Hello dear readers, and welcome back after last month’s break! It is good to be here, in the thick of it once more, reflecting on the themes of the issue that have been unfolding. In between feasting on blackberries and late season raspberries and searching for bird hides, I have been taken on a tour around ideas of local and global, nature and our relationship to it, and into a thought provoking question posed by the editor of online magazine Bella Caledonia.
In a recent article called ‘The Geography of Hope in Dark Times’, Mike Small asks, “To what extent should writers, and editors, and publications reflect the world as they perceive it, and to what extent should they try and shape it, bend it to their will?” And further, what should our focus be, what information should we distribute – more negative news, or stories that bring a sense of positivity even with all the global challenges in front of us?
These are questions that often come up while I research the themes of a Voice for Arran issue. Most articles I come across recount the overlapping crises taking place connected with the heating climate. And while we need to be aware, with governments’ current unwillingness to provide the leadership and policies needed to address the problems, as Sally Campbell discusses in her piece ‘Change for the Better Needs Political Leadership’, all this news can take us away from what we can do and can lead into apathy or despair. If we don’t monitor what we take in, as Small writes, “We suffer a torrent of information – most of it terrible and tragic – and with little or no capacity to respond.”
As if in reply to this tight spot, Mairéad Nic Craith’s article ‘Gaelic Folklore for a Multi Species Future’, looks at the role of folktales and their focus on local places, as inspiration for a different future. She writes, “In Scotland there is a traditional resource that has much to tell us about living together with other species. Folklore frequently refers to local (often small) places and the different creatures that live in it.” The challenges of this era of the Anthropocene (the concept that humans, as the most influential species on the planet, are to blame for the destruction taking place) are too daunting to handle on a global scale. Instead we can “focus our attention on how we can engage with all creatures in our local ‘patches’”.
Coming back to our local ‘Arran patch’, in the issue we hear about engaging with wildlife and the natural world in several of the pieces – whether that is spending time in the company of birds, getting more familiar with a lizard, or collecting and propagating the seeds of endangered tree species. The message coming through is that when we engage with our immediate environment, both our agency and the natural world can be restored. And perhaps the answer to Sally Campbell’s concluding question, is the question itself – ‘maybe starting small in local communities, like Arran?’
Continuing along this path in the following weeks, at the start of month you can learn about the Arran Ranger Service’s efforts to reinstate upland woodlands during a guided walk in Glen Rosa, and the Arran Natural History Society’s first talk of the winter season is with the Scottish Plant Recovery Project – an ambitious plan to restore 10 threatened Scottish native plant species including the Arran whitebeam group of trees. There are also Gaelic Landscape walks with Arran Geopark, an outdoor cooking workshop at the Cordon Community Garden and a lovely autumny apple pressing event.
Wishing you all well in September, and see you next month, Elsa
