International Researcher for the KIMO Secretariat

For six months (September 2010 to February 2011) I am undertaking a research project into the scope for municipalities to combat eutrophication (over-loading of nutrients into marine and aquatic environments causing algal blooms and various other damaging impacts) by implementing small scale projects.

This project is part of a one year Graduate Placement within Shetland Islands Council, working in the Heritage Service, under the Environmental Liason for the KIMO Secretariat.

My job is to carryout an extensive literature review and research project into the causes and effects of eutrophication and the scope formitigation by municipalities. I am currently in the process of compiling an extensive background report that seeks to summarise eutrophication, related policies strategies and initiatives in place to tackle it, and the measures a municipality can adopt at a local level to reduce discharges of nutrients.
This professional post has enabled me to develop a range of skills that are summarised on my electronic CV at Linkedin.

The Faeries Initiative for Self Help (F.I.S.H)

During my eventful year as a Perth College student I undertook a module in 'Environmental Interpretation.' This module was geared towards teaching students how to communicate information about the environment to members of the public outside the conventional learning environment.

Along with the usual written-forms of assessment, we were required to undertake a practical examination. The task set by our tutor was to take a small group of ten year-old children to an outdoor setting and deliver a presentation to them relating to a specific site.

The usual worries ensued amongst the class:

"What happens if one of the children runs away...."

"I don't know what children are interested in..."

"I don't know enough to teach the children anything."

The final statement is well founded given that the children came from a school in Highland Perthshire, most of whom could beat any of us hands-down at identifying the flora and fauna of Scotland, given that most of their parents worked the land as farmers, ghillies, estate managers and rangers.

Our task was something of a daunting challenge. Given my somewhat limited experience of working with children (limited meaning I had only spent one week in a children's learning environment at the age of sixteen during work experience), I decided to approach this task from a different angle.

I agreed with my classmates that their concerns were justified and decided to take drastic action to avoid losing the attention of the children and risk pandemonium in a tranquil countryside setting.

Rather than try to reinvent the nature-wheel that my audience had a sound knowledge of, I decided to delve into their imaginations and spend my fifteen minutes in the realm of fantasy, with a subtle conservation undertone.

Faeries have always interested me since my Granny told me about the one that lived under the rhubarb at the top of her garden. I decided faeries were a safe bet for capturing the imaginations of my young audience. After an impromptu 'reccy' of our site (the National Trust's Hermitage site next to Dunkeld) I found a perfect spot to set the scene for my faerie folklore.

The story went something like this:

The Faeries of Dunkeld are a shy and magical people that live in an underground world and come up only at night when all is still and peaceful to forrage berries, pine cones and other faerie food-stuffs for their forest feasts.

To get into our world the faeries must use special gateways provided by nature; mushrooms. Due to recent felling of non-native tree species in the small meadow above the faeries world, the mushrooms that grow in the thickets of damp shady undergrowth have died off and cannot return because the light is drying out the ground and making growing conditions impossible. With the mushroom gateways gone, the faeries have no way to come up at night to forrage their food and their supplies are running low.

Thanks to the help of the friendly Red Squirrels of the Hermitage, close friends of the faeries (and the park rangers), us humans are now aware of the problems of the faerie folk.

It is important that all native species in Scotland are protected, and sometimes this means removing non-native species, including felling invasive tree species. But by doing this at the Hermitage, the faeries are now suffering.

To solve this problem, a group of volunteers have set up The Faeries Initiative for Self Help (F.I.S.H). This group need the public's help to join together in constructing artificial gateways for the faeries to return to our world. By using natural materials ( thick twigs and green, freshly-fallen leaves) we are able to reconstruct the faeries gateways into our world, whilst allowing our natural heritage to be safeguarded. By pushing the thick twigs into the ground this allows enough space for the faeries to wriggle up to the surface. By positioning the fresh-fallen leaves at an angle on top of the twigs, the faeries have enough cover to come and go in relative safety from their nocturnal predators, Owls. The faeries know that these gateways are not real, but thanks to the good work of the Hermitage rangers and the Red Squirrels, the faeries are learning to construct the gateways themselves, but until such a time that they are able to make enough to come and go themselves, it is up to F.I.S.H to protect the Faeries of Dunkeld.

This lenghty description fails to capture the magic of the scene at the Hermitage, on the banks of the River Braan in the sunny, tree-shaded countryside where a group of children, college students and lecturers poked twigs into the soil and balanced leaves on top to make faerie gateways in the hope of saving the Hermitage Faeries.

I learned a lot from this task (one of the most enjoyable assignments I have been given to date!), nothing more so than the difficulty of gauging the success of a presentation when your audience consists of children. My measure was that the children were quiet and listened throughout the story, were keen to take part in the task and none looked bored, or went missing or haywire during my unnerving fifteen minute assessment.

If you are ever fortunate enough to visit the hermitage, as you pass through the small arch, under the railway bridge from the lower car park, there is a shady area with some youthful trees and shrubs on the right, look out for the subtle presence of F.I.S.H's activity, if you can't see any, maybe it's time to join in the faeries plight!