‘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.

photo courtesty of www.350.org

Great to see my fellow Kiwis up and about so early – see www.350.org for the biggest international effort to wake up the world to the need to push for strong policy action ahead of the UN Copenhagen Climate talks in Dec. Huge amount of creative ideas by people’s across the globe now – are you involved?

I love this one by OxfamNZ, I’ve been thinking a lot about the south pacific recently – I was once fortunate to visit the Cook islands, one of the many, many island nations under threat of rising sea levels

I’m delighted to write that my friend Jan Alexander has just received the 2009 RDS Forestry Merit award for her 20+ year contribution to Irish Forestry. Here she is pictured with Minister of State for Forestry, Tom Killeen at the award ceremony at Kilkenny Castle last thursday. Hurrah!! (Photos taken with my phone, apologies for the blurry quality)

Mr. Tony Killeen TD, Irish Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for forestry, presented the 2009 RDS/Forest Service Irish Forestry Awards, with Jan Alexander

I was fortunate in recent weeks to be sent as a delegate to the 20th anniversary celebration and conference on Pro Silva Europe in Slovenia. Pro Silva foresters methods are still viewed as radical by mainstream forestry but the long term and wide ranging benefits in regards to biodiversity, climate change as well as steadily increasing forests economic value with sustained employment opportunities, now see Pro Silva organisations reaching across 27 European countries. On its 20th anniversary all Pro Silva foresters from these countries were challenged to push their knowledge and practice of ecologically and economically sustainable forestry to the wider public, to their countries’ political process and to realise that this type of forestry will become an important and significant part of the sustainable ‘green infrastructure’  needed now in all countries. Jan has always easily reached across to both to the general public and professional foresters to show by practical example (Pro Silva organises forest open days around Ireland with visiting european Pro Silva experts)  a new vision of forestry.   I know she was delighted that perhaps this award will bring more attention to this type of forestry management across Ireland.

It was great to see other Pro Silva members in attendance at the RDS Awards. Journalist, forestry advocate and past RDS forestry award winner, Joe Barry and a member from Mayo, Eugene McCartan – we saw slides of Eugene’s forest and I can see it will be visited by Pro Silva members in the future.

Just a final comment – it was great to see the diversity of work behind the people winning awards- there are 2 main categories, one for successful Farm Forestry and one for excellence in creating forests for Biodiversity.  Among the winners was a person involved with a new mushroom industry in his forest who was working with researchers in Limerick University. It was also great to see for the first time an award going to a Local Authority (Kerry) for managing a forest so well. Also, recent head of the Forest Service, Diarmuid McAree was presented with a special award for his long contribution to the industry. Read more in the Irish Examiner  here on the award winners.

The long running RDS Forestry Awards are a measure of the excellence of forestry practiced in the country and those of you with trees should all enter in the future!

Do you look at posters when you are in a new place? I do and I happened across this great poster in Ljubljana recently. Don’t you agree that the strongest message can sometimes be said with the simplest of materials.

I wasn’t surprised at all that this poster by Gaja Mežnarič Osole of Slovenia, gained a distinctive merit award. Ljubljana hosted an innovative 1st european youth poster competition on climate change earlier this year and many of the posters created  striking messages, often more effective than long-winded political or scientific explanations. The aim was to show that ‘the future depends on our common awareness’ and what better way to spread ideas with inexpensive posters across our cities. See more great posters here

Today is also  global bloggers day for the international Climate change 350 initiative. I’m joining over 30,000 bloggers who are trying to draw attention to the grassroots 350 ppm CO2 campaign (the safe level of CO2 that we need to return to, to avoid climate chaos) in order to raise public awareness on the need for tough climate change policy ahead of the December Copenhagen summit on Climate Change.

On October 24, join people all over the world
to take a stand for a safe climate future, see www.350.org

There are a load of initiatives all over the world and not just with the 350  campaign and many are attracting efforts from creative people. My felt artist friend Nicola is joining an International Felt climate change initiative and I’ve made a small goal to make a new work in responses to the new RSA  art and ecology artists network call for works that address or reflect this issue. I was agreeing with another musician friend the other day that there isn’t a better antidote to all this doom and gloom than the buzz of creating something new and I always find I need a deadline to create…  You might like to look or join the new RSA artists Art & Ecology network to see more activity in this area (you can see I made a page for Irish artists, there must be more of you out there). Will Shaw’s blog for the RSA Arts & Ecology programme is also an excellent in-depth current overview of the debates circling art, ecology, politics & society; I’ve signed up for his email blog posts and also you might like to view/join the arts and ecology group on the rapidly growing transitiontownireland site.

PS the 350 campaign video for those who haven’t seen it, it’s a bit like the Obama campaign for the earth, will it make a difference?

Up a tree

I thought you might like to see the work of someone who wrote to me on my blog; these are his recent August sketches. Jones is an artist, poet, thinker, organic gardener, composter, father– and interested in looking deeply into the nature of his local environment and in earlier work, urban surroundings.  I don’t think I need to write more words about his work as they are best without them (though you can guess he’s not living in Ireland)

Notes for a manifesto on free-dying; towards an active, unassisted death. Gift Ecology Films, 2009. Patrick Jones

Some of you may have seen this notice already. I hope to dash out from the arts office to listen in!

BUTLER GALLERY Kilkenny LUNCHTIME TALK – ART AND ECOLOGY
Pisces #25 Chromogenic print 2003, Susan Unterberg

“And for this Nature is Never Spent: Art and Environmental Reform”

Lecture given by Dr. Jo Anna Isaak, John L. Marion Chair in Art History, Fordham University, New York

Tuesday September 8, 2009, (1- 2pm)
The Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle
FREE – Booking Essential

In this once-off Butler Gallery lunchtime talk, Professor Jo Anna Isaak traces modern art’s sustained connection with nature and its subsequent role in environmental reform. She presents the work of a number of contemporary artists working in a variety of non traditional media, who are engaged in what she terms “the greening of the avant-garde” — employing their talents in the service of environmental awareness, providing innovative approaches and models of participatory engagement, designing solutions to environmental problems and broadening public concern for what is becoming the most pressing issue of our time– environmental degradation. She suggests that one of the most radical of modernism’s avant-garde gestures may be in art’s reintegration into the praxis of life, and the realization that art may be necessary for our successful stewardship of the environment.

The Butler Gallery are delighted to welcome Dr. Isaak to Kilkenny, who has very generously agreed to give this talk while in Ireland and continue the discussion on art, ecology and the environment, currently the focus of Moot – Kilkenny Arts Office and Butler Gallery’s series of discussions.

Please contact the Butler Gallery for more information and to book a place by calling 056 7761106

Contact Tel.: 056 7761106
Email: reception@butlergallery.com
Website: http://www.butlergallery.com

“The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.” – Allen Ginsberg

I’ve been caught up lately doing too much work but in odd moments I slip the words ‘art and ecology’ into search engines for other art forms to get a bit inspired. I know, it’s pretty sad.

I barely know why I write a blog as I find writing a bit of a struggle, too many ideas all trying to come out at once means that I spend half my time going back over my sentences trying to sort them into some sort of order but in some odd way its a huge relief to clear the ideas that take up space.  I sometimes find myself curious about poetry; it intrigues me how do people manage to convey so much, often so visually and creatively.

Here is a piece I found, I wasn’t sure what I was listening to at first but hope you enjoy Janet as much as I did.

By the way, do let me know about other ecopoets, Alice Oswald is a favorite of mine but there must be more.

I had a dream the other night
I walked out of the city
to a forest
and there were neatly paved bicycle paths
and trash cans every fifty feet
and trash every ten

I was just going over all the material that I collected at the recent first UK Arts and Forestry meeting held in London last month, when I saw a note that I had written down, to look up a well known Slovenian film maker, Andrej Zdravic, who has recently done a film about forests.

I did a search on google and accidentally came across this film and lost an hour… Now, I have been briefly to Slovenian and I am going back this Sept as I have been invited to the 20th anniversary of Pro Silva Europe -the Close to Nature forestry organisation.  Slovenians are an interesting people, proudly living in country 70% covered by forests and whose economy is also 70% forestry based. Yet this unassuming Slovenian man, is truly a hero in trying to alert the world about saving the Amazon rain forests, the world’s water and climate. I will keep looking for the other Slovenian filmmaker but enjoy meeting Martin Strel! (See the longer clip, here)

‘

‘Many times I talked to myself and to the river. I said: “I am a good man with a good intention. I’ve been talking with the Amazon river for 66 days now. The animals have been swimming with me for weeks, I think Nature allowed me to do this.”

I also want to promote a message of clean rivers, clean water and friendship, because these rivers and water have to stay clean, otherwise the world will collapse. The Amazon river is still very clean, local people use it as a natural resource and I think the Amazon should stay clean forever.

I have seen some deforestation, but it is not going to be good if we keep expanding the limit. I want to pass this message to everybody: “Do not look only for business and for money when you come closer to nature.”
Martin Strel, 2007

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:

1. conservation of ecosystems

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