Hello and a warm welcome to this new edition of the Voice for Arran. It feels like a lot has happened since our last issue. Indeed after a summer of record-breaking temperatures and extended drought in much of the UK, some of the recent headlines suggest that we are now living in a different world. And while I have been appreciating the gentle changes in the seasons – the reddening rowan berries and flocking swallows – as I write, the words of Nepal’s foreign minister keep coming back to me in the aftermath of the floods. “Despite having only 0.1% contribution to global emissions, the people of Nepal have become major victims of climate change.”
Clearly the injustice is shocking. But the grief I feel comes more from a sense of understanding, an awareness that the horror of this particular event isn’t ‘over there’ in Nepal (if it ever was), but something we’re now in ‘everywhere.’ Back in Europe and the UK, we have witnessed scenes of wildfires tearing through the land. Thankfully not in Arran this year, but in the context of these tragedies, a wildfire (or ‘climate fire’ as one writer in this issue refers to them) in Greece, or France, or the Midlands, becomes a collective experience that affects and implicates us all. And I wonder now if the governments of the world might listen to Nepal’s appeal for a global response to the climate crisis?
Amidst the headlines that proclaim the world has changed it is good to be reminded of all that we can do, and all that is already happening, here on Arran, in the UK and beyond. The natural world has everything we need for us to start helping our planet rather than continuing along the same destructive track. And the key seems to be to stop degrading ecosystems and start regenerating them. In the pages that follow, the message I hear is one of restoring, rewilding and growing climate resilience, right down to heralding the heroic functions of the inconspicuous but mighty sphagnum moss!
We hear how the recent ratification of the Global Ocean Treaty will lead to vast areas of the high seas being protected, where fragile ecosystems can recover and thrive. We learn how nature restoration projects can reverse the degradation of landscapes. For example, rewetting peatlands, restoring wetlands and improving the ability of the land to retain water. This is not only essential for biodiversity but also for making the land more resilient to fire. And in Arran we learn of a recently established project, Arran Rainforest CIC, set up to protect the fragments of temperate rainforest that still exist here, one of the rarest ecosystems on Earth and home to a myriad of species.
Over the coming months, as part of the new Arran Community Climate Action project, Arran Eco Savvy will be holding workshops looking at exactly what we can do to build more climate resilience. And while the focus may be on what we can do here on Arran – preparing for storm, flooding and fire risks, it feels like, in this changed world, what we do here will closely connect to what happens elsewhere. As Beccy Speight of the RSPB says – now is the time to make climate resilience a national mission. “It can no longer be treated as a secondary consideration,” but it could be extended to a global one.
Alongside the climate crises this summer, the UK also saw the arrival of a new Prime Minister. Lack of democratic mandate aside, hopefully Andy Burnham will step up and show that his government really will make a difference. With the pressure of events mounting, and a debate in Parliament due after the widespread support for a petition to hold a National Climate Briefing, let’s hope he responds in a way that matches the enormity of the times. And in so doing, giving the people in Nepal the the full and meaningful support of at least some of the world behind them.
We hope you enjoy the issue, and wish you all restorative times to come, Elsa
