EIGG Island Going Green

 For further information and to book a place go to to www.transitionscotland.org

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Autumn is upon us all of a sudden with the noticeable change in temperature and the high winds we had the other day. A proper gale is always exciting and refreshing although I will probably not be feeling the same way in the deepest darkest part of winter when the winds have relentlessly blown for months, but for now it is certainly a joy to feel the full force of the wind on my cheeks! The other noticeable signs of autumn is the bracken dying back leaving a golden colour to the hillside and allowing walks that just aren’t possible or pleasant in the summer unless you like being in amongst bracken towering over you and hundreds of ticks! The tree leaves are changing into the magnificant range of colours that is quite often a rarety to see the full range here due to them all being blown off well before the best colours show but makes a walk in the woods all the more exciting with the leaves to scuff and crunch through. The hazelnuts are pretty tasty just now but when you collect the fallen ones it is a bit hit or miss on the good ones. Various different theories include waiting until the first frost before collecting, or just until the temperature drops like now. If they fall out of their husks easily they are ready, or pick them whilst green and dry yourself in a cool, dry place. I could go on but I picked a huge bag of them last week from the ground and put them in a bowl of water. The ones that sink are guaranteed to be good and the floaters are empty or rotten, of course this isn’t always accurate as a very small percentage of the floaters are usually ok but 100% of all the sinkers are very tasty to eat or alternatively can be stored in sand/grit (securely stored away from wee beasties that would love to find a winter store of food!) that will eventually sprout into your very own wee trees! The last autumnal sign that I noticed this week has been the silage being cut and baled.  

Programme of the week – Horizon, The death of the ocean’s? Sir David Attenborough reveals the findings of one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time – an investigation into what is happening to our oceans. He looks at whether it is too late to save their remarkable biodiversity. Horizon travels from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef to meet the scientists who are transforming our understanding of this unique habitat. Attenborough explores some of the ways in which we are affecting marine life – from over-fishing to the acidification of sea water. The film also uncovers the disturbing story of how shipping noise is deafening whales and dolphins, affecting their survival in the future.

The programme was a bit gloomy with the feeling that it was all to late but the important thing to remember is stay optimistic and if it means that you only eat fish locally caught then that is a great help in itself. When presented with facts like from this programme it is very informative to understand the seriousness of the issue but I feel that it should have ended with practical advise that you in your home can do rather than such a  huge problem that looked impossible to tackle. Think of what you can do under your own roof ,then locally within your community and then globally!

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Yesterday the Isle of Eigg was privileged to welcome HRH The Princess Royal in perhaps the first Royal Visit since the time of the Lords of the Isles!

Her Royal Highness had a brief tour of the Island and met most of the residents in the Community Hall.  The Royal Party learned about the challenges of the past few years,  the changes brought about through sustainable energy, the Big Green Challenge & plans for the future.

Gifts were presented by Camille Dressler author of “Eigg: the Story of an Island” & the youngest pupils in the School, Breagha Millar and Clyde Wallace. Donna MacCulloch piped “The Isle of Eigg’s Welcome to the Princess Royal, a tune she composed specially for the occasion.

The Chairman of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, John Hutchison, said; “Eigg has become a place to be watched, to be associated with, a place to visit and a place to learn from. Although that is humbling we are also very proud of our achievements.”

In her response The Princess Royal congratulated the community & said that the dynamics on the island had made it successful & an example to others.

Pride on Eigg as pioneering green work given royal seal of approval

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Renowned Scottish meteorologist and former BBC weather presenter Heather Reid OBE was on hand at the Glasgow Science Centre  on the 3rd of September to officially launch Learning and Teaching Scotland’s new online educational resource, Weather and Climate Change. 

Eigg Primary school won “Best Community Production” for their video clip “Our Green Island” now included in the new LTS website. The pupils travelled down to Glasgow especially for the occasion along with other schools that have been involved in the project. Eigg Primary got presented the award by Heather Reid and then much to their delight the rest of the afternoon was spent going round the Science Centre which outwayed any award! Eigg Primary Schools video can be seen by clicking here.

The resource supports the teaching of weather and climate change from the early level onwards and contains essential background information about climate change as well as easy access to topical news and resources. It also features many high-quality videos that can be used directly with children and young people. 

Heather was joined by pupils and teachers from schools across Scotland who all played an important part in creating the resource.

‘Climate change is an important and complex issue which is impacting on nature, biodiversity and people around the world,’ said Heather. ‘It is essential that our young people are aware of its importance from an early age and educational resources such as the Weather and Climate Change website go a long way to ensuring that the topic secures an important role in Scottish education.’ 

The Weather and Climate Change website contains essential background information about climate change as well as easy access to topical news and resources. It also features many high-quality videos that can be used directly with children and young people. 

Professor Kay Livingston, Director, International, Research and Innovation at LTS, is confident that the new website will prove to be an important resource for teachers. 

‘Developing our young people as global citizens is embedded within Curriculum for Excellence and understanding the worldwide impact of climate change is a key part of education,’ said Kay. 

‘The Weather and Climate Change website can be readily used to support learning across a range of curriculum areas, especially within sciences, technologies and social studies.’

Hilda Ibrahim, Headteacher at Eigg Primary School, commented: ‘The children were delighted to be part of the new Weather and Climate Change website for LTS. On Eigg the children are very aware of the effect of weather conditions on how they lead their sustainable life. 

‘This direct link, through their own personal experience, with the effects of strong contrasts in weather helps the children to develop a global understanding of the effect of climate change. 

‘The new website will provide a valuable source of information and inspiration on an important topic for schools across Scotland.’

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You will need;

1lb Cooking apples, peeled, cored & sliced

8oz Brambles

4 – 6oz Granulated sugar (depending on your sweet tooth)

Crumble

4oz Flour

2oz Porridge oats

4oz Demerara sugar

4oz Butter/marge

Pinch of salt

Set oven to 375degreesF or gas mark 5. Mix together the apples and brambles and put into a pie dish. Add sugar (to taste) and a little water. For the crumble, put flour, oats, salt and butter into a bowl and work together with hands until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in demerara sugar and sprinkle crumble mix over fruit. bake for 15mins then REDUCE temperature to 350degreesF/Gas mark 4 and bake for a further 35/40mins or until top is slightly browned. ENJOY!

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  Along with the plankton that the basking sharks feed off comes the mackerel. A few folk have been out there and getting a good catch after a long awaited arrival of the tastiest fish in the sea. It is one of the more exciting fish to catch as you rarely catch one and every hook would be full with their irredecent bluey green and silver stripes making them easily identified. Although on occasion you can be proved wrong as an afternoon out pollock fishing and every hook was taken up by sathe and pollock which was very exciting and heavy to pull in! I thought I had got the hooks stuck on the bottom the way the rod bent! It has been a good summer for the crab and lobsters, this year there is two main boats with 4 or 5 creels each and a couple of other folk throwing one or two creels in so the, this is my patch wars have been going on, all in good jest really! With the big tides last month it was perfect for collecting the Spoots/Razor fish (if you are unsure what they are look at an earlier post called spoots showing a video clip of these strange creatures that live under the sand) 

Turning our foraging ways inshore the tasty wee morsals that can be munched on a wee afternoon stroll was the wild strawberries, rasberries, wood sorrel and gooseberry with the hazelnuts and brambles just ripening now. Other fruits which need a bit more attention are the Sloes, gooseberry, Rosehips and Elderberry. Around our community hall there is some established apple trees and the branches are heavy with them this year. I was a bit late in returning to the newly planted fruit trees in our community orchard to catch any 1st year fruits but I did get one picture of one lonely apple! Mushrooms are another seasonal favourite with the field mushrooms being the most common and a tasty treat of Chanterelles can be found here too, everybody has their very own secret location so, sorry no pictures can be taken for you to see! The latest buzz in the local food and the next obvious step is looking into processing our own meat. The first step with is a butchery course planned for next month so watch this space for Eigg’s own meat…

A few handy cooking hints…

 Mackerel – Lightly fried or grilled with garlic and butter. The simpler the better with mackerel as it is so rich in flavour.

Pollock – Can be fried in breadcrumbs, great in pies as it is so meaty but other seafood is needed as pollock is very bland. I think it is best in batter of which again a very simple recipe is 4oz Self Raising Flour, Half teaspoon salt, about Quarter pint of water. Whisk the water into the flour and salt until a smooth thickish consistency. Dip the fish in just before throwing into oil at a heat of 170degrees C, until golden brown. 

Lobster - Bring a large pan of water to the boil, after placing the lobster in once the water comes back to the boil cook for 8min. Beautiful to eat with salad or in a pasta or stir fry dish. If recooking the lobster only ever throw it in at the very end as it can go chewy.

Crab - Same as a lobster although to be cooked for 10mins. Crab is lovely as part of a salad, eaten on its own or in crab cakes.

Last but not least while I am on the subject of food for free – If any of you missed the BBC 1 programme called the Great British Waste Menu it is well worth a watch on iPlayer. It was astonishing how much food they managed to collect for free and then cooked an amazing banquet with it all. It was very interesting on the food waste subject and gave a very clear insight into how much is wasted not just from households but on a much larger scale from supermarkets disgarding it as damaged over ripe or on the sell by date. Not only this but we have all become spoilt and fussy about how our food looks rather than tastes, so used to overstocked shops and seeking visual perfection a huge amount of fruit veg and meat is disgarded before it reaches a supermarket as it does not meet the stadards of size, shape, colour and look. Globally this is quite tragic and opened my eye up to the bigger food waste issue. On Eigg we are lucky not to have such a wide scale problem with our one local shop sourcing local produce when in season and fruit and veg orders that are placed are carefully selected so the amount is judged from our predictable weekly ways and if we require a large amount of anything then you have to place your order a few days in advance. Our shop keeper does an amazing job at keeping the shop well stocked but with minimum waste along with keeping the variety and choice, maybe Tescos and Morrisons could learn a thing or two!

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Hello out there!! We are still all alive here despite there not being a recent post so apologies for the lack of news but with school holidays, holidays away, visitors, weeding, eating the strawberries and the general summer season 6wks seemed to fly by and not much work at the computer got done! 

Fruits are a plentiful this year with wild rasberries galore, hazel trees dripping with nuts, apples awaiting to be cider and the brambles yet to ripen and be put in a pie! Maybe the winter frosts spurred the fruits on or maybe it is just I am more observant after all our wild food walks I’m not sure but whichever way it has and continues to be rich pickings from the wilds this year. I reckon a bumper collection of recipes will be posted soon now we are back into the working way to catch up with all the months we have missed but it will be tried and tested recipes.

Other than the on land natural wonders we have been lucky enough to be graced with many dolphins and basking sharks swimming around in our waters so close to the shores that stepping on a boat is not always necessary. I was lucky enough to get a boat trip around Eigg last week and managed to put together the shots below. Apologies for the shaky video clip this was due to my extreme over excitement and fear at being so close to these huge beasts as it started swimming directly towards the boat! They always effortlessly turn and swim past although however tranquil and renowned harmless vegetarians, their huge fins still always puts the jaws theme tune in my head! I am yet to catch the dolphins close up.           

Other developments have been the arrival of the equipment to lay the base in preparation for the additional 20kw PV panels which will be the first improvement to Eigg Electric since going live. This addition was in the original plans of the scheme but at the time of original works money became tight and we had to drop the full array so now we are finally spending our prize money from the Ashden Awards along with some Big Green Challenge prize towards bringing the array to 30kw altogether.

August arrived as quickly as it has passed, kids are back to school already and the visitors are starting to slacken off. The weather this month was at least kind enough to give us a couple of scorchers to allow us to squeeze all our summer activities into two days! With the new school term a few bleary eyes have been spotted (especially me) still adjusting to the early morning starts. The school roll has 10pupils this year which is fantastic and quite a handful for our teachers as it is the full range from P1 to P6 so good luck to Mrs Ibrahim and Ms Hollands in keeping one step ahead of all those bright sparks. We have none in nursery this year and we have lost one pupil to Mallaig high school of which we wish her all the best and  I’m in no doubt she will enjoy her time over the water with kids of the same age. Recipes will be to follow soon, I’m off to see if I can catch a picture of the dolphins!

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Telegraph – Eigg wins ‘green oscar’

Guardian – Eigg Islanders win top prize for green living

BBC News – Eigg wins green award amid forced return to diesel

Scotsman – Eigg wins top green awards

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Ashden Awards 2010: World’s leading green energy awards announce UK winners

 Tonight (1^st July) at the Royal Geographical Society, low carbon energy champions from all over the globe were recognised at the 10^th annual Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, the world’s leading green energy awards. Businesses, schools, local authorities and charities were among the UK winners, all of whom have made significant carbon savings through the use of renewable energy or energy efficiency measures. The overall UK Gold Award winner is the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust for their outstanding achievements in cutting energy consumption and devising a unique electricity capping system, dramatically reducing household carbon emissions by nearly 50 percent.

The Ashden Awards champion and reward life-changing ideas: from smokeless stoves in Ethiopia, to green schools in the UK, to solar powered education in Bangladesh. Six UK and six international projects were chosen as winners and received their awards from internationally renowned natural history filmmaker Sir David Attenborough. Award winners received £10,000 or £20,000 to invest in future sustainable energy work.

Sarah Butler-Sloss, Founder Director of the Ashden Awards, said: “Our UK winners demonstrate how local sustainable energy can not only help save the planet, but also transform communities across the UK by creating jobs, regenerating communities, tackling fuel poverty and educating our future citizens to live sustainably”.

David Attenborough said: “These award-winners are champions at delivering practical ways of protecting our planet and its precious biodiversity through the use of sustainable energy. They are reducing carbon emissions and protecting local eco-systems, whilst improving the lives of the people they touch. They deserve to be celebrated for their important role in tackling both climate change and poverty. ”

Six UK organisations won the awards following a rigorous judging process by nine leading experts in the field:

UK Gold Award winner: The Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, Scotland

This is an island community that has embraced self sufficiency and a radical green lifestyle by carefully managing its energy use, actively encouraging energy-saving in everyone’s daily life and generating 90 percent of its electricity through renewable energy. Using hydro, wind and solar energy, the island’s system is unique, as is their electricity capping scheme that ensures households and businesses keep a constant watch on energy consumption.

Northwards Housing, Manchester

A scheme that has given 70 percent of North Manchester’s social housing a top-to-toe energy efficiency overhaul, bringing tenants real comfort and lower fuel bills, and resulting in serious carbon reductions. The scheme has gone further than most, and beyond the government’s ‘decent home’ standards, particularly impressive for its work on hard-to-treat properties, where CO₂ emissions have fallen by up to 60 percent.

Suffolk County Council, Ipswich

This forward-looking Council is making big strides towards sustainability by helping local schools switch their oil-fired boilers to greener wood-fired boilers and boosting Suffolk’s supply chain for biomass fuel through sustainable forestry. The County Council is creating local jobs in recession-hit times, and boosting the potential for biomass in the region.

Willis Renewable Energy Systems, Belfast

 The Solasyphon is a plumbing innovation that speeds up and simplifies the retro-fitting of solar water heating in existing homes, saving the cost of buying a new water tank. 2,500 have been sold, with installations going ahead in many overseas markets as well as the UK.

Okehampton College, Okehampton, Devon

Students, staff and governors of this dynamic secondary school in Devon are heading towards carbon neutrality with an exciting array of energy-saving activities both inside and outside the college gates, while inspiring and supporting their eleven feeder primary schools to follow suit.

St Columb Minor, Newquay, Cornwall

 The Eco Team and staff at this primary school are taking a practical but fun-packed approach to driving energy use down by making eco pledges in class and at home, generating energy with wind and solar, and giving their building a green overhaul with £120,000-worth of funding.

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