World Environment
Connecting people to nature
Connecting people to nature
Inspired by World Environment Day, the UN initiative in June which aims to connect people with nature, our new Issue celebrates this special synthesis. Set sail on the high seas with Greenpeace, search for elusive summer snows, encounter tigers in the wild, explore nature in the Cairngorms, visit Jessie Kesson's rural Aberdeenshire, learn about the psychological benefits of woodland and discover the ecology of Scotland's varied environments.
Extract from Greenpeace Captain: Bizarre Wanderings On The Rainbow Warrior By Peter Willcox with Ronald B. Weiss Published by Sandstone Press
I found myself in Peru, walking around a dead baby whale with a tape measure in my hand. A Japanese-owned whaling ship had caught the undersize southern Bryde’s whale illegally and towed it into the harbor at Paita for “processing.” A few years before, I had enjoyed an incredible experience on the Regina Maris that left a whale-size impression on me: an encounter with humpback whales at the Silver Bank breeding grounds sixty miles north of the Dominican Republic. Three-quarters of the world’s humpbacks gather together near Silver Bank to mate. During the season, thousands of them are concentrated in an area of about twenty square miles to breed and calve. Humpbacks are fascinating animals. If you’ve ever heard recordings of whales singing, it was probably humpbacks. At Silver Bank we could dive off the boat, snorkel around, and actually hear the singing of the humpback whales through the water. We would often drop a hydro-phone (an underwater microphone) over the side of the Regina Maris and sit around on deck listening to the symphonies that were being pe...
It’s a long while since I read a book that made me laugh and cry within just a few pages, that made me exasperated at one obvious connection its author hadn’t made, then left me humbled as he revealed a range of other interconnected wonders I never knew about. Yet novelist Christopher Nicholson’s new non-fiction book Among The Summer Snows – published by newish imprint September Publishing in just over a week’s time – is indee...
Jessie Kesson’s Crofting And Community
‘The relationship between her man and the brute beasts he worked amongst becoming intimate.’
Emily Dodd: ‘My stories come from a combination of inspiration from nature and things I’m learning.’
The UN’s Lone Ranger: Combating International Wildlife Crime
‘There, on the opposite side of the track, was the tiger from which we had just had the fortunate escape.’
‘In Japan, shinrin-yoku or ‘forest bathing’ is established as a standard, modern form of preventative medicine.’
Exploring Scottish Environments
‘Scotland’s landscape has taken over three thousand million years to become what we see today.’
‘To contemplate the shepherd is to reflect upon a person and a way of life left behind by progress or change.’