Guest article: Third SPRINGBOARD local assembly in Scottish Borders
Charles Fletcher from the Southern Uplands Partnership, a member organisation of Scottish Borders Climate Action Network (SBCAN), writes about the latest local assembly in the region.
On Sunday 2 November, 21 people joined us for the third SPRINGBOARD local assembly in the Borders as part of the Connecting Threads Tweed River Festival in Peebles. The event was organised as a collaboration between SBCAN, Connecting Threads, CABN (Creative Arts Business Network) and Culture for Climate Scotland, as part of its national programme of local assemblies. This year’s theme was ‘Upstream, Downstream’ focusing on the role of rivers as climate indicators and climate regulators.
During the morning, participants could choose between two workshops. Some of our group embarked on a site visit to Eddleston Water, an award-winning river restoration project, upstream from Peebles. The project has successfully reduced the amount of water arriving into Peebles town during heavy rainfall by as much as 5%, a significant mitigation for a place that suffers from an increasing risk of flooding as a result of climate change. Meanwhile, others remained in Peebles and took part in a movement workshop with dance artist Penny Chivas. Penny led the group through pedestrian movement practises, including a ‘sweep’ where participants walked together in a line to establish a shared movement. This gave participants the experience of being as one in a changing environment.
In the afternoon, participants came together to talk about community action over coffee and cake. We made new connections, shared inspiration and advice, learned how people are involved in climate action already and about opportunities to continue our work through funding (including the launch of ‘Act for Change’ seed funding). A local assembly attendee said: ‘It was so nice to meet people working on different elements of the kaleidoscope of climate action!’
Culture for Climate Scotland shared case studies demonstrating how artists have supported climate action, particularly around rivers and coasts. Examples included HighWaterLine by artist Eve Mosher, Buoyancy in unprecedented times by Jenny Pope, and the Burnie Journey with artist Simon Gall. You can listen to the podcast episode ‘The denburn is flooding, don’t panic! How does creativity help engage communities in flood risk?’ produced when Culture for Climate Scotland was called Creative Carbon Scotland.
We finished by discussing volunteering opportunities locally with Guardians of the River, a Tweed Foundation citizen science programme delivered in the Borders.
It was fantastic to come together and see how community action could support healthy rivers and build climate resilience at the same time.
Featured image credit: Aiden Nicol
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This article was posted by Scottish Borders Climate Action Network (Southern Uplands Partnership).
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