Welcome to the January edition of the Voice, and to the New Year 2019! If you are recovering from a period of abundant festivities we have a few undemanding pieces to ease you into the New Year, as well as some weightier articles which provide some matters for more sober reflection.
We have updates from local groups including a round-up of news from the end of 2018 from COAST and a report on the exciting start of the Eco Savvy Coop Food Share in Brodick. At the moment there is a weekly collection on Thursday evenings from the Coop, with free in date food available at the Ormidale Pavillion open for all to benefit from. We also have some contributions from our local MSP Kenneth Gibson who brings to our attention the subject of fuel poverty in Scotland’s Islands, and also asks us to reflect on the tragedy of the Iolaire, the sea disaster that happened 100 years ago this new year and is currently being commemorated in Stornoway.
There is a liminal feel to this time of year which makes it the perfect time to consider events in our personal and collective past before we rush back into the action and pursuit of our everyday lives. It feels like an ambiguous space of possibility, one not yet determined, and one where with the assistance of reflection we can choose to make some positive and mindful changes to our ways of being in the world. 2019 promises to be eventful, both on the global political level and in our personal lives and we look forward at the Voice to joining you on the journey.
It wasn’t so long ago that a vibrant, wild forest stretched across much of Scotland. Beavers and cranes found sanctuary in extensive wetlands, salmon and trout filled Scotland’s rivers and lynx, wolf and wild boar stalked woodland glades.
Scotland has become an ecological shadow of its former self with many species extinct and habitats degraded. It doesn’t have to be this way. A bold vision for Scotland’s future is slowly evolving; a vision that would see native woodland regenerating, damaged peatlands restored and tree-lined rivers running freely; a vision that would see a wilder, revitalised landscape driven by natural processes, supporting a much broader range of wildlife.
A TIME OF REFLECTION ON HOW LONG MEANINGFUL CHANGE TAKES IN THE REAL WORLDA RECENT CASE STUDY.
PART ONEBy Sally CampbellPlanet: Sustainable and environmentally responsible workPeople: Opportunity based on meritProduct: Tasty, healthy and safe seafoodProfit: Competitive profits from ethical and healthy products added valueMy question at the Annual General Meeting was about sustainability and consultation with communities. Sustainability of profit seems to be the one favoured by Marine Harvest. It is clear that whilst open cages are used in the sea, the process is not sustainable. Harvesting krill from the cold waters off South America or Antarctica and bringing it to Europe for food is hardly small food miles as Marine Harvest claims for its salmon products. 800,000 fish up to 4.5 kg over 22 months were proposed at Clauchlands putting out 200 tonnes of faecal waste and uneaten food per year. It is not good enough to say “this will disperse”. Arran as a community lives largely on tourism, not on the perhaps 2-4 full time jobs in addition to those Marine Harvest employed at the time of application at the other fish farm in Lamlash Bay, now part of Lighthouse Caledonia.So what has happened in Chile since 2008 ?Escapes from MH farmsBiomass on salmon farmsDiseaseAntibiotics:PiscirickettsiosispiscirickettsiosisUndercurrentSo that is Chile…what about Marine Harvest in British Columbia and Scotland?
Following our feature last month on the allotments at the Arran Community Land Initiative, Judy Wilkinson, writer and allotments campaigner, argues that disconnection from nature breeds alienation, and looks at community growing as a mechanism for re-connecting people to the natural world.
In 1995, Sarah Conn wrote in ‘Ecopsychology’ that we have cut ourselves off from our connection to the Earth and we are ‘bleeding at the roots’.
Today many people and groups are trying to address this alienation. There is a profound shift in western thought from the paradigm of ‘the world as a machine’ to ‘the world as a network’ underpinned by the new understanding of life at all levels of living systems - organisms, social systems and ecosystems - through research in physics, neuroscience and neurobiology. Suddenly the parallels between science and the spiritual and philosophical traditions of the third nations and Eastern mystics are coming together, particularly in discussions of deep ecology. This has profound implications for the way mental health is treated.
Many readers will know of the horror that befell HMS Dasher in 1943 between Ardrossan and Brodick, yet this might be the first time they have heard of the Iolaire tragedy, the worst peacetime British sea disaster since the Titanic; one that hit the Isle of Lewis and its close-knit communities hard.
I bring that tragic New Year 100 years ago to the fore to highlight the moving remembrance now taking place.
Two months after the Great War ended, leave was granted for many to return home. On Hogmanay 1918, HM yacht Iolaire set off from Kyle of Lochalsh at 7.30 pm. At 1am, the ship was sailing too far east, for reasons that remain a mystery. Lights on the Beasts of Holm rocks warned of danger, but the ship failed to turn. Her momentum pushed her forward and, as a gale took hold, she carried on full steam ahead into the pitch-black night and struck the rocks at 2am on New Year’s morning. Of 280 men aboard 201 men died, including 174 from Lewis. Forty of the 79 survivors were saved by the heroism of one man; John Findlay Macleod.
A round-up of news from COAST, who report on some great successes for coastal community campaigns at the end of 2018 and leave us with a positive message to take forward into the new year.
Coastal stakeholders succeed with three major breakthroughs for healthier Scottish seas
If you care about people and the planet then Trump's recent denial of scientists' assessment of climate change impacts, as well as the uncertainty of where Scottish environmental regulations and funding will stand post-BREXIT, may be getting to you.
If everyone’s success depended on it, would you share—or be selfish?
By Dylan Selterman, writing in the National Geographic Magazine, June 2018
I TEACH UNDERGRADUATE psychology courses at the University of Maryland, and my classes draw students with diverse interests. But every one of them perks up when I pose this question: Do you want two extra-credit points on your term paper, or six points?
I tell my students that the extra-credit offer is part of an exercise illustrating the interconnectedness of choices individuals make in communities. I explain that the exercise was inspired by an ecologist named Garrett Hardin and an address that he delivered 50 years ago this summer, describing what he called “the tragedy of the commons.” Hardin said that when many individuals act in their own self-interest without regard for society, the effects can be catastrophic. Hardin used the 19th-century convention of “the commons”—a cattle-grazing pasture that villagers shared—to warn against the overexploitation of communal resources.
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has created a mobile exhibition featuring sixty years of the anti-nuclear movement in Scotland. Launched last month at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, Scottish CND has made a visual timeline with accompanying video testimonies from key figures in the nuclear disarmament movement. Scottish CND, which turned sixty this year, hopes that this exhibition, will be nostalgic, inspiring and educational.
Reporting in online magazine Bella Caledonia, Arthur West, Chair of Scottish CND said “Scotland: A Peace of History is an opportunity to look at everything CND have achieved, there is a significant body of work there and we should be proud of that. We are grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund for supporting this project. It is very encouraging to see the Fund get behind an initiative which tells the story of Scottish CND and the wider Scottish peace movement.”
Contributed by Antonia Murphy, visitor to Arran, writer, and psychotherapist.
Here’s a helpful and ecologically sound tip for all those left overs lurking in your fridge after the Christmas festivities. Instead of using cling film - notoriously non bio degradable - why not try this simple, wipe clean alternative. Simply cut up any old clean table cloth or napkin or fabric into various sized pieces. Source some plain beeswax - this can be found at Arran Bee Products https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Website/Arran-Bee-Products-1894637100814822/ or online. Spread out the cloths and shave some beeswax over each piece. Place in hot oven for a minute or so until the bees wax is melted. Remove from the oven and quickly spread the beeswax evenly over the cloths and then leave to dry until they are set. There you have it - three or four handy sized reusable cloths to cover food in the fridge or to wrap sandwiches in. Remember to wipe them down with cold water after use, not hot ! These are some my son made me for Christmas!
Pure Brass, will play an afternoon concert in Brodick Hall on Saturday 19th January at 2pm.
Pure Brass, are one of the UK’s most established brass quintets. The quintet features Bede Williams, Andrew Connell- Smith and Iain Archibald on trumpets, Feargus Kerr on French Horn, Chris Mansfield on trombone and Danielle Price on Tuba. Since their formation in 2006 Pure Brass have built a reputation for their musicianship and entertaining approach to the concert platform. They offer a kaleidoscopic mix from the Baroque to the contemporary and will play a mixture of Gabrielli, Monteverdi and MacMillan in Arran today.
The film showing on Sunday 13th January at 8pm in Corrie Hall is Leave No Trace (Director Debra Granik USA 2017 109 mins Cert PG).
Debra Granik’s follow-up to her acclaimed ‘Winter’s Bone’ follows the story of troubled US veteran Will (Ben Foster) who has opted out to live a life in the wild with his thirteen year old daughter Tom (a stunning debut by Thomasin McKenzie). They are picked up by the authorities and attempts are made to re-introduce them to society but there follow a series of adoptions by and escapes from well-meaning people unable to accept the free way of life that they have been living. Subtle, tender and thought provoking, this is a film with a lot to say about the way we live.
From John Kinsman, St Monans Coastwatch, East Fife
FERGUSON MARINE SAYS IT WILL LOSE £40 MILLION ON NEW FERRIES
The shipbuilder with the contract to build the two new Cal Mac ferries has said it will lose £39.5m on the deal. The latest accounts for Ferguson Marine show the Inverclyde yard made a loss of £60.1m in 2016. Ferguson Marine claim interference and disruption from the Scottish Office ferry company is to blame for the losses. The firm also wants to renegotiate the terms of its £40m government contract. Owner Jim McColl rescued the yard from administration in 2014 and put £8.5m into Ferguson Marine from one of his other companies.
You may have heard of aquafaba. If you are vegan then you most probably will have. A few years ago it became the next big thing to sweep across the vegan nation. Those of you less familiar with legume brine, aquafaba is a posh name for 'bean water', and which has mostly always been regarded as a 'waste product'.
Here is a simple and very easy recipe to try as an alternative to traditional mayonnaise, as introduced to us over the Christmas holidays by a visiting vegan friend!
to snuggle to coorie doon to snoodle.
a half-world of care.
a gowpen of shoogling eggs
roofed by warm breast.
a weaving of twigs.
eaves studded with river-mud huts.
a precariousness in wind.
a responsibility of worms, sand eels, gnats.
a rock ledge with fifty thousand screams.
the heart of a hedge.
full stops in winter branches
each a basket of hope.
Though born in Yorkshire, Char March was brought up in Falkirk and still spends much of her time in Ardgour. She won first prize in the 2018 McLellan Poetry Competition with her poem Street Folk and in this poem again uses Scots dialect to powerful effect. ‘Nest’ is taken from and provides the title for her fifth poetry collection ‘Full Stops In Winter Branches’ published by Valley Press (2018). As well as being a poet Char March is a successful writer of plays, radio drama and short stories.
