Cape Farewell - we know what to do, can art help us get on and do it?

Cape Farewell is the brainchild of artist David Buckland. Since 2003 the organisation has made eight expeditions to the Arctic and one to the Andes, all with a mission to stimulate a cultural response to climate change. Artists who joined scientists for expeditions on ship and on land included Jarvis Cocker, Ian McEwan and Jude Kelly. Their own stories can be found on the Cape Farewell website as can some previews of an exhibition that goes on tour to the USA at the end of September.

Puffins at sunset on Mingulay

This year Cape Farewell came nearer to home, and I was fortunate enough to join the crew for one week of a four week tour of Scottish Islands, starting with Skye and Canna before crossing the Minch to Mingulay, Barra and South Uist. The weather was kind, and with our sketch pads, lenses and notebooks we chronicled our experiences with wildlife, coastal defences, resident artists and community land ownership projects. Highlights for me included close encounters with the charismatic and trusting puffins on Mingulay, a moving performance of waulking songs by Barra women (sung while beating tweed to soften it) and some wonderful fish and chips at the end of a long day on South Uist.

More thought provoking experiences included one of our South Uist guides confessing that decades of removing shingle from one of the banks protecting the low lying machair (rare, biodiverse coastal grassland) might have contributed to the huge 2005 storm breaching the sea defences as much as climate change had done. He is right to point out that although there are great variations, rising sea-level is, and will be, a problem for many parts of the world, but without changes to human behaviour our best efforts will be undone.

On South Uist, Silverweed is a natural dune stabiliser

There were also some familiar discussions on Canna and Uist about the complexity and contentiousness behind community buy-outs and renewable energy schemes - and the importance of good engagement with and outcomes for local people and the environment – for which there was little training. So it was not clear how the plans we heard for economic and population growth would reduce the risk of dangerous climate change. The average person in the UK emits around 11 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year, as do the citizens of the Outer Hebrides. And that is before adding the ‘extra’ emissions embodied in all the stuff we import from outside the UK. Do that and it more than doubles our personal emissions.

Our visit to uninhabited Mingulay also raised some questions for me. As well as 15 of us, there were campers on the island and other boats anchored in the bay. Many basking sharks, and a seeming profusion of puffins suggested there was good feeding. But Mingulay is a designated a Site of Scientific Interest, and a European Special Protection Area and in July the RSPB reported evidence that Scottish coastal sea birds are in ‘a storm of decline’, probably because of food shortages, with some species like guillemots and kittiwakes down over 60% since 2000. The environmentally sensitive puffin holds an Amber status in the Birds of Conservation Concern listing. At the beginning of August the UN University reported that although the global goal is to protect around 30% of both terrestrial and marine habitats, only 5.8% of land and 0.08% of oceans are currently designated. So should any of us have been invading the space of Mingulay’s wildlife at all?

On South Uist looking at coastal repairs

Just what my artist companions took away from their experiences remains to be seen. As for me, the trip highlighted how important it is for local ideas for resilience to connect to regional and planetary ones. Early Cape Farewell trips to the Arctic did bring climate change into focus at a critical time, but it was Ian McEwan’s very funny and profound blog that spoke best to me. He used the chaos of the on-ship clothing room as a metaphor for the importance of leadership when it comes to running any sort of human system – not least the one that enables us to live in a more sustainable way. We know what to do, so I’m hoping future Cape Farewell projects amongst the Scottish Islands will help us all understand better how to actually get on and do it.