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‘I have been aware of the sea as an enclosing presence, both sheltering and dangerous. But most important, I have noticed that the atoll (Suwarrow) belongs to the organic world; it is a living island’
RD Frisbie, ‘Island of Desire – the story of a South Seas Trader, 1944
Readers,
I have been overwhlemed by the response to my new film ‘once i counted birds’ for the UK Guardian’s 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film Festival. Thank you all so very much for the great comments and emails. Here is some background to the film and this special place.
Below is a drawing I made from my art notebook that I took with me on the trip in 2000. You can see that the atoll is literally made up of islets of coral, ever growing upwards, to literally form a great ‘circle in the sea’.
We visited and counted the birds on all the islets; Suwarrow is an atoll in the Northern Group of the Cook Islands, about 800km NW of Rarotonga (the Cook Islands are in the middle of the south pacific, not that far from the equator, look above NZ on the map). The atoll is approx. 80 km in circumference,and 10km across (we took a small inflatable dinghy, which I nick-named ‘the Dawn Treader’ (after my love of the Narnia books) to carry out the survey work, on the yacht we hitched a lift on). We rarely crossed the lagoon however, after many warnings about seas suddenly becoming high and dangerous, not to mention its healthy shark population). In the drawing, you can see us crossing the lagoon, but in a much larger dinghy that a passing yacthing couple took us on. You can also see how we sailed up and around to get to Anchorage isle, our homebase isle for the trip).
This trip all came about because my New Zealand friend Rhys, a scientist who I had worked alongside at the agricultural research institute in the 1990’s, told me lots over the years about this unique atoll. Rhys had first become fascinated with Suwarrow after reading about the modern day NZ Robinson Crusoe, Tom Neale, who stayed alone on this unpeopled but bird/wildlife rich atoll for many years (An Island to Oneself, Tom Neale, 1966) but we never realised that one day that we would both visit and catalogue its bird population.
Here Rhys describes the rich history of the place in an article after our visit, that he wrote for the NZ Forest and Bird Journal, in 2001.
‘Described by Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife as ‘the most romantic island in the world,’ the motu (islets) that make up Suwarrow are small but have a history rich beyond their size. From ghosts of Spanish soldiers, through murder and mayhem, to a hide-out for German raiders during WWI, Suwarrow has for centuries provided the stuff of romance and an idyllic breeding ground for seabirds and turtles. However, these days (in 2000) all is not well in this tropical paradise and a battle is looming…’ At that time neither Rhys and I were thinking of global warming and rising sea levels (though I did notice pamphlets in the local telecom office about it but it wasn’t on my radar, coming as I did from a country which is not under the same threat as pacific nations). Instead our survey was conducted against the very real threat at that time, that Suwarrow’s rich wildlife, including rare species, was going to be severly disturbed by commercial pearl farming in the lagoon.
We did the bird survey in 2000, a repeat of a similar study that had been done 5 years previously; basically to highlight the rich and unique migratory seabird populations, that breed so successfully in Suwarrow since they are little disturbed by human interference.
Rhys later published our bird survey findings ‘The status of seabird colonies on the Cook Islands atoll of Suwarrow, R. Jones, Bird Conservation Int. (2001) 11:309-338 and I produced a very rough, 10 min un-narrated film that was later screened on Cook Island TV. Some years later, thankfully, and after much work by local activists, Suwarrow atoll was the statue of a Cook Island National Park.
The birds you see in my new film are ghost/fairy terns, brown boobies, red footed boobies, frigate birds, the long sea distance travelling red tail tropic bird and the rare and enormous Masked Booby (in fact we thought no Masked Boobies were breeding on the atoll. It wasn’t until the last week, just as we were finishing counting on one the motu, that we looked across and saw a large white object on the last motu left to study. More rubbish we thought, maybe it’s a large lump of polystyrene? Unfortunately a vast amount of rubbish drifts across the pacific and gets swept across the atoll in the hurricane seasons. Yet in fact, on coming closer, we discovered it was a pair of Masked Boobies and their chick -the chick was about 3 ft high!!. These enormous birds, with a huge wingspan had the motu to themselves and needed a good long runway of a beach just to takeoff – the parents were incredible fliers to watch. It was a thrill to discover them on our last counting day (we had been there for almost 2 months at that stage - and we were getting a bit tired of the last remaining dried food we had brought with us in the four barrels of supplies we had).
I’ll just finish by saying what are my strongest memories of the visit were:
how small and unremarkable the islets looked, until you turned a corner and saw thousands of terns and frigate birds nesting (I had a the job of counting the ‘big’ birds, Rhys took the larger job of counting the smaller ones, it was working out perfectly until one day we found a motu covered with thousands of frigates, Rhys laughed for ages); coming right up to birds and having the amazing experience of being with animals that had no fear of humans; the constant scream of the terns crying ‘wideawake’; seeing all the wonderful sealife, turtles, parrot and puffer fish and some other, unidentified enormous fish-thing? that scared me and Rhys right out of the water, still not sure what it was; always looking over my shoulder to check the junior sharks that hung around the edge of the lagoon weren’t coming up too close behind me; being so near the equator with the full moon so bright that it seemed we were in a black and white movie; seeing on the night of full moon, the sun set on one side of the lagoon and a few minutes later the moon rising; remembering the heat and humidity that killed any enthusiam of doing anything energetic in the middle of the day, like bird counting; going to bed at night, uneasily hearing the roar of the ocean against the reef, knowing full well that hurricanes, when they do strike can bring the ocean right over the islets as happened to the author Robert Frisbee and his children in the 1940’s – they survived as he tied his children to trees so they wouldn’t be swept away; eating my lunch and watching the numerous species of crabs crawl along about their business; trying not to think about how we were going to get off the island after our very lucky escape on our yacht voyage to Suwarrow – our yacht was hit by a freak wave and 50knot winds!! Our captain wrote later it was one of the worst passages he ever had – ’sitting, sleeping, and living in the salty, spongey, rolling wetness – it sucked. But being new to sailling, Rhys and Cathy were superstars (they literally strapped me in so I wouldn’t get knocked about – don’t think I spoke much for 3 days after), and had the optimistic “at least we’re not dead attitude of veteran sailors’; and remembering on the last night, looking up at our wonderful Southern Cross, and the crabs in a line coming down to the beach and promising one day, to return again…
Notes:
Probably one of the most lyrical writers of this area and communities little touched by modern life was US born Robert Dean Frisbie but his books are rare and hard to find. The South Pacific has always attracted artists, writers and other searchers; I happened across a fantastically illustrated book recently on my last visit to NZ, ‘In Search of Paradise – artists and writers in the colonial south pacific’ by Graeme Lay, Godwit, 2008. You’ll find Frisbee, RL Stevenson, Gauguin and other well and lesser known artists, illustrators and writers who came to the South Pacific and NZ. A big retrospective of Gauguin work is coming to the Tate in London next year too (30 Sept 2010 – 16 Jan 2011).
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You can still vote for the film before 5pm on 6 Nov here (roll over the yellow stars below the film to vote). Please leave a comment if you like it too.
You can share it with your facebook friends here, and on twitter here
‘Almost anything you do will seem insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it‘ M. Ghandi
It’s funny how things can come together so quickly. Last weekend I was looking at all the people across the globe coming together to mark the 350 global day of climate change awareness and still thinking, I should be doing something.
Then a friend told me of the UK Guardian’s 1minutetosavetheworldfilm competition and I thought, right, this is something I could have a stab at. And hadn’t I for the last month been working on a micro-script for a new film piece and hadn’t I been digging out old Hi 8 footage and reading Mark Lynas book High Tide particularly the chapter where he describes the havoc rising seas are already having in some pacific regions. Still, it was a bit of an effort: I hadn’t made any work for a year and half, my editing skills, none too proficient in the first place, were pretty rusty and I only had 3/4 of the script done before bringing some of the footage into my pc and I had to the day job to contend with too. Still, the funny thing is, I sorta knew that the starting is the key and the ending would appear, if I EVER started.
The new work is all old footage, recycled even, from a rather special trip I did in 2000 to a very remote place. It conveys probably a lot of ideas that continually circle in my head and ideas that come and go when I’m in my own wood. Incidentally our spruce forest is amazing in a storm, if you close your eyes you could be in the midst of a crashing, angry ocean – when we lived in our old mobile home, it often used to shudder and shake like a boat too.
Here it is.
If you like it, do feel free to give it a vote here , if you have done so already, thank you! Voting continues until this Fri 6 November.
If you want to share it on Facebook so your friends can see it too, click here
The top 15 films (selected by both the public and the panel -who coincidentally consist of the aforementioned Mark Lynas and all out superhero Director of the Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong, amongst others) get shown across the UK before the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December and then taken to Copenhagen to be presented there (cor!). Mind you, I didn’t really realise this until well into making it, as I just got it in before the deadline. It’s also fantastic to see the wealth of ideas from all over the globe who have entered the competition.
The big win for me already was something I had forgotten, that deadlines are in fact ‘lifelines’ for creative work. It was also a bit odd to make something so new, then hit a button and have so many see something that I thought people might not understand. I am already a bit bewildered by the many positive comments and how people seem to connect with the beauty and ideas that I was trying to juggle. Perhaps my mum is right, the poetic can connect more than you think, she put it like this, ‘you will catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar’ and I think she is right aboukt this too, ‘you should be making lots more films!’ Thanks Mum xxx.
The first ‘forest to fuel’ meeting organised by the Transition Town group FutureProof Kilkenny and Glas last week turned out to be a good event with much local interest. Contributions were made from Glas on German woodburners and gasifiers. I made a short presentation about how my art project is documenting our transformation of our 20+ year old conifer plantation to a permanent, mixed species productive forest following close to nature methods. I also described the close to nature Pro Silva Europe organisation whose members are foresters and large and small forest-owners; it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. I was followed by a talk on a total forest to fuel service for small forest owners with Lightfootforestry.ie presented by Alan Holman and forest partner, Chris Hayes (a Pro Silva member too). Chris also spoke with a lot of vision on close to nature, permanent forestry and its possibilities for Ireland/world.
Then tying it altogether was a talk by Martin Rafter, describing a developing Leader Nexus project that aims to make the first district heating scheme in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, fuelled by local farmers forest wood!! FutureProof Kilkenny’s Brian Dillon rounded up the evening reminding us all that creating local resilience in regards to fuel will be critical in responding to peak oil and climate change. I’ve since suggested those interested to join the Close to Nature Forest group on the new TransitionTownIreland networking site.
What struck me that the evenings talks describing a circle of forest growers and timber users was very like the aspirations behind ‘the local project’ community forestry in Leitrim that I documented in 2005 (I’ve also heard another large 100+ forest/woodland group is now in Donegal too). The following you may have read before, I used it years ago when putting together the 1997 Crann Newsletter ; it’s by Wendell Berry, writer, farmer/forester, campaigner, sometimes called ‘the prophet of the land’ in the US.
A good forest economy
- A good forest economy, like any other good land-based economy, would aim to join the local human community and local natural community or ecosystem together as conservingly and as healthfully as possible
- A good forest economy would therefore be a local economy, and the forest economy of a state or region would therefore be a decentralised economy.
- A good forest economy would be owned locally. It would afford decent livelihood to local people. And it would be serve local needs and fill local demands first, before seeking markets elsewhere.
- A good forest economy would be properly scaled. Keeping the scale reasonably small is good for the forest. Only a local, small scale forest economy would permit, for e.g., the timely and selective logging of small woodlots.
- A good forest economy would be locally complex. People in the community would be employed in forest management, logging and saw milling, in a variety of value-adding small factories and shops, and in satellite or supporting industries.
- A good forest economy would obviously need to be much interested in local education. It would of course, need to pass on to its children the large culture’s inheritance of book learning. But also, both at home and in school, it would want its children to acquire a competent knowledge of local geography, ecology, history, natural history, and of local songs and stories..
- And so, to complete my description of a good forest economy, I must add that it would be a long-term economy. Our modern economy is still essentially a crop-year economy, as though industrialism had founded itself upon the principles of the worst sort of agriculture. ..
- But even the slightest acquaintance with the vital statistics of trees places us in another kind of world. A forest makes things slowly; a good forest economy would therefore be a patient economy. It would also be an unselfish one, for good foresters must always look toward harvests that they will not live to reap.
A clip from my ‘local project’ film; other local project clips can be seen here
And What is the ‘Close to Nature forestry’ that is promoted by Pro Silva Ireland & Pro Silva Europe?
pro silva (Latin: ‘for the forests’)
PRO SILVA promotes forest management strategies which optimise the maintenance, conservation and utilisation of forest ecosystems in such a way that the ecological and socio-economic functions are sustainable and profitable -i.e by following close to nature.
The general approach to management which is advocated by PRO SILVA, includes market and non-market objectives, and takes the whole forest ecosystem into consideration.
With reference to sustainability in its broadest sense PRO SILVA believes that forests provide four categories of benefit to society. These are:
2. protection of soil and climate
3. production of timber and other products
4. recreation, amenity, and cultural aspects
Pro Silva Ireland Publications, such at the 2009 ‘What makes Close to Nature Forest Management an attractive choice for Irish farmers? are supported by the Irish Forest Service Dept of Ag, Fish and Food, and can be downloaded for free at www.prosilvaireland.org
Hi everyone
I have work in two galleries at the moment; firstly my short film ‘burning bright‘ is been shown in a group show, the 9 stone group of Artists at the Norman Gallery in Wexford near where we live -Martin, Anthony, Nicola and other friends are also exhibiting. It opens tomorrow Sat 27 June at 5pm, continues daily 12-6pm until the 12 July. Sorry for the late notice but have been travelling recently. (Burning Bright was also shown at the new film program at Eigse in Carlow last week; I was away unfortunately but apparently a large audience turned up with Carlow’s own Hollywood star Saoirse Ronan, very exciting to hear such a strong audience for local films)
detail: Unwanted Genes (weeds) on a DNA Spiral, Cathy Fitzgerald 2003
Secondly, some work I made some years ago was selected for a new Children’s exhibtion Earth Explorers at the Ark in Temple Bar, in Dublin, Ireland. My DNA piece made from twigs and weed wildflowers and ‘red cells’ which I made from children’s ‘magic plastic’ are still proving popular and the science type exhibits such as mine were supported by the Exploration Station. 
You might have heard the adverts on RTE radio 1 – it’s a very well curated exhibition by Aishleigh Downey who previously worked at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Some of the exhibits are at child height, and all the works have a strong poetic sense to stir children and adults imagination about looking at the environment in a creative way or reinvestigating the creative possibilities in natural or found materials. Perhaps the best and most fun elements of Earth Explorers are the exciting range of workshops for the children. The show was opened by Green Party Minister for the Environment, John Gormley See the www.ark.ie
The Ark, Europe’s first custom-built Children’s Cultural Centre, programmes, promotes and hosts high quality cultural work which is by children, for children and about children (3 – 14 years).
Enjoy!!
Cathy
Ps I always get a lot of comments about my DNA piece, I made it not long after finishing my MA when I without a studio and a job, wondering if I was going to be able to continue in the arts. I made it from the site where I now live. I was living in a mobile home at the time, the green in the background is my beloved spruce forest whose fallen twigs form the DNA ‘backbone’. It found its way into the Irish Times, the New York Hall of Science, and is permanently on display in the Department of Zoology, Trinity College, Dublin and in private collections.
Our forest floor is now covered with tiny green seedlings, our free future forest. We are finding it hard to walk now and not squash any but they’ll keep coming up next year too.
From all the seedlings appearing, we know it’s going to be mostly ash, with a sprinkle of oak type forest. Meanwhile the big pioneer’s, the alder and sitka spruce are working hard to give the little one’s shelter.
PS want to try a green gym; we are chipping again, with a decent chipper this weekend – all welcome, bring bags to take home the free chippings. Weather forecast suggests we might get the barbie out too!
Just thought I would post this as it’s happening in my work place next week. Mary (Kilkenny Arts Officer) and Jean (Education Curator, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny) have been working hard on the 2nd Moot event on Art and the Environment; the first event a year ago had some very useful info, particularly Gavin Harte letting us know about the 10 Pink Rules for Environmental Education which I later blogged about as I think all artists working in this area should consider them too. Paul O’Brien is one of my past tutors at NCAD.
Details:
Wednesday May 20 2009
Kilkenny County Council Arts Office, no. 72 John Street
Doors open at 7.45pm Starting at 8pm
Admission Free
Email: jean@butlergallery.com
Kilkenny County Council’s Arts Office in collaboration with the Butler Gallery is delighted to launch the sixth in the series of MOOT discussions, debates and seminars. MOOT is a continuous creative process providing a forum for powerful, focused and inspirational debates and discussion on a variety of subject matters. These events will, potentially, transform expectations, citing shifts in attitudes, perceptions and beliefs.
MOOT VI is the second in our current series on art and the environment, investigating ecology and sustainable arts practice more specifically, and the potential role that artists, curators, educators and arts managers play in raising awareness of environmental issues and our ecology. This discussion, like previous events, will be an open format event where artists, curators, academics etc. and the general public will be invited to question how arts and culture can contribute to addressing environmental and ecological concerns. Obviously the range of environmental concerns facing us at present are vast, but this MOOT will focus on art, ecology and sustainable ways of living and working.
This panel discussion will take place on Wednesday, May 20th in Kilkenny County Council Arts Office, no. 72 John Street at 8pm and will consist of:
Chairperson Pat Cooke (IRL) Director of Cultural Policy and Arts Management at UCD Dublin
Paul O’ Brien (IRL) Lecturer in aesthetics/ cultural theory in the Faculty of Visual Arts, NCAD Dublin
Rick Faulkner and Christine Keogh (UK) Chrysalis Arts, an artist-led public art company, training and arts development agency
Heather Peak (UK) an artist based in Wales who works collaboratively with Ivan Morrison. Together, they investigate their environmental surroundings through their art, and are currently installing work as part of Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009 at the Barbican, London
MOOT is jointly organised by Mary Butler, Arts Officer Kilkenny County Council and Jean Tormey, Education Curator, Butler Gallery and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland
Pat Cooke worked for Ireland\’s state heritage service for over twenty years, where he was director of both Kilmainham Gaol and the Pearse Museum. He took over as Director of the MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at UCD in 2006. As a heritage sector manager, Cooke pioneered the use of museums and historic properties in Ireland as sites for major art projects. His experience in the heritage field includes producing cultural and historical exhibitions and audio-visual presentations, and the management of historic sites in line with best principles of conservation practice. Between 2002-2006 he was Chairman of the Irish Museums Association, and chaired a Heritage Council committee charged with developing an accreditation programme for Irish museums. Currently he is an assessor on the implementation of that programme. http://www.ucd.ie/arthistory/postgraduate_ma_culturalpolicy.htm.
Rick Faulkner is an artist/director with Chrysalis. He is a founder member of the company and also works as a freelance consultant. He is a trained engineer and undertakes creative, project management and community consultation work for
Chrysalis. He has excellent advocacy, visioning and presentation skills and is particularly experienced in successfully developing projects through ideas and funding processes. http://www.chrysalisarts.org.uk.
Christine Keogh is development director with Chrysalis. She has worked professionally in the arts since 1980 and has wide experience of local authority arts work, including arts, regeneration and public art commissioning. She is responsible for strategic development and training and undertakes consultancy work, specialising in artists\’ professional development and rural creative industries. http://www.chrysalisarts.org.uk.
Paul O’ Brien is a lecturer in aesthetics and cultural theory in the Faculty of Visual Arts at NCAD. His research interests are in the areas of cultural and critical theory and theory of art, art and technology, new media, ecology, and post-modernism. Publications include \”Hypertext, Changelings and the Digital Fireside\” (chapter in forthcoming book on Ireland and cinema, Wallflower, 2004); \”Under the Surface\” in Profile: Andrew Folan, Gandon, 2002; \”Conspiracies, Computers and Consensus Reality,\”Reframing Consciousness, Intellect, 1999; \”New Toys for Boys\”, The Irish Communications Review, 1997; \”Virtual Redemption: The Role of Interactive Art\”, Point, Number 1, Winter 1995; \”Post-Modernism and Democracy\”, Education Arts Research International, 1993; \”Art and Technology\”, Circa No. 44, Mar/Apr 1989, etc. He has also reviewed many exhibitions of Irish and international artists, and reported on international events in the electronic arts. He recently presented conference papers at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts at the University of Wales College, Newport, and at Glasgow School of Art, and has participated locally in events in the Digital Hub and Media Lab Europe. http://www.ncad.ie/faculties/visualculture/about.shtml.
Heather Peak is an artist based in Wales who works collaboratively with Ivan Morrison.
Artists Heather and Ivan Morison were born in Desborough and Nottingham, UK, respectively. They have worked together on many projects and have exhibited nationally and internationally. Their work is at once a celebration of and a reflection on simple pleasures and mirrors the passion, process and beauty of their subjects; an astronomer, an ice fisherman, dendrology, floristry, a beekeeper, a pig farmer, Java Sparrows, fungi, science fiction and wildflowers to name a few. Heather & Ivan Morison observe and collect the things they come into contact with, embracing chance encounters and seeking out subjects which are on the edge of daily life. They survey, record and collect to rebuild and re-present the often familiar, investing their observations and discoveries with vigorous fascination. They have a wood in North Wales, where they live and work, which they are developing into an arboretum – a collection of trees gathered from around the world. http://www.globalsurvey.co.uk. http://www.morison.co.uk/.
Image: Untitled, C. Fitzgerald ecoartnotebook.com
Hi all,
Just found out that my film that I made for Biodiversity week 2008 Burning Bright, has been selected for the Carlow 2009 Eigse Film programme. Yay!!! I know some of you watched this film as it was selected earlier this year for the Green Party’s youtube film festival and asked me how it go on there. It didn’t feature much there as I inadvertently sent people to watch it on my youtube channel, not on the official Green Party youtube channel! I’ve learnt a lesson from that – don’t enter competitions if you are suffering from jet lag.
Anyway, it’s nice that is getting a public outing; it will be screened in The Tower (part of the Dinn Ri complex) in Carlow Town on Wednesday 17th June 2009. Time is still to be confirmed but it will most likely be 7 or 8pm. Each participating filmmaker is entitled to free admission for them and a guest. Additional tickets will cost €6.
Hi all,
Just an update on our chipping party that we planned for Easter last weekend. Well, the weather forecast was bad but in fact it was a beautiful spring weekend. Many thanks to friends, Eileen and Steph, even turned up early on Good Friday before we were to start chipping on Sat to help drag all the spruce branches (brash) out of the wood to the edges ready for chipping. Other people had volunteered, our closest Pro Silva forester, Edmund was keen and even someone who has been following my blog since last years Green Irish Gathering was coming… but disaster ensued.
Never, ever, use a chipper named after a great artist, Vermeer, to deal with chipping Sitka branches. We tried both a 6 inch and later a 9inch model and neither worked (it did work fine for logs though). We had hoped to get the chipper our neighbours had used with great success, a ‘Wolf’ chipper but it had been booked out for the weekend. So I quickly emailed people not to come; Martin wasn’t going to give up though,and he tried all means to make the machine behave. It was not to be; Martin spent most of the weekend with his hand down the shute trying to unblock it – in the end we had two small piles chipped. However, we managed to get most of the branches out of the wood, near to our driveways and will have another go in May when we are free again.
We were a bit disappointed not to get all this done, but I was reminded by our forester Chris from Lightfootforestry.ie about all the other forestry going on in the area. It’s almost a year to the day when I had neighbours and interested friends to the ‘Tree Marking’ workshop (the first step in conversion of a spruce monoculture to a mixed species forest) with Jan Alexander (see her new blog: www.localforestlog.ie for loads of ideas and down to earth observations on close to nature forestry; in fact any readers seriously interested in close to nature forestry should subscribe to Jan’s blog; her observations, depth of knowledge are so much deeper than mine but she is delighted that the model of close to nature forestry is taking root in other parts of the country, her latest post will give you an idea of all the seedlings, natural regeneration that happens after thinning) and many of them are making great strides in their different interests in wood.
Friends & neighbours who attended our 'Tree Marking' workshop with Jan ALexander (localforestlog.ie) last April, 2008
So a brief review of what the workshop group have been up to: two neighbours have been planting broadleaves (one removed a Sitka spruce plantation first from a difficult hillside site), another friend, Anna of growyourownfood.blogspot.com has been promoting all sorts of vegetable planting with schools and parents and has recently appeared on RTE news (Anna, many schools in NZ have small areas of native forest, as you know the natives here grow just as quick) and then I got news that Cllr. Malcolm Noonan has helped promote a recent FutureProof Kilkenny (a Transition Town project); planting trees, mainly seedsaver apple trees all over Kilkenny (Kilkenny hast a rich history of apple/fruit orchards). It was the best project for this year’s Kilkenny 400 years city celebration by far; so congratulations to all involved (see video below). Another friend who came last year, Eddie McLoughlin
Bird paintings from the Amazon forests by Eddie McLoughlin
is also making a debut in the art world, showing his paintings of birds in rain forest flora from his years spent in Guyana, the exhibition is opening this Sat in Carlow, see details on the ArtLinks.ie site here. Another neighbour who took some great photos at the tree marking workshop, is raising money for forest communities in South America by horse-riding for charity and lastly Nicola is seriously considering planting her land this autumn.
Enjoy this great video below on all the recent tree planting in Kilkenny, well done Brian, Malcolm, Paul and the Future Proof Kilkenny team and Seedsavers too. It was great to see local film production company Glasseye.ie stepping forward to help promote this project. Great to see the Kilkenny local authority getting in behind supporting this Transition Town initiative (Transition Towns is an exciting and growing international movement; a holistic, local community led groundswell of people interested in finding practical local responses to the effects of climate change and peak oil; it’s evolved from permaculture, yet includes all facets of life; food, energy, arts, healing, education, transport etc – it started in Ireland and has caught on like wildfire in NZ too). By the way, Transition Towns Ireland , care of Cultivate.ie, has now created a social online network at last (like a special interest Facebook site), http://transitiontownsireland.ning.com, people from all over Ireland are joining! I belong to several ning sites and created a private one for Pro
Pro Silva Ireland is on Ning too!
Silva members (I and other PS members can connect with each other from all parts of the country, share ideas share skills so much more effectively). Internet developments like ning are a hugely exciting development, connecting people/revealing members skills for all different of interests and actions (think of how Obama used facebook so effectively, ning is a more focussed model). I’m going to put a ‘close to nature’ forest group andart & ecology group on the Transitiontownireland site, do join so we can all get to know each others skills and talents – it’s a lot of fun too, connecting with people all over the country!
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