeen's thriving economy if this zone goes ahead, and that's a hell of a responsibility to put on the community. If you don't give us this, Aberdeen won't fall. That is the message that we've been getting.
[00:54:57] Adrian Croft: My name is Adrian Croft and I'm a GP. I am the Clinical Lead at Torry Medical Practice. I'm the director of the Ribbidy Medical Group, which owns the practice. So, a couple of years ago, me and my colleagues decided we needed to write an open letter. Addressed essentially to the council and to the Scottish Government.
To explain why we were astounded and shocked at the decision to change the planning regulations and to plan for industrialization of the park. We have, sadly a life expectancy that's like 13 years less than the West End in this area of Banagas. You have a healthy life expectancy, more than 20, 25 years even, compared with the rest of the city, second to the West End. I mean, those are massive, massive differences.
But the evidence internationally shows that the benefits of green space are most marked in communities that have the worst health. The Scottish Government has polished hugely on green space, on the benefits of green space.
We urgently need massive investment for the energy and industrial transition. But this is not the technology to do it. This is not the place to do it. And this is definitely not the way to do it. I mean, we'd love to see our money going into technologies that are proven. Things that can deliver immediate, tangible benefits to our local communities. Like insulating our houses. The houses here are frequently very small, very cold, very damp.
So... they could quickly do something there that would massively improve insulation, for instance, in the community. And how cheap compared to the money they're pouring into this.
[00:56:50] Kaska Hempel: This is, of course, just a very short snapshot of the process, and only some of the issues that we're focused on. The afternoon continued to explore questions about why these problems keep happening, and how can Torry reclaim the power to make this a healthy community to grow up in?
Amongst all of the presentations, there was a lot of conversation and contribution from the audience. The format was varied across the day, and many voices were heard and recorded, just like Eva promised. The proceedings were also beautifully summarised in visual notes by Graphic Artist Rosie Bailuzzi.
You can see some of that record on the Torry People's Assembly social media channels which I linked in the show notes. At the end of the day, I asked a couple of others what they thought about the process.
[00:57:45] David McCubbin: My name is David McCubbin. I work for Third Sector Interface. Moray. Just started last month. I'm a Project Coordinator with a Just Transition project in Moray, which is part of the wider Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City. A project that's been coordinated by Nescan.
I've come here today to volunteer just to help set up and man the welcome desk but also just to see how an Assembly works and learn because although we're not doing Assemblies, we are doing deliberative events with the different communities in Moray that want to engage and have those conversations about whatever it might be and it isn't this top down, you know, whether it's government or councils or an organisation, so it's trying to get people involved so that they feel part of the process and the decision making.
It's very easy for people to not want to engage or say, well there's no point in being involved because I'm not going to make a difference but if we can show that you can make a difference it will inspire people and I think communities are looking at other communities to see what are they doing and then that spurs them on it's that kind of snowball effect.
[00:58:52] Kaska Hempel: What's the most useful thing you saw today and during the day?
[00:58:55] David McCubbin: What I really like about it is it feels very friendly and informal. There's no barriers. It's open to all. There's the entertainment for the children. There's nobody suited and booted. It just feels accessible to everybody. And you could see some people were coming on their own and people would go up and speak to them.
So you were given the opportunity to mingle. But nothing's forced and nobody's being made to say or do anything they don't want to. I know sometimes when I go to things and you think I just want to listen. I don't necessarily want the spotlight shining down on me or to be, you know, given a mic to go up in front of everybody because there's the opportunity to write stuff down, you know, the trees they're doing and the leaves and it's sort of open to all because this isn't everybody's cup of tea.
And this is really nice as well, outdoors. And, you know, they're in the place that one of the biggest challenges being faced at the minute and it's not just sort of in a community hall somewhere, it's here and the fact they did the tour earlier and that was really well attended so you could see this is where the proposals are.
I like the fact as well it's drop in and out so you can come for the whole day and I know ideally that's what you want. Actually some people might come and think oh I'll just, I'll drop in briefly and then oh this is all right actually and I'm gonna stay and then they stay and then they might come back tomorrow.
[01:00:10] Sarah Stroud: My name is Sarah Stroud and I'm a filmmaker. Yeah, so my feeling was like sometimes it felt like I was in group therapy. So it was really interesting like I loved when the chap speaking about psychotherapy and like for me I was really aware of the layers of the connections we have with the past and how we relive the cycles of things. I was just really aware of it being quite a therapeutic space. And how, you know, you're being given time so that you can speak and then people listen. Like that's something that you do quite often in 12 step programmes. It felt like really quite safe and a really nice nurturing space.
[01:00:47] Fiona McIntyre: Yeah, and you were allowed to be angry you know, I was saying that I felt like I was picking up on people's emotions and feeling things that I didn't think I expected to feel but through that process probably have healed a little bit as well, like kind of, or at least there's a sense that there's people to share with. Kind of thing, like, yeah.
My name's Fiona McIntyre. I run Greyhawk Bay, which is a local charity in Torry that aims to connect communities with our coast and heritage. We have a cafe up in Torry Battery, which has the best view of bottlenose dolphins. Because this is the community we serve, it's really important to us that maybe we can share what we have been able to do, but also just to kind of really get to know what are the issues and really...
Yeah, I kind of support the community in that, and even just in listening. And again, seeing the children and the old men, like, seeing the cross section of, like, so many different people, and also people that have travelled up for the event.
[01:01:49] Kaska Hempel: Right, we're interfering with serving of dinner, so we probably should back out.
But thank you for chatting.
That was the Assembly gathering. Lots and lots of going on in it. The second day was... It's equally busy with its focus on hearing input on how from local experience and then discussing strategies, next steps, and drafting an action plan. According to Rosie's graphic record, by the end of the assembly, a few ideas for practical action started emerging.
From community litter picks, basketball tournaments and nature activities at the park to raise awareness and make it an irresistible place for all in Torry, to door knocking campaigns to reach people in their own homes, discussing heating costs and time banking ideas, to a vision for a community led Torry Retrofit Project, creating local jobs alongside warmer homes.
Of course, the Assembly was just one point in the journey for this community. As someone said on the day, it's a long journey, and this is only the beginning, and there's been many beginnings. But it'd be interesting to see how this beginning may go forward. I asked Eva to comment on what needs to happen next for such people led Assemblies to turn into productive beginnings.
[01:03:15] Eva Schonveld: We talk about there being three main pathways. So, pathway one is what the community could do for itself. Pathway two is like stuff that we want to happen that needs to interact with current power holders. That might be the council, that might be national government, that might be funders. But these are things that are going to take more work and more preparation.
Pathway three is a really interesting pathway that's sort of imaginary at the moment, which is to do with the kind of things that I've been saying is like, what could communities achieve? If they decided to step into responsibility for decision making. What could we achieve together if we connected our Assemblies and used deliberation to have really, really juicy, generative conversations about how we could do things really differently.
How we could change our communities and change our way of life in a way that means everybody gets their basic needs met. Which they currently don't, and also where we're not polluting the planet that we rely on to survive. These are kind of absolutely crucial questions of the moment, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be us in the places that we live who come up with the responses to that.
Because fundamentally... that's what humans are for. Humans are for living in a place, having families and friends, and cooperating and collaborating with the natural world. We've given our power away to this kind of system, which feels impenetrable, and it also feels inevitable, because it's all we've ever known.
But it's not how humans have always lived. We cannot continue to live like this. And we all know that. There's got to be changes. And to be kind of creative and collaborative and cooperative in how we make those changes so that people don't get hurt in the process. Feels like, well, this is the window that we've got to do it that way.
And it's much better than the alternatives.
[01:05:19] Kaska Hempel: Great. Yes, great call to action. So, organising something like this, it sounds really involved as a process. Is there help available, or funding?
[01:05:31] Eva Schonveld: I think this is one of the really big stumbling blocks with this whole thing, is that it takes a lot to organise and there isn't currently money around for people to do Assemblies.
It may be that as a result of this... Scottish Government will extend, because this is coming from Just Transition funding, which is being piloted in the North East and may be rolled out across the whole country. They may decide that Assemblies are a good thing, community run Assemblies, are a good thing, so there may be money coming from that.
And there may be money coming through the climate hubs. If communities are saying, we want to have Assemblies, and this is what we're applying for grants to do, if the hubs think that those are important, then they would be able to put funds that way. And the last thing I would say is that we've got a training and we're planning to run a training up in the North East.
Basically, it's an assembly catalysts training. It's for people who might then go off and set up a steering group and do all this kind of outreach. And we're going to develop, hopefully, if we get the funding, next year, a facilitators training, which we would work with Go Deep, who's another one of the partners in the NESCAN process.
[01:06:41] Kaska Hempel: How do you take... the ideas forward. Do you have any feeling for that and what would be the most powerful thing that people can do or an outcome from an Assembly that can happen?
[01:06:53] Eva Schonveld: Well, this Assembly in Torry will have this declaration that will include a plan. Or at least the beginnings of a plan for how we're going to move forward.
And that might include small local initiatives that local people have, you know, discovered that there's other people who are keen on whatever it is. And also requests or slash demands to the council of things that need to be taken up in Torry. And all of that requires following up. And so for a big chunk of the money that we're putting forward for years two and three is for somebody to work in Torry basically to drive forward the outcomes of the Assembly.
Because before we went to Torry, we just had no sense of how little capacity there is in some communities who just had the stuffing knocked out of them. And while there might be, there might be a group of people who could just carry on, just kind of integrate this with the work that they're already doing for nothing on behalf of the community.
And I expect that is what will happen to begin with. There's a real need to have resource for individuals or small groups who can take things forward on behalf of their communities. Being fed into by these broad community led processes.
[01:08:14] Kaska Hempel: This is by no means an exhaustive guide in deliberative democracy.
So if you're interested in learning more about how this kind of work can help your own community, NESCAN will be shortly publishing a set of resources relating to the first round of deliberative democratic process pilots across the communities in the North East, including... the community led Assemblies like the one in Torry.
You can also join assembly catalyst training in Aberdeen starting on the 6th of October. SCCAN has invited Open Source to additionally deliver such training across Scotland in January, so look out for registration details coming out on our channels later this year. I've put the relevant links in the episode notes for you, including more information about the ongoing fight to save St Fittick's Park. I'm fascinated to find out how this story unfolds in the future. I'll leave the last words today to Torry Bears, knitted by Lynne for her table at the welcoming tent.
[01:09:18] Lynne Restrup: So, there's just a bit of a play on the word Torry. We are the Torry Bears. It is our territory and we love its history. Please share your own story at Torry People's Assembly.
Together we can be victorious. It's just a bit of fun to show that it's not all serious and doom and gloom. We can have a laugh for ourselves.
[01:10:01] Kaska Hempel: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a like and share it with others. It'll really help us reach a wider audience. If something exciting is happening in your own community, be sure to let us know so that we can help you tell your own story. You can drop our Story Weavers a line at stories at SCCAN.scot.
It's SCCAN, S C C A N. scot S C O T
We also offer training and mini grant support to community storytellers. To keep up to date with our offerings and everything SCCAN, check out our website at SCCAN. scot or find us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or simply sign up to the newsletter.
Today’s Everyday Changemaker is Peter Moffatt, Transition Black Isle trustee and a man behind its website. Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, caught up with him at SCCAN’s Northern Gathering in Inverness on the 16th of September.
Credits:
Interview and audio production: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Transition Black Isle https://www.transitionblackisle.org/
Transition Network (worldwide) https://transitionnetwork.org/
Transition Together (Britain) https://transitiontogether.org.uk/ (SCCAN is part of this project/network)
Transition Black Isle Million Miles Project 2012-15 https://www.transitionblackisle.org/million-miles-project.asp
Million Miles Project in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/23/carbon-cutting-transport-scheme-helping-black-isle-go-green-scottish-highlands
21 Stories of Transition (book produced for COP21), including a story about the Million Miles Project https://transitionnetwork.org/resources/21-stories-of-transition-pdf-to-download/
Highland Good Food Partnership https://highlandgoodfood.scot/
Highland Community Waste Partnership https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/highland-community-waste-partnership/
James Rebanks English Pastoral https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/03/english-pastoral-by-james-rebanks-review-how-to-look-after-the-land
Gorge Monbiot Regenesis https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/05/regenesis-by-george-monbiot-review-hungry-for-real-change
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kaska Hempel: It's Kaska, your Story Weaver. What a weekend it's been. Still buzzing after our members Northern Gathering on the 16th of September. I met some amazing people on the day and workshopped all sorts of ways in which stories and storytelling can help us all think about a better future for our communities.
As always, there was simply not enough time to chat to everyone about everything. But since I already travelled all the way to the north, I also took time to visit several amazing community groups around Inverness for Everyday Changemakers interviews. And honestly, I can't wait to share those soon in the podcast as well as a wee place based audio tour I'm going to put together for you.
I road tested the tour by cycling around the project locations and I think the stories will make for a fantastic way to explore Inverness on a bike, either in person or online. But today I wanted to share my chat with Peter Moffat from Transition Black Isle, which is based on Black Isle, just north of Inverness.
As usual, you can find out more about the stories and resources behind this community group from links I popped into the show notes for you. I met Peter at the gathering itself, where he was holding an information stall for his group. And at lunchtime, we stepped outside the Merkinch Community Centre to record our conversation.
[00:01:26] Peter Moffatt: I'm Peter Moffatt. I'm one of the trustees of Transition Black Isle.
I have been since 2015. I live at the eastern end of the Black Isle, not far from Muir of Ord, two fields away from the Black Isle Dairy, which is a very, it's one of the few dairy farms in the north of Scotland. It has an enterprising young owner who runs a farm shop.
[00:01:51] Kaska Hempel: Tell me about a favourite place where you live.
[00:01:55] Peter Moffatt: There's a walk we do just round the fields from the back of the house, which goes along at one stage, an avenue of beach trees looking over the fields towards the Beauly Firth. And it's a wonderful view. And it's just walking around the fields, and it's great.
The other way we sometimes go is down over the fields to Conon Bridge, and then along the River Conon. There's a lovely old graveyard a mile or two along there, which not many people know about. But it's a wonderful place to go and think about the people who've gone before you basically, and a very pleasant, enjoyable walk.
[00:02:32] Kaska Hempel: How come you got involved in community climate action? What's been your journey?
[00:02:37] Peter Moffatt: I can't think of anything particular that sort of started me off.
I joined Transition Black Isle as a result of talking to somebody at a stall they were running at an event in Muir of Ord, which I think was something to do with a transport proposal and went on from there really. I admitted to the fact that I had worked with computers and I promptly got captured as it were because the person that currently ran the website lived in Aberdeen and wasn't very active.
So first thing I did was become responsible for editing the Transition Black Isle website, which i've been doing ever since. I'm not sure how many people actually look at it regularly, but I do try and keep it updated with information about climate change and climate activities and government policy and the council, what the council's doing.
I quite enjoy it, but I can't go on doing it forever, obviously. But there's nobody looking... To come and take over.
[00:03:31] Kaska Hempel: What about before you joined Transition? Were you interested in climate issues or environmental issues before then?
[00:03:38] Peter Moffatt: I can't remember. I've always been interested in the sort of countryside issues. My father was a farm manager, so I grew up interested in farming and used to go and work on a cousin's farm during the summer holidays when I was a student and on the farm at home as well.
So I suppose that's interest in nature and the outdoors and I've also been interested in mountaineering all my life. Where there's concern with climate change, I suppose it grew up, as it grew up generally, not very long ago. Despite the fact that people have been warning about it for the last 50 years, people only generally started to take notice relatively recently.
I remember being particularly struck by Greta Thunberg's initial school strike for climate as it was when she sat down outside the Swedish parliament. And she was on the website as soon as she did that, and I've been supporting her as strongly as I can ever since. So setting a fine example.
I don't know honestly where my personal concern with climate change as such began. Possibly as a result of joining Transition Black Isle.
[00:04:50] Kaska Hempel: When I say transition movement, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
[00:04:55] Peter Moffatt: The idea of trying to move from the status quo business as usual consumerist society to a more sustainable way of life basically. And that was the founding idea of the transition movement. When it began in Totnes, how much transition is actually taking place. Some of the ideas that they had aren't really being applied, I don't think.
There were transition groups were supposed to have energy reduction plans which would progressively reduce the amount of energy consumed in the local area and change its nature. So it was more from renewables. That's not really happening, which is not to say that Transition Black Isle and other groups, whether they're transition groups formally or not, aren't doing a lot of good work.
They are and there's an amazing number of them, but I can't help feeling that for all the good they're doing, you know, merely scratching the surface of what actually needs to be done.
[00:05:53] Kaska Hempel: What makes you the proudest in terms of achievements? of Transition Black Isle.
[00:05:59] Peter Moffatt: Major achievement was something they called the Million Miles Project which was a project aimed at reducing car use on the Black Isle by a million miles over a period of two years I think the project ran and it was amazingly successful, a lot of support.
It actually became the number one story in a book of 20 stories published by the transition movement, I think for one of the COP climate conferences. And we were quite proud of that. Apart from that, recently we are involved as partners in two very important co operative ventures. One is the Highland Good Food Partnership, which grew out of a series of online discussions which were held about two years ago I think.
The other more recent initiative is something called the Highland Community Waste Partnership, which involves eight groups throughout the Highlands. Which is led by Keep Scotland Beautiful and is aiming to raise awareness of waste and reduce waste, particularly food waste, in local communities.
A lot of good work being done. How widely it's being recognised, I'm not sure.
I mean, if you ask your average person on the Black Isle about the Highland Community Waste Partnership, I'm not sure they'd have heard of it. But perhaps that's because we're not publicising it well enough. But there is a lot of hard work being done.
[00:07:35] Kaska Hempel: Who or what inspires you personally?
[00:07:39] Peter Moffatt: That's difficult. Greta Thunberg for one. Talking about food and farming. James Rebanks. Excellent, fascinating book. English Pastoral I think it was called.
He is trying to recognise the sort of traditional values in farming as it ought to be practiced. Involved in the landscape and the countryside, he's in the Lake District, so it's obviously a certain type of land, sheep farming, which some people would say we should do away with, but if it's there, then he seems to set a fine example of how to do it in the right sort of attitude to the land and so on.
Somebody else I would mention is George Monbiot, writer and journalist and activist. Everything he says is pretty sensible. Some people are a bit dubious about his idea that we should replace all beef and dairy farming with industrially fermented protein generated from microbes, fed on carbon dioxide and hydrogen, which apparently you can eat.
It doesn't sound, it would be very appetizing, shall we say. But the chances of doing away with the entire meat and dairy industry, which people say we need to do in order if we're going to reduce environmental damage and feed people adequately, is well, it's a big ask and, it's difficult to see how it could ever come about.
I was just reading Tim Spector saying the same thing, basically, about the need to drastically reduce the amount of land devoted to producing crops to feed cattle for beef.
And we should all be eating more plant food instead. Which is undoubtedly true and unlikely to come about, unfortunately, which is one of my reasons for not being a climate optimist.
[00:09:31] Kaska Hempel: Since we're talking about meat and not eating meat, do you have a favourite vegetarian or vegan dish?
[00:09:36] Peter Moffatt: I make something which is called by the uninviting name of Veggie Grot. Which is in fact a vegetable it's a sort of... vegetable crumble, really with a sort of cheese and breadcrumbs topping. And it contains whatever vegetables come to hand, lightly cooked in the oven. It's popular with our friends.
I take it to mountaineering club meets and they all eat it eagerly enough. I'm not completely vegetarian, i'm certainly not vegan, but the idea of a vegan cheese or vegan sausages, I find difficult to accept. I know they exist. All our sandwiches today were vegan, I'm told. But we don't eat a lot of meat.
My wife and I are largely sort of 75 percent vegetarian, I would say, at least. And I like vegetables. I grow vegetables in the garden. And it's very satisfying to eat your own produce.
[00:10:25] Kaska Hempel: Where in the world are you happiest?
[00:10:28] Peter Moffatt: Where am I happiest? In a sunlit wood, preferably with a burn flowing by, or on the top of a Scottish mountain.
[00:10:42] Kaska Hempel: Now the final question, I always ask people to imagine the place they live in, ten years from now.
Imagine that we've done everything possible to limit the impact of climate change and create a better and fairer world.
And share one memory from that future with our listeners.
[00:11:02] Peter Moffatt: Quite honestly, I think it will be very little different from what it is now. If, some of the ideas that have been proposed in the local place plan that is currently being prepared for the Black Isle and will be presented to the council at the end of this month. If some of them were to come to fruition, then the Black Isle would have a better transport system.
It would have lots of affordable housing available for local people. It would have more local food production. Better care for old people. And safer cycle routes and so on. Transition Black Isle has been working for years on an active travel route, cycle path basically, between Avoch and Munlochy, and we have been frustrated.
It's a question of getting a hold of the land, and there has been reluctance in some quarters to make land available.
[00:12:03] Kaska Hempel: And if you can share one sound or smell or taste of that future, what would it be?
[00:12:08] Peter Moffatt: I would like to think it was the sound of Curlews and we used to hear them over the fields outside the house. We were in Shetland a little while ago looking out over the pasture which should have been busy with Curlews and Lapwings and there was nothing there at all. Whether anything is likely to change to the extent that these birds become more numerous than they are at the moment, I don't know.
It's unlikely, but it would be nice. I would love to hear Lapwings calling over the fields outside our house on a regular basis.
[00:12:38] Kaska Hempel: I'm going to ask you if there's anything else that you wanted to add for our listeners.
[00:12:44] Peter Moffatt: If you're interested and concerned about climate change and so on, just think whether you could make that little bit extra effort and volunteer for organisations like Transition Black Isle. There are plenty of other organisations on the Black Isle and elsewhere. Offer to volunteer, offer to become a trustee maybe and take a bit of responsibility.
It's not very much. Put your good intentions into practice. Transition Black Isle has an online newsletter with a subscriber list of about 480 people. It has a membership of about 150. It has six trustees, needs more, and it is sometimes difficult to get people, especially young people, to volunteer to help with activities.
There's a serious lack of young people coming forward, whether it's because they think it's an old fogey's group. I don't know. But we need more involvement by people who are obviously concerned, but just need to take a step forward and put that concern into voluntary action and actually help the climate movement on its way.
Kaska Hempel, our Story Weaver, interviews Tom Nockolds, who is one of the people behind the community-driven retrofit project, Loco Home Retrofit, based in Glasgow.
This episode complements video recordings of presentations from the "SCCAN Member Networking and Skillshare Meet up: Talking about Retrofitting", which took place on 25 August 2023. You can find them on SCCAN YouTube channel.
Credits:
Interview and audio production: Kaska Hempel.
Resources:
SCCAN YouTube channel with the recording from the members skillshare on community-led retrofitting, 25th August 2023: https://www.youtube.com/@scottishcommunitiesclimate6914/videos
Loco Home Retrofit https://locohome.coop/
SEDA Retrofit conference, 15-16 September 2023 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/seda-conference-2023-progressing-retrofit-comfort-health-affordability-tickets-692329465067
Listen to an inspiring example of work by a tranditional storyteller in residence, helping community of Fittie in Aberdeen come together and face the past, present and future of the place where they live and love. Story was developed and perfomed by Cara Silversmith, with an introduction from our Story Weaver Lesley Anne.
Resources
Cara Silversmith's website: https://www.carasilversmith.com/
Cara's reflection on developing this story on her own podcast, "What of the Ground we’re standing on”: https://whatoftheground.podbean.com/e/commissioned-stories-honouring-truth-and-telling-stories-with-love/
1000 Better Stories Member of the Month: Fittie Community Development Trust https://sccan.scot/blog/member-of-the-month-the-fittie-community-development-trust/
Safe Harbour, Open Sea project https://www.openroadltd.com/projects/culture-collective/
Today Roz Littwin reads "Long Live Lenny", her short story creatively exploring the good work of the Edinburgh Remakery.
Roz’s story was originally published on the 1000 Better Stories blog and funded by one of our storytelling mini-grants. The grants fund contributions to 1000 Better Stories Blog and Podcast. They are open for applications now with a deadline at the end of July and another one at the end of October. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot to find out more.
Credits:
Roz Littwin - text, recording and narration Kaska Hempel - production
Resources:
Edinburgh Remakery https://www.edinburghremakery.org.uk/
1000 Better Stories blog https://sccan.scot/1000-better-stories/1000-better-stories-blog/
Storytelling mini-grants https://sccan.scot/1000-better-stories/
Our Everyday Changemaker today is Ruth McLaren, Arran EcoSavvy's project and communications development officer.
Credits: Interview, recording and edit by Madeleine Scobie, Sound production by Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Arran Eco Savvy website: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/
Green Islands Net Zero project: https://arranecosavvy.org.uk/green-islands-plans/
Project Videos
Zero Waste Cafe: https://vimeo.com/796376962/ce499f02e2
Active Travel Hub: https://vimeo.com/799647519/663c6e3da1
Community Shop: https://vimeo.com/826523465/3f3863284a?share=copy
In the first episode of our Everyday Changemakers shorts series we meet Carolyn Powell from Huntly Development Trust who's working on community-led town centre regeneration.
Credits: Produced by Kaska Hempel
Resources
Trust Website: https://www.huntlydt.org/
Number 30/Town Centre development: https://www.huntlydt.org/what-we-do/town-centre
Carolyn’s bio https://www.huntlydt.org/about-us/people
New Economics Foundation https://neweconomics.org/
Climate Action Towns (Architecture and Design Scotland): https://www.ads.org.uk/resource/climate-action-towns
Climate Action Towns film: https://youtu.be/ZMj9PMrUwjs
We share an episode from Collaborative Mobility UK podcast channel. CoMoUK is the national charity dedicated to the social, economic and environmental benefits of shared transport. Among many other things they provide excellent support and resources for community groups wanting to set up shared car or bike clubs.
The story explores some of the opportunities and challenges faced by community car clubs, and features three guests speaking about their experiences running a car club and navigating challenges including insurance, pricing, and sustainability:
- Malcolm McFarlane from Kinross-shire Movegreener in Kinross, Scotland
- Mike Callaghan from Local Energy Action Plan (LEAP) in Lochwinnoch, Scotland
- Andrew Capel from Llani Car Club in Llanidloes, Wales
For more stories from CoMoUK, see their Shared Transport Podcast on podbean: https://comouk.podbean.com/. You can also find it on all main podcasting apps.
Credits: Produced by Paul Bristow for CoMoUK
Resources
CoMoUK website: https://www.como.org.uk/
CoMoUK Shared Transport Podcast: https://comouk.podbean.com/
1000 Better Stories episode: An honest look at one community’s car and bike clubs about the Porty Community Energy project https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-bz9wn-1387976
Car-shares
Movegreener: https://www.movegreener.org/
Local Energy Action Plan (LEAP): https://www.myleapproject.org/
Llani Car Club: https://www.llanicarclub.co.uk/
Porty Community Energy: https://portycommunityenergy.wordpress.com/
What can we learn from the multigenerational wisdom of Gaelic tradition bearers about reconnecting our communities to places where we live, to our past and to our future in the changing climate?
To explore these questions, Our Story Weaver, Lesley Anne, talked to Gaelic Officer for CHARTS, Àdhamh Ó Broin, about his journey into Gaelic tradition-bearing and activism, the role of land-based ritual in modern world and seven-generation thinking.
The interview was inspired by the Spring equinox event, “Dùthchas Beò revitalising reciprocity with the Gaelic landscape”. This took place at ancient sacred sites of Kilmartin and Knapdale in Argyle and was a collaboration between Àdhamh and SCCAN’s network coordinator for Argyle and Bute, Marie Stonehouse.
Resources:
CHARTS https://www.chartsargyllandisles.org/
Dùthchas Beò event https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/556630325287
Gaelic pronunciation https://learngaelic.net/dictionary/index.jsp
“The Good Ancestor – How to think long term in short-term world” by Roman Krznaric https://www.romankrznaric.com/good-ancestor
“Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18693771
In today’s episode we continue our story on ins and outs of creating a Community Climate Action Plan, based on Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work over the last couple of years.
Kaska chats to the most recent participant in KSB’s community planning project, a community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk. We hear from John Hosie, Community Safety Engager who brought together the core planning group, and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya, with their teacher Lilly who took part in the planning sessions.
Their planning group was a partnership between Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill, Tamfourhill Community Hub, Tidy Clean and Green Group, Forth Valley Sensory Centre, Go Forth and Clyde and Falkirk High School.
We end the story with a few tips and KSB’s future plans from Heather.
Listen to the previous episode for PART 1 of the story with the overview from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth and a conversation with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir, about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
Credits
Interview, recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/
Camelon and Tamfourfill climate action plan https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/community-climate-action-plan-camelon-and-tamfourhill/
The Place Standard Tool (with climate lens) https://www.ourplace.scot/About-Place-Standard
Community Climate Action Plans (CCAPs) - what are they, how does one go about making a good one and is it worth the hassle? To answer these questions over the next couple of episodes, we talk about Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work with communities to help them with such planning.
We get an overview of the project from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth, and follow with in-depth conversations with two, very different, communities involved in the scheme.
In today’s episode we chat to Kate Munro, Committee Chair, and Christine Kydd, Biodiversity Volunteer, from Sustainable Kirriemuir, one of the pilot communities in the KSB’s CCAP project. We close with a very wee tour of the Kirrie Community Garden from Fiona Cameron, Project Administrator and Emily Hutchison, Community Gardener.
And in a couple of weeks, in part 2, we follow up with a story from the most recent participant, community of Camelon and Tomfourhill, near Falkirk.
Credits
Production, interviews and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Sustainable Kirriemuir Climate Action Plan: https://www.sustainablekirriemuir.co.uk/our-projects/future-kirrie/
We cross over from our 1000 Better Stories Blog today as Joana Avi-Lorie interviews another one of our mini-grant recipients, Jo Gilbert. Jo is a spoken word artist and writer from Aberdeen, who writes in Doric and English. They talk about their journey into poetry, class, challenges in connecting to nature, and the importance of diversity of voices in conversations about climate action.
This is a companion interview to the “No Nature to Nature” poem which will be published in full Doric and English versions on our 1000 Better Stories blog in April.
CreditsInterview and recording: Joana Avi-LorieSound edit: Kaska HempelPoem: “No Nature to Nature” by Jo Gilbert
ResourcesJo Gilbert https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/jo-gilbert Poetry at Parliament event https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/poetry-in-parliament/ Jo’s poetic inspirations:Loud Poets https://www.iamloud.co/about Katie Ailes https://katieailes.com/ Jen Hadfield https://twitter.com/hadfield_jenKatrina Naomi https://www.katrinanaomi.co.uk/ Alycia Pirmohamed https://alycia-pirmohamed.com/
Hazel Darwin Clements, the project co-ordinator at Porty Community Energy, shares an honest look at what communities can do to share cars and bikes. She has helped start a peer-to-peer car share club and run an eCargo cycle library trial this year with the mission to help people reduce their car use and make local travel more pleasant. We hear from representatives of CoMoUk and HiyaCar as well as professor Jillian Anable, Chair in Transport and Energy at the University of Leeds, and members of the community who have been involved with the projects.
Hazel's work was supported by one of SCCAN storytelling mini-grants. They are closed to new applicants but will hopefully reopen in April 2023. Get in touch with our Story Weavers on stories@sccan.scot.
Credits
Production: Hazel Darwin-Clements
Music: Coma-Media from Pixabay
Resources:
- Porty Community Energy: https://portycommunityenergy.wordpress.com/
- Porty Community Bikes: https://portycommunitybike.myturn.com/library/
- Contact: portycommunityenergy@gmail.com
- CoMoUK https://www.como.org.uk/
- Hiyacar https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/
- 1000 Better Stories episode with CoMoUK on community bike shares: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-6we6s-104934e
- 1000 Better Stories episode with Hazel's story on setting up a community fridge: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-van9y-11f9eea
Transcript:
Kaska: Hi, I’m Kaska, one of SCCAN’s Story Weavers. In today’s episode we have a story from one of our mini-grant recipients, Hazel Darwin Clements. She takes an honest look at the community car and bike shares she’s been setting up in Portobello in Edinburgh. If you’re interested in community-run bike shares you might also enjoy our previous episode we produced with CoMoUK, released in May 2021. Our storytelling mini-grants are closed to new applicants at the moment but we’re hoping to reopen them again in April. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot if you are interested in applying for one. Now – over to Hazel!
Hazel: Hi, I’m Hazel and welcome to this podcast about what communities can do to share vehicles. I’m going to give the first word today to Professor Julian Annabel speaking at the CoMoUK shared transport conference in December ‘22. I went along, virtually, to look for inspiration on what we can do in our community, in Portobello and this talk really struck me.
Julian: Let's focus on the fact that the UN just last month. Brought some really frightening, but I think to be frank, refreshing honesty, that really ought to be the first line that each of us are using every time we introduce our particular initiatives. They said there's no credible pathways to keeping us within safe carbon limits, and by this, what they mean is that there's no country that has come up with the right combination of measures to do this, to keep us on these pathways.
They have said there is just about time for us to do so. But the fact is that none of these packages of policies exist out there and there are no exceptions. The eu, the UK in particular, and for transport, it's very complicated obviously, but there's no pathways left for decarbonizing the transport sector without deep cuts in car use by 2030.
In half a dozen years time, and those deep cuts in car use are of at least 20% reduction in the amount that cars are used from today's levels. And this is alongside really ambitious uptake of EVs. More ambitious than, than some of us are going for it at the moment. And the the cuts are unnecessary, in part to compensate for the fact that heavy goods vehicles need a bit.
To do their thing.
Hazel: Professor Annabel’s work at the University of Leeds at the Institute for Transport Studies focusses on understanding travel behaviour and travel patterns and how we can use that knowledge to reduce carbon emissions. And here is something I did not know.
Julian: We’re talking then about a scale of change that has not happened anywhere in the world other than maybe into in some small pockets of best practice cities.
And we aspire to places like the Netherlands where they've got 29% of trips on the bike. The Dutch. Are as carbon intensive in their travel as we are. They're per average, per capita. Carbon emissions from traveling in the Netherlands is the same as in the UK because they love their cars, they have big cars, and frankly, car use is not restricted in the Netherlands.
So we don't even know how to do what we've got to do. So my main message for you today is for you to all, to be more honest. I'm not accusing you of lying, but I am accusing you of focusing on your individual interventions and growing the patronage, and growing the use of your individual interventions and really ignoring the fact that what we need to do is get people outta their cars onto these interventions and that we cannot do that unless we couple these interventions with significant car restraint.
Hazel: Amazing. So, how are we going to do that? What will really get people out of their cars?
I don’t have the answer yet. But you know that. You also see the steady stream of single occupancy cars flowing by right? I can’t hear what my daughter is telling me from her buggy because of the roar of them and you’re all still breathing in the fumes that are steadily destroying any credible pathway to keeping us within safe carbon limits. But you are here listening, I am here talking and you never know maybe we can figure it out.
In 2022 I was given the opportunity to work for Porty Community Energy a few hours every week. If felt like an exciting year. We set up a bike library project trial and a peer-to-peer car club. We made a start. But it does feel a bit like being the first person to get up on the dance floor. Are you all gonna get up and join in?
Let me tell you about it. We’ll start with the cars, but do stay for the bikes (they are the more fun bit!)
Here is Hannah Box from CoMoUK speaking at a community workshop we held last summer.
Hannah: So we have car club research and bike share research, which is great for producing statistics that we can use to kind of convince people that we need to do a bit more sharing in our. Hannah gave a presentation about some of the latest research into transport and in Scotland the, our transport emissions are about 35, 30 6% of the total emissions of that cars make up about 40%.
So quite a large portion is just us moving about in, in vehicles. So what can we do? Well, we can share. So this is from our research from 2021. So we've published this just last month. This revealed that car clubs in Scotland have the potential to reduce about 17 private cars. So one car club car can replace those 17 cars.
Hazel: That one really struck me when I heard that 17 cars could be removed for every car club car I would walk down the street counting the cars and imagining them disappearing. 2, 3, 4, 5. I live on a street where cars park on both sides. It so happens there are 17 cars on either side, so that's the whole of one side of the street clear replaced by just one car, club car. Hannah then told us all about the different types of car sharing models.
Hannah: There's not kind of like a one solution fits all. So, you know, we may find through discussions today that there is more than one option that could work here. Two options might work really well together.
You've got independent car clubs, franchise working with a franchise, you've got peer-to-peer car sharing, and then you've got, uh, Lyft sharing or ride sharing. So which one of these options would work best in our c. Well, first we needed to start the conversation about how we travel and how it might work better.
Hazel: So which one of these options would work best in our community? Well first we needed to start the conversation about how we travel, and how might work better.
Workshop: So we're just gonna move around the different stations. There's train, cycle, car, bus, walk, or wheel other. So walk around, just watch. There's a cable here that's a little bit hidden. Health and safety. So if everyone wants to stand up, going to do a big shop. What? How do you travel?
No judgment, just for fun. No judgment. Nobody's looking at what you're doing. They're only thinking about themselves. (people moving around)
Hazel: At the end of the workshop people seemed most keen on the idea of a peer to peer car club. Some people were willing to share vehicles they already own with a group of trusted people. We got in touch with Keith at Hiya Car which seemed like our best option, here he is explaining some background about what they offer communities at a Zoom Q&A.
Keith: Just to give you a bit of background about how we've come to the closed loop car sharing setup is that we were approached about 18 months ago by a lady called Emily Kerr, who was very keen to share cars in Oxford, and she gave us a lot of. Very good feedback about people were very keen to share their cars, but they wanted to do it to people that they've trusted and their neighbors as opposed to people that they didn't know.
So we spent quite a lot of time working with Emily in Oxford. Um, and we've come up with this closed loop set up whereby we can set up a, a group who can list their cars within that. And they will only be available to a trusted group of people that are allowed to join that network. But we've managed to do that on the back of the wider peer-to-peer platform that we've been working on since 2015.
We've come up with a bespoke car sharing insurance. System. Just a bit of background on that. The insurance company that we've been working with on this for the last four years are now the biggest investor in the company as well. We've also worked on the app, you know, it, it is tried and tested now, and it is working.
We now have nine closed loops within Oxford itself and across the uk. We've set up 25 closed loops, and that's include including the, the Portobello one as.
So we are using Hiya Car but we also have a WhatsApp group and I will now give you a flavour of this:
Ping
We’ve made up our minds, and decided we’d love to be part of this group but we’re not going to be contributing our car. This is because we’ve decided to sell Smifu, our Zoe. It’s great, but we need the cash, not the car. Know anyone looking to buy?
Ping
What's the reg number (So I can look up price estimates.)
I think 'Zoe' is a nicer name than 'Smifu'
Ping
It's in his original message
Ping
Well, only if you actually read the whole thing
Ping
I hate to contradict, but it's there whether you read it or not. Or perhaps we're getting all "if a tree falls down in a forest, with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" LOL
Ping
Ah, I thought this was the car share group, not philosophyLOL
Ping
Welcome Ray! Ray mostly cycles but it would be useful to have a car for some trips like buying plants and escaping to the countryside.
Ping
(Chimzy) Thanks Hazel and thanks to all the people who own cars and are willing to have people like me borrow them!
Ping
(Sian) Welcome Ray! Great to have you in the group.
Ping
We’re off to Mull in April. Would anyone have a car available then? Not too small, ideally.
Ping
Yes. We're on holiday then.
Ping
We've just had our first booking, it's for two hours this evening. Jo’s being charged £22.16. We earn £4.20. Apparently Enterprise is cheaper. Seems a strange pricing system if it produces this.
Ping
Enterprise vehicles the size we have in Porty are ~6.50 per hour
Ping
Ours is a bigger car, which she needs for what she's picking up.
Still seems odd
Ping
Yes it’s very weird. We hired one with this group for three days and we paid £160 (which was a way better price than we’d have paid through hiring a car) but the owner received only £67.
ping
I think we can do way better than this. Bless Hiya car for getting us started, but could we not find out what insurance costs for a day, and then organise via this WhatsApp list?
Ping
Sorry just catching up here. Enterprise charges a yearly fee for the car club also a cost per mile (this is from past experience) I found it to end up quite expensive also the van I hired was so dirty on the inside that we spent at least 30 minutes cleaning it (was moving soft furnishings)
So, if we’re honest here it’s not all plain sailing, but there’s a group of people committed to working it out and smoothing the glitches. I was invited to the home of car club members Duncan Wallace and Polly Bennett have a chat about their experiences so far as car owners offering out their car.
And how's it, how has it been working so far? Well, we've connected as humans and started to share our assets and worked out our systems and processes and relationships and the problems around it have now been overcome.
In the old days, there used to be a lot of problems about sharing insurance ideas and ownership ideas, and the insurance and ownership companies absolutely were blocking anybody to car sharing naturally, whereas humans were perfectly up for it. They just didn't know how to do it. So any challenges, people are obsessed about having their own stuff and the car historically used to represent a status symbol for some reason, and a sense of private good. You know, there aren't really publicly available publicly owned cars. We think it's a private good and individuals have to keep them, obviously according to health and safety, but individuals also have to keep them as theirs and Colour, the colour that they want them and whereas actually it's a shed on four wheels that moves you about, we're a bit obsessed about the privacy of cars. That I think is one of the challenges. I was thinking that it's, um, you know, we see it as a tool. We see our car as a tool and then it's part of this very important move to tool libraries and to, you know, other ways of sharing things.
Most of the time that car just sits, just sitting out there. Most of the time we're not using it. You know, we use it occasionally. Yeah. It's like tools in the tool shed. Yeah. And our car is, you know, people don't have to worry. They don't, they can take their dogs in. They can take their kids, they can get sound all over it.
They can, you know, we, for us it's a fairly relaxed object. Um, there's no point in cleaning it too much cuz. Just get filthy again in three seconds. You know, ultimately I would be someone who didn't really want private ownership about a vehicle, but would want more of a shared resource that was accessible by all.
Because we have dogs, you can't, you are literally not allowed to rent a car. So, you know, there, there are some barriers in the way for us to just do that kind of thing, and that's why we currently have a car. It became difficult for us to function in life. Um, , that's not very good . It's not very good that you have to go and get a car in order to take your dogs to wherever.
What you really want is an equipment depot that you have a relationship with the equipment, you know how the equipment works, but also someone can show you how it works and you can choose which equipment you need for what trip, and then you can keep turning adventures. Capitalism doesn't like that kind of cooperation, but actually it's right here in the street.
You know how many cars are out there un used. Right now, you know plenty. I know the key holders cuz I know people on my street. That's just a conversation. That's the point is that they could come and borrow us, we could borrow our layers. We trust systems, you know, therefore you've created a system.
That's what we need. Yeah. Um, we need an assumption that there's a system and the fact that somebody in, in your role means the system's being regulated and that's what we need.
Hazel: For a while we hung on to our car because we wanted to sometimes take our canoe for a trip somewhere. You can’t put a canoe on a hire vehicle. In the end we decided we couldn’t justify keeping up a car for that, so we sold it. Then last summer, after setting up the peer-to-peer car club we were able to borrow a vehicle from someone locally for a little cash, and they didn’t mind us putting the canoe on it. But we haven’t needed a car since. But we could use one and that possibility is of value to us. Some people in the group felt like it wasn’t working because the cars weren’t being borrowed enough. But knowing it’s there if you need it seems to be one of the main things people like about their cars! So it may just give some people the confidence to get rid of that car that just sits there, outside the house - which means we start to see our streets and public space differently? Instead of living in a giant car park, we could live in something that more resembles an actual park. And there’s a hassle factor to booking a car so you are more likely to use it only when totally necessary. Therefore there will be less journeys made by car. And now let me tell you about some of the more pleasurable ways to get around.
(Music)
So another thing we’ve been thinking about sharing in Porty is eCargoCycles. Bikes and trikes with boxes on the front for transporting kids, dogs, and stuff. Have you seen someone casually cycling a freezer along the high street? That was me.
Last year we ran a 6 month trial of a Porty bike library. We borrowed a bike and a trike from Cargo Bike Movement to loan out. Here’s one of our library members, Karen.
(Karen bit)
We had 365 bums on the bikes during the 6 months, that’s 152 loans but we also did lots of trial opportunities at festivals and the market and so on to give folk a go. People were keen! 100% of borrowers thought it should carry on and here’s an interesting bit: We asked ‘Do you think that regular access to a cargo bike would make you consider giving up your car and 46% said yes, while 32% said maybe. Only 21% said no. That’s encouraging right?
That’s what keeps me going down this road – even though if I’m honest, and I said I would be, I’m nervous. And here’s why. We’re encouraging cyclists, including new cyclists, riders with children on the bike, to cycle in a city which has not yet sorted out it’s attitude towards cyclists. We need safe infrastructure NOW. If the policy is there, implement it, if the laws are there, enforce them, if the ambition is there, reach it and if none of these things are good enough then make them better. Otherwise people are going to get hurt. This is not going to work unless the whole wider reaching shift takes place and it needs to happen all at once.
Let’s acknowledge the challenge but then work to overcome it. I was given a lovely mug for Christmas by my friend jen that says “Would those who say it can’t be done please stand clear of those doing it.” Here’s Jen writing about using the shared eCargo bike as a volunteer for the community fridge:
So let’s be hopeful in 2023 let’s see what happens. The plans are there to set up something more permanent and wider reaching in the community. Use a little funding and stretch it out as far as possible, like communities do. We need volunteers, we need willing from the community, we need passionate people to drive it forward. And so far we’ve been blown away. Local businesses have offered to sponsor us, different travel organisations are getting behind us, the Porty Travel Hub is planning to launch in spring and be the home for shared vehicles in this community. Thank you SCCAN for the opportunity, and thanks to you for listening and letting me share. I would love to hear your experience of sharing vehicles and start a conversation so please do get in touch with me about this through the SCCAN Vive platform or through Porty Community Energy social media.
In this episode we cross over to our 1000 Better Stories blog, and SCCAN Story Weaver Joana Avi-Lorie shares two of her favourite contributions from last year.
You will hear:
- A trio of poems Nem, Talam, Muir (Air, Earth, Water) read by their author, Erin Rizzato Devlin, followed by a conversation with her sister and collaborator Emir Elisa Rizzato on the philosophy behind their work together as Càrna.
- A short story The Egg Hunters, read by its author Gazelle Bucholz, and a note on the background to the story.
The work of these contributors was funded by SCCAN Storytelling mini-grants. Applications for these are closed but we are planning to re-launch them in April 2023. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot if you are interested and would like to discuss your idea.
Joana has been taking care of the work SCCAN storytelling showcase on the sister space to this podcast, 1000 Better Stories blog, where you can find work in a multitude of formats, including creative writing, film, reportage, dance.
Credits
Recording: Joana Avi-Lorie, Gazelle Bucholz, Erin Rizzato Devlin
Editing: Madeleine Scobie, Kaska Hempel
Resources
1000 Better Stories blog
Nem, Talam, Muir poems
Short story: Egg Hunters Part 1 & Part 2
Carnamag website showcasing Erin and Emir’s work.
In our last episode this year, we hear about the success story of Neighbourocracy movement in India, its promise for community driven action on climate and its current expansion into Europe.
Tim Daley recorded a conversation with Joseph Rathinam, Director of International Networking and Development for the Neighbourocracy Network, during his visit to Scotland at the end of September. They introduce history of the movement, its principles, examples of how it’s worked in India, and the ways it could help tackle climate issues. They also explain how everyone can get involved in spreading this way of working here in Scotland and the support available. We also hear brief reflections from three of the participants in Joseph’s workshop hosted by Galgael Trust at Govan in Glasgow: Laura, Gehan (one of GalGael directors), and Kim.
Tim’s work was funded by SCCAN’s Storytelling mini-grant. Applications are open until December 31 for anyone who would like to contribute a story to the 1000 Better Stories podcast or blog.
Tim Daly is a Community Worker in Cumbernauld. He’s been involved with Neighbourocracy since December 2019. He has helped to develop networks in Portugal and the UK, as well as contributing in a small way to the recently released Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles (SONEC) booklet. All this has been done under the guidance of excellent teachers such as Father Edwin Maria John, Joseph Rathinam and Nathaniel Whitestone.
Credits
Tim Daly – interviewing and recording
Kaska Hempel – editing
Resources
Tim Daly contact: magiadocirculo@gmail.com
Joseph Rathinam contact: rathnamjoseph@gmail.com
Neighbourocracy in India http://neighbourocracy.org/
Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles (SONEC) Handbook https://sonec.org/sonec-handbook/
Neighborhood Community Networks https://ncnworld.org/
Sociocracy definition from Sociocracy for All website https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/
GalGael Trust, Govan https://www.galgael.org/
Our guest host, Katie Revell, invites you to hear a sample of stories from the Soil and Soul project.
The stories explore the importance of soil as a precious and threatened living resource for growing our food and how local community groups in Glasgow have worked to connect to and care for their soils.
Soil and Soul was a collaboration between the British Society of Soil Science, a Glasgow-based group of artists called Open Jar Collective and Propagate. Propagate are a worker-led collective focused on local, community and sustainable food projects, and the podcasts document soil workshops they run with Glasgow community groups over the last year. The project was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Soil and Soul podcasts were part of the exhibition at the World Congress of Soil Science, held in Glasgow in August 2022, to highlight to the delegates that “ordinary people” care deeply about soil if they are given the chance.
Katie Revell is a podcast producer, a member of the Open Jar Collective and SCCAN’s Storytelling Circle.
If you’d like to hear more of the Soil and Soul podcasts, you can find them on
- Propagate website
- Spotify, Google Podcasts or Soundcloud (search for Open Jar Collective)
- On Izi Travel audio walking tour app, where you can see a map of the different groups and their locations
Credits
Production and editing: Katie Revell
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
In today’s episode you will hear Kaska Hempel’s interview with Gill Davies, a Manager of SCCAN’s Investing in Regional Networks Programme, which has been funded by the Scottish Government.
For about a year now, she’s been recruiting and supporting regional network coordinators, working to strengthen relationships among community organisations within Scottish regions. This work will feed into the roll out of Scottish Government Regional Climate Action Hubs over the next year. You can listen to our last episode to find out more about the two hub pilots which are already in place.
You will also hear brief introductions from five regional network coordinators:
Julian Holbrook from Midlothian, Gordie Campbell from Scottish Borders, Steven Clark from Dumfries and Galloway, Marie Stonehouse from Argyle and Bute and Alison Stockwell from Western Isles.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel with help from regional coordinators.
Resources:
New SCCAN website: https://sccan.scot/
SCCAN’s Investing in Regional Networks Programme – coordinators and contact details:
https://sccan.scot/network-building/
Community groups mentioned by regional coordinators
Argyle and Bute: Grow Food Grow Dunoon on Facebook https://m.facebook.com/Grow-Food-Grow-Dunoon-107142828547484/, Dunoon Area Alliance https://www.dunoonareaalliance.org/
Scottish Borders: The Hornshole Greenway Project in Hawick https://www.hornsholegreenway.com/
Western Isles: Uist and Barra Foodbank on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/Uistandbarrafoodbank
Dumfries and Galloway: Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership https://gallowayglens.org/
Mid-Lothian: Penicuick Community Development Trust https://penicuikcdt.co.uk/
In today’s episode SCCAN Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to managers of Climate Action Hub pilots funded by the Scottish Government. Alison Stuart is the manager of North East Scotland Climate Action Network (NESCAN) and Joan Lawrie, the Project Manager for North Highlands and Island Climate Hub and the development manager in Thurso Community Trust. The hub pilots have been in place for around 2 years now and they represent a new way the government plans to support community climate action across Scotland.
Tune in to the next episode for an update on how SCCAN is helping grow regional networks in preparation for the next phase of Climate Hub devlopment.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
NESCAN hub website https://www.nescan.org/
Northern Highlands and Islands Hub https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/
Transition Fund and Green Participatory Budgeting via NESCAN https://www.nescan.org/pb
Climate week North East festival (Next edition 24 March-2April 2023) https://climateweeknortheast.org/
Highland Climate Festival https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/highlandclimatefestival
Orkney Climate Festival https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/orkney-climate-festival
Carbon Neutral Islands Project
https://www.gov.scot/news/zero-carbon-islands/
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/six-scottish-islands-announced-carbon-26994830
Regional land use partnership NorthWest2045 https://www.northwest2045.scot/nw2045-land-use-partnership
Climate Action Towns (see our previous podcast interview for update on year 1) https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-3jfiv-12c216e
Golspie and green growth accelerator funding nature-based solution to flooding https://www.gov.scot/news/accelerating-green-growth/
https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/climate-action-group-to-hold-public-sessions-in-golspie-281046/
Scottish Government Investing in Communities Fund https://www.gov.scot/publications/investing-in-communities-fund-round-two-draft-guidance-note/
In today’s episode Kaska Hempel, SCCAN Story Weaver, speaks to Alette Willis, one of the researchers involved in the Shifting The Narrative project funded by the British Academy, and carried out by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, with SCCAN as a partner. The project investigated how traditional storytelling can help communities achieve place-based climate action.
Alette shares her wider experience around using narrative work to drive change in communities along with the key findings from this recent project, ahead of the publication of the official report in October.
Credits
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel
Project collaborators:
Alette Willis https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/alette-willis
Jule Hildmann https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/jule-hildmann
Arno Verhoeven https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-arno-verhoeven
Ramsey Affifi https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/ramsey-affifi
Additional information/workshops:
List of story recommendations will be posted on Alette’s Restorying the Earth website along with BA project report and ongoing updates: https://restoryingtheearth.com/
Global Lab: Shifting the Narrative: Story Work and Nature Crises. Workshop at the International Storytelling Festival, 25 Oct, 2pm online Registration: https://sisf.online.red61.co.uk/event/913:4444/913:18197/
SCCAN Stories for Change workshop: Place-based storytelling using izi.travel app audio tours online, 9:30am-12:30pm, 13th and 27th of October https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/407887411227
Dancing with Trees Eco-tales from the British Isles by Allison Galbraith and Allete J Willis: https://restoryingtheearth.com/about/
Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Karen Ridgewell about year one of Scottish Climate Action Town project, delivered by Architecture and Design Scotland (https://www.ads.org.uk/) and funded by the Scottish Government.
Karen shares lessons and tools for empowering communities to plan for their own climate friendly and fair future.
Production and editing: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Climate Action Towns report on A&DS website (includes a list of community engagement and planning tools used by the project):
https://www.ads.org.uk/resource/climate-action-towns-year-one-lessons-report
Delivering place-based approaches in Scotland event, 27th of Sep, online: https://www.ads.org.uk/event/climate-week-2022-designing-changing-climate
Place standard tool (including place standard tool with a climate lens): https://www.ourplace.scot/About-Place-Standard
Place standard
https://www.ads.org.uk/resource/place-standard
SEPA Flood Risk Map https://map.sepa.org.uk/floodmaps
2050 Climate Map https://coastal.climatecentral.org/
Heat Resilience Map https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62243280 (this was produced by 4 Earth Intelligence - they offer more detailed info but you would have to pay for the service).
In this episode we focus on helping children process their climate anxiety in a holistic approach using stories. One of our mini-grant recipients, Maria Barros, invites us on an immersive and interactive journey with Nefelibatas (Cloud Walkers), and SCCAN Story Weavers Kaska Hempel and Joana Avi-Lorie chat about Joana’s research and practice in using such stories to help children tackle anxiety.
Mini-grants of £250 are available to anyone wanting to contribute content to the 1000 Better stories podcast or blog so please get in touch with Kaska or Joana on stories@scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk.
For future developments of Nefelibatas projects check Instagram: Nefelibatas (@nefelibatastory)
Or contact: nefelibatasnasnuvens@gmail.com
Nefelibatas credits
Story and narration: Maria Barros
Sound production: Rui Morgado
Logo: Márcia Fernandes
Interview credits
Recording and editing: Kaska Hempel
Have you ever tried to get your head around climate models? And what they show may happen in the next 50 to 100 years to the places you where you live, places which you love and care about?
What would it really mean for you or your children?
Today we bring you a story behind an Outer Hebrides Storylines project aimed at exactly that. Combining creativity, oral history, and science to help local people and communities engage in adaptation planning in the way that’s meaningful to them.
The project got support from SCCAN’s Pockets and Prospects fund as well as NERC, Adaptation Scotland, and Làn Thìde Climate Beacon and involved several partners.
The story was recorded and produced for us by Matthew Logan, Community Energy Scotland, and one of the leads on the project.
We also hear from Dr James Pope from the Met Office, Eleanor Pratt from Adaptation Scotland, and a Lewis-based artist, Sandra Kennedy, who carried out the commission.
Resources
- Tuil is Geil Storylines on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/andraennedy
- Dr Pope’s presentation about science climate change expected in Outer Hebrides: https://youtu.be/ot113okUgtg
- Dr Pope’s blog about the project: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/musical-messages-creating-bespoke-climate-story-outer-james-pope/
- Sandra Kennedy’s blog about the project: https://lanthide.org/blog-sandra-kennedy-crafting-tuil-is-geil-storylines/
- Storyline Project info on Làn Thìde Climate Beacon website: https://lanthide.org/climate-storyline/
- Community Energy Scotland https://communityenergyscotland.org.uk/
- Adaptation Scotland https://www.adaptationscotland.org.uk/
- Climate Beacons https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/project/climate-beacons-for-cop26/
Join Luke Winter, one of our mini-grant recipents on his adventure to Knoydart. Stories of the land and how it has changed hands in recent history.
Grants are available to anyone wanting to contribute content to the 1000 Better stories podcast or blog so please get in touch with Kaska or Joana on stories@scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk.
Producer: Loris S. Sarid (https://lorisssarid.bandcamp.com/ )
Writing/recording: Luke Winter (
Background information:
Knoydart Foundation: https://knoydart.org/about-the-knoydart-foundation/
History of Knoydart land ownership: https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-75580
Seven Men of Knoydart song lyrics: http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/m/menofkno.html
In this episode we continue a conversation about how community organisations involved in climate justice work can benefit from collaborating with creative practitioners. We hear from another partnership within Creative Dundee’s CULTIVATE project - Joyce Reid from Transition Dundee and their creative partner - Jade Anderson. Their collaboration focused on a community wardrobe project and destigmatising the idea of second hand clothing.
Listen to the previous episode to find out more about CULTIVATE and the creative collaboration centred around Community First projects based in Forfar, Angus.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel. Illustrated with excerpts from Wee Wardrobe documentary with permission from Jade Andreson.
Resources
Transition Dundee: http://www.transitiondundee.com/
The Wardrobe: http://www.transitiondundee.com/thewardrobe
Wee Wardrobe event in February - programme and contributors https://creativedundee.com/2022/02/cultivate-wee-wardrobe/
Jade Andreson: https://www.jadeanderson.org/home
Wee Wardrobe Documentary with voices from community groups: https://youtu.be/jImheKAwaxk
Oor Memories / Oor Stories compilations from:
- Stand Easy Productions
- the Boomerang Community Centre’s Reminiscence Group
- Dundee Rep’s Engage group, Rep Juniors, for 11–13-year-olds.
Jade’s talk “Sustainable Choices and Social Stigmas for the Working Class” for Zero Carbon Tour’s event in Dundee.
In this episode we start a conversation about how community organisations can benefit from collaborating with creative practitioners. We talk to Claire Durfour, Climate Creative Producer for Creative Dundee, about their CULTIVATE project which has been partnering creative practitioners with Tayside community organisations working in climate justice. We also chat to members of one of the partnerships, Pauline Lockhart and Carol Malone from Community First based in Forfar, Angus and their creative partners, Kirsty McKeown and Jenny Reid.
And to start us off you, will hear work by another one of SCCAN mini-grant recipients, Studio Youth Theatre in, Dumfries and Galloway. They show off a pilot episode of their brand new podcast, Blank Generation.
We will continue conversations about the value of creative collaborations in the next episode, due out in a couple of weeks.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Community First projects
- S-Mart (the good shop!) https://www.s-martscot.com/
- BRAND Climate Conscious Clothing https://www.facebook.com/BRANDClimateConsciousClothing
- The Little Green Cafe https://www.facebook.com/thelittlegreencafeforfar/
Studio Theatre, Moffat https://thestudiotheatre.co.uk/
Tayside Climate Beacon events in May and June: https://creativedundee.com/2022/05/2022-tayside-climate-beacon-event-series/
CULTIVATE https://creativedundee.com/cultivate/
Culture Collective https://www.culturecollective.scot/
Today’s storytellers, Mary Troup and Hazel Darwin-Clements, share personal reflections on how they were inspired to act on climate with their local communities. And on the often random, unplanned, messy and sometimes personally exhausting nature of what we all are trying to do. They both make a powerful case for working together with others so that we can spread our burdens, and so that we can keep ourselves motivated and sane in making a real difference.
We start with Mary’s brief piece, which she created during one of our Stories for Change workshops on finding and telling your climate action story. Through story and song she tells us about her involvement with COP26 and inspirations to set up a climate café.
Next, we hear from Hazel, one of the 8 recipients of our storyteller collective mini-grants. Her honest, first hand documentary about the first few months of setting up the Porty Community Fridge. What is a Community Fridge? How do we create projects that aren’t dependent on one person? Will coming face to face with food poverty divert a mission to reduce carbon consumption?
The Porty Fridge has a Facebook page.
You can connect with Hazel @HazelDarEd on Twitter or find her at www.hazeldarwinclements.co.uk.
The episode starts with a recording of a story “From fossil fuels shirt-and-tie to fossil-free hippie guy” shared by Bruce Donald, a net zero researcher for Thurso Development Trust. He was one of the participants in Paul Bristow’s January workshop on finding, writing and telling our climate action stories to better engage others in our communities.
It's followed by Phillip Revell’s uplifting story from Pilgrimage for COP26, with a couple of conversations about hope and coming together, beautifully illustrated with poetry and song. Philip spoke to two Pilgrimage participants David Gee about his book, ‘Hope’s work’, and to Olga Bloemen, one of the Pilgrimage organisers and a poet.
Pilgrimage songs were performed by Freedom of Mind Community Choir and written Karine Polwart. The Pilgrimage poem was written and performed by Olga Bloemen.
Recording and editing: Kaska Hempel and Philip Revell
Production: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
- Pilgrimage for COP26 website: https://artandecology.earth/pilgrimage-for-cop26/
- SCCAN Storyteller Collective workshop booking on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/sccan-storyteller-collective-98489
- Mini-grants for contributors to 1000 Better Stories podcast and blog: https://www.scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk/storytellers-collective/
- David Gee’s book, ‘Hope’s work’: https://hopeswork.org/author/justplaindavid/
- Olga Bloemen’s Pilgrimage poem on
- Soundcloud (audio): https://soundcloud.com/olga-bloemen/why-are-we-walking
- 1000 Better Stories Blog (text):
Now that it's all over, Kaska Hempel talks to SCCAN members about their participation in COP26, their most memorable moments and thoughts on what it all means for community climate action in Scotland.
Our guests included:
- Joana Avi-Lore, SCCAN Events and Story Weaver
- Philip Revell, SCCAN Convenor and member of Sustaining Dunbar
- Cornell Hanxomphou from CEMVO Scotland, Ethnic Minorities Environmental Network
- Alison Stewart, Aberdeen Climate Action and the brand new North East Scotland Climate Action Network (NESCAN)
- Andrea Elder, Greener Kirkcaldy and Climate Action Fife
- Lynsey Penny, Gatechurch Carbon Saving Project, Dundee
- Kaska Hempel, PLANT (People Learning About Nature in Tayport)
We also feature a wee teaser of another fab pod in our Scottish climate family - Local Zero. Check out their feed from last year for some excellent coverage of the events on the ground.
Credits
Episode recorded and edited by Kaska Hempel.
Includes excerpts from film about Tayport Climate Festival, shot and edited by Alex Caldow. Music from performance by Essa Flett.
Resources
Joana Avi-Lore
- Net Zero Nation SCCAN stall at Green Zone: https://www.scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk/we-are-net-zero-nation/
- SCCAN Climate Reflections and Witness Series at the National Mining Museum (part of Midlothian Climate Beacon): https://www.scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk/climate-reflections-witness-report-series/
- COP26 Workshop Walk in Beauty: Future Dreaming through Indigenous Knowledges and Western Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjVMYXkEVn0
- Climate Beacons https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/project/climate-beacons-for-cop26/
Philip Revell
- Pilgrimage for COP26: https://artandecology.earth/pilgrimage-for-cop26/
- North Light Arts: https://northlightarts.org.uk/
- John Muir Birthplace: https://www.jmbt.org.uk/
- COP26 Green Zone event hosted by Brian Eno: Arts and the Imagination in transformational change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtq2_nsjKo
- Hope's Work -book and website by David Gee https://hopeswork.org/book/
Cornell Hanxomphou
- Migrants Organizing for Rights and Empowerment (MORE Glasgow): https://twitter.com/MOREGlasgow
- Panel discussion with participation from EMEN: BAME communities must be given seat at the climate table. https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,bame-communities-must-be-given-seat-at-the-climate-table
- Unlocking Climate Solutions: why Indigenous knowledge must take centre stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoFCgo62k7Y
Alison Stewart
- Panel on Just Transition - Local Zero podcast https://www.energyrev.org.uk/local-zero/local-zero-live/
- North East Scotland Climate Action Network (NESCAN) COP26 activities and report: https://aberdeenclimateaction.org/nescan-cop26/
- COP26 Coalition regional hubs: https://cop26coalition.org/get-involved/local-hubs/
- Holyrood Green Giant Awards: https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,shortlist-announced-for-inaugural-holyrood-green-giant-awards
Andrea Elder
- Demystifying COP26 GK discussion panel: https://www.greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk/cop26-the-case-for-stubborn-optimism/
- Climate Action Fife - Line in the Sand for COP26: https://climateactionfife.org.uk/2021/09/fifers-send-a-clear-climate-message-at-line-in-the-sand-events/
- Raising the Voices of Youth to Participate Holyrood COP26 Fringe panel: https://vimeo.com/showcase/9009795/video/644453506
- Andrea Elder’s blog with her reflection on COP26: https://climateactionfife.org.uk/2021/11/a-day-in-glasgow-during-cop26/
Lynsey Penny
- Dundee Cycling Hub launch video: https://youtu.be/-QnwyksT5uo
- Dundee Council COP26 events programme: https://creativedundee.com/2021/10/dundee-cop26-events-programme/
- Storm puppet https://visionmechanics.org/
Kaska Hempel
- Video from Tayport Climate Festival: https://youtu.be/p6Gcd5m4ilA
- Tayport 2030 visions from the Climate Festival: https://youtu.be/xhF8yGqUVS0
- Tayport Climate Festival programme: https://tayportgarden.org/events/tayport-climate-festival-24-26-september-2021/
In August we published a collection of Scottish podcasts with focus on climate justice and action.
This magazine episode is a companion to that blog, and it is showcasing 3 of the included shows.
We hear from Col Gordon about his Landed series with Farmerama radio (co-produced with Katie Revell), Catriona Spaven-Donn about United Nations House Scotland podcast - Connecting Women's Voices on Climate Justice, and the PLANT Voices podcast from Tayport Community Garden.
Magazine episodes are just one thing we are trying out as ideas for Storytellers Collective aimed at amplifying powerful stories helping everyone imagine the the future worth fighting for. To share your ideas and get involved get in touch with Kaska at stories@scottishcommunitiescan.org.
Storytellers Collective blog: https://www.scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk/category/blog/
In today’s episode we have two stories in store for you. A brief update from Alex MacKenzie about Glasgow’s Lost Woods project and a conversation with Calum Macleod from Community Land Scotland about the Community landowners and the climate emergency report.
Lost Woods Project: https://www.thelostwoods.earth/about
Community Land Scotland: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/
Community landowners and the climate emergency report: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Community-Landowners-the-Climate-Emergency_Report.pdf
Additional materials relating to the report: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/find-out-more/case-studies/
Lost Woods story was recorded and edited by Philip Revell
Interview with Calum Macleod was recorded and edited by Kaska Hempel
Climate Cafés are open, inclusive spaces for people to get together to talk and act on the climate emergency. Community-led, the movement has emerged from the heart of Scotland and there are now sister cafés around the world.
In this episode, and following the recent launch of the Climate cafe website, we chat to Jess Pepper (Dunkeld and Birnam), Alison Stuart (Aberdeen Climate Action), Carol Aitken (Pitlochry) and Ruth Hunter Pepper (Sustaining North Berwick) to learn more about the value and importance of creating these spaces in our communities and how to go about setting one up.
Better Bike Share: Stories of Scotland’s community bike share schemes
CoMoUK and Scottish Communities Climate Action Network are excited to present a new joint podcast, exploring the impact of community bike share across Scotland. It features: - Harriet Cross on CoMoUK’s work to help develop low-carbon and low-cost transport options - Tim Hughes on how his passion for cycling led to Dunblane Development Trust’s e-bike loan scheme for residents - Jude King discussing how Arran Eco Savvy’s bike-share project supports the island’s businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon footprints.
As we emerge from our hibernation, we reflect on the challenges the last year has presented for social isolation, and hear about social enterprises who are 'Collaborating in Communities to Improve Mental Health' with the support of the Pockets and Prospects fund. And we have two stories of personal climate action from our recent storytelling training day.
A conversation with Ross Ahlfeld of Inverclyde Community Development Trust, discussing the development of the community pantry the organisation is running in partnership with Inverclyde Council. In 3 months, 400 members have signed up for the new service which addresses food insecurity and food waste.
Our first podcast of 2021 explores community led energy initiatives across Scotland, from the difference it can make, to the challenges still to be overcome. We hear from Greener Kirkcaldy, Cosy Kingdom, Orkney Renewable Energy Forum, Barra and Vatersay Community Limited and Linlithgow Community Development Trust, all pioneers with practical experience of making community energy work.
The podcast was produced in partnership with Community Energy Scotland.
For our final podcast of 2020, a selection box of book recommendations and eco folk tales.
As part of the European Day of Sustainable Communites, SCCAN ran a number of "story days", working with people to create, record and share personal stories inspired by climate action. Here are a selection of the stories for you to enjoy, including songs, fables, poems and reflections. The work was supported by funding from ECOLISE.
Our final stop in our virtual visit to Dunbar is Belhaven Community Garden, before hearing some final thoughts on the power of community from the volunteers of Tyninghame Village Hall.
Our virtual visit to Dunbar continues and we chat cooking with the Community Carrot and repair and renewal with the East Linton Repair Cafe.
The first part of a virtual visit to Dunbar to hear about the work of development trust Sustaining Dunbar and the life and resonance of conservationist John Muir.
Professor Sir Geoff Palmer shares his thoughts on the intersection between climate action and racial justice.
Looking for inspiration from the outdoors, we chat with Alex Mackenzie of The Lost Woods and Emily Reid of Eco Drama, two projects based in Glasgow who are inspiring young people in their communities to think differently about urban spaces.
We start our search for 1000 Better Stories, visiting Inverclyde in the West of Scotland. We chat to Laura Riley from Belville Community Garden and Karen Orr and Laurie Duffy from RIG Arts about delivering climate based projects during the pandemic.
Introducing the Scottish Community Climate Action Network's new podcast series, 1000 Better Stories.