A new book investigating and linking the cultural backgrounds of a Scottish and an Irish island to the ongoing conflicts over proposed marine conservatin areas and fishing restrictions was published yesterday.
The book – Dùthchas na Mara (‘Belonging to the Sea’) – highlights the role that traditional knowledge of the sea plays in maintaining Gaelic speaking island fishing communities in Scotland and Ireland.
It also suggests that traditional knowledge may be an important cultural source for the current campaign on Barra against Scottish Government proposals for two European marine conservation areas in the waters around the island.
The huge audiences for the series based on Barra – An Island Parish, saw a hilariously wonderful public meeting on Barra on the proposed Marine Conservation Area.
Angered residents, filling the island hall – who lives are directly and immediately governed by the natural world and who knew what they were talking about – eyeballed and dismissed a couple of besuited young civil servants beamed in from Edinburgh with their power point display and no knowledge beyond what someone else had told them.
Dùthchas na Mara is a product of the Connecting Coastal Communities project and has been supported by the Colmcille Partnership that seeks to forge contemporary connections between the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland.
The book has been written by Iain MacKinnon, on behalf of the Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF), and Ruth Brennan, a social ecologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).
Dùthchas na Mara also features photographs from the Glasgow-based visual artist Stephen Hurrel who himself has Barra connections. It had its Scottish launch on Barra yesterday (15th August) in Castlebay Hall as part of a ceilidh to celebrate the Clan MacNeil Gathering.
The book reveals similarities in practices and beliefs that exist between traditional knowledge holders on Barra and on Arranmore, a Gaelic speaking island off the west coast of Donegal in Ireland. There fishermen have been campaigning for the last five years against what they say are crippling restrictions on their ability to fish. Drawing examples from both islands, the work describes some key aspects of the fishermen’s close and enduring relationship with their local waters and the role that this sense of belonging to the sea plays in the life of island communities.
Scottish Crofting Federation vice-chair Fiona Mandeville said that in many Highlands and Islands’ coastal communities fishermen are also crofters, or belong to crofting families. She said: ‘While it is true that aspects of traditional knowledge are being lost, this book shows that there are crofters and fishermen who, because of the way they choose to work on land and at sea, are helping to keep alive important aspects of indigenous culture.
‘The book takes a small part of what remains of this traditional knowledge and puts it into its primary context as working knowledge. It also shows how Government has the opportunity to support this knowledge through a raft of international legislation which exists to protect it.’
SAMS Director, Professor Laurence Mee, congratulated the authors and the photographer. He said: ‘The Atlantic shores and islands have been populated for thousands of years and have shaped and been shaped by people. This beautiful book shows how Gaelic island communities express this cultural symbiosis through their language and customs but also how they respond to the extraordinary pressures of modernity. It is a rare insight on a world of hugely knowledgeable people, steeped in tradition but struggling to adapt to the harsh realities of a planet under unprecedented social and ecological pressure.’
Head of Gaelic Usage at Bòrd na Gàidhlig, David Boag said: ‘The linking of communities in this way is the primary purpose of the Colmcille programme and this book reminds us of the vital part that the sea has, and continues to play in connecting and supporting Gaelic speaking communities in Scotland and Ireland.”
Wednesday evening’s ceilidh in Castlebay also marked the beginning of Sgeulachdan na Mara (Sea Stories), a project to develop a dynamic digital map containing images, sounds and stories that inform the Barra people’s relationships with the sea. Sgeulachdan na Mara will be undertaken by the researchers in collaboration with Voluntary Action Barra and Vatersay.
Note: An electronic version of the book Dùthchas na Mara is available here and also at: http://www.crofting.org/uploads/news/CCS_ebook.pdf
This article raises some interesting points; I’m sure that much more is covered in the book. The points raised here however do need a larger airing, and could a parallel be drawn between Gaelic speaking island fishing communities and those of aboriginal, First Nations and even Inuit communities?
Is it right that the Inuits could potentially kill the last Bowhead whale, is it right that that modern technology can be used by these minority groups; such as shooting polar bears from helicopters? While it is important to keep traditions and ‘forgotten arts’ of times gone by it is also important to realise that we live in an industrial, commercial World, one where many of the World’s fish stocks are in very real trouble.
Often local communities are highly attuned to their local environment, and many are deeply passionate about their surroundings, but what of the bigger picture; effects of global industrial scale exploitation of the seas, the colossal amounts of pollution still pumped into them and the atmosphere on a daily basis. It is the combined potential effects of all these activities that must be taken into account, not just that of minority groups.
The Inuits were not the root cause of the declining whale population, but potentially their ‘subsistence hunting’ could render some species extinct; is that right? The right to hunt in some locations are akin to the right to don highland dress; even the loosest connection may be accepted as ‘aboriginal’ and ‘subsistence’. Even in locations where schools, mains electricity, and the internet exist.
Like it or not we are in the 21st Century with all the pressures that brings, and if conservation areas are one method to try to keep pristine locations pristine and biologically diverse areas diverse is that too much to ask? What is important here is that a ‘level head’ approach is essential not the scare-mongering and factually incorrect information being banded about. In most cases there is no reason that old style fishing methods those that are sustainable and environmentally friendly need be affected. With the introduction of no-take-zones even more damaging activities could take place: but in this modern World where profit rules, something needs to change…before it’s too late!
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Mark Carter is absolutely right. The Canadian Grand Banks fishermen probably didn’t want to reduce their fishing stock to zero, but that is what happened.
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Good reasoned response by Mark.
One question though Mark, is it morally right to impose something on a community that the majority of said community obviously do not want?
The good people of Barra have been very vocal in their opposition to an MPA in their local waters, so for the greater good should they be ignored?
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“keep pristine locations pristine and biologically diverse areas diverse”
“The good people of Barra have been very vocal in their opposition to an MPA in their local waters, so for the greater good should they be ignored?” No they should not be ignored, they should be allowed to be the “monitored” guardians of managing the area in a sustainable manner.
Both valid…I refer you to Tiree, where we want an MPA and SPA and do not want the huge industrialisation of the Argyll nea Tiree Array…we only have 6 lobster boats on Tiree that would be unaffected by an MPA for one of, if not the primary Basking Shark Hotspot in the uk.
Karl
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Karl, I fully agree if the people of Tiree do not want an Industrial Wind Park off their Island and may want an MPA, for whatever reason,that their views should be paramount and taken into account in any descision.
Saying that, it is not up to the people of Barra to manage their own Island and adjoining waters in the manner they see fit, they have done it for hundreds of years and I would argue have done a very good job without interference from so called experts who now want to takeover.
“Monitored guardians” to me seems as if you are advocating a “Big Brother Type of Society” in that the local population are not to be trusted or thought to have the expertise to manage the resources of their locality themselves.
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Thank you for taking the time to respond.
In reply; Have any ‘officials’ actually taken the time to fully explain the concept of a Special Area of Conservation? Or even Special Protection Areas? The Western Isles are currently under a ‘Special Conservation Order for Seals’ yet the government still issues licences to shoot seals, not much protected there. And the fact that in most cases ‘protected areas’ most probably won’t stop any traditional fishing activities. Where has been the ‘balanced’ argument, I approached the local paper following an extremely one sided coverage of the Barra SAC saga, following a half hour meeting with a journalist on the subject, where it was clear from the outset that his mind was made up, two sentences were printed and one was not what I actually said.
From what I’ve observed it is not the locals or as put here, ‘the good people of Barra’ that are the people to be worried about, without adequate protection it is the commercial fleets from elsewhere, who have been seen striping an area and moving on, leaving the locals with the aftermath.
Fortunately I’m not in the business of answering questions on morality, but the facts remain, times are a changing, and if we want to see a productive future from the sea, not only for us but for that of our children we have to do something. If local communities would take another look at the facts, and not be influenced by the commercial propaganda floating about that would be a start; many have done and the results have been shown to be productive.
This does not have to be a ‘this or that’/ ‘them & us’ scenario, but it would be better embraced by the local communities in question, thereby avoiding the question of ‘big brother’ or any other type of top down pressure.
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Amazing how you can have a protected area around Barra but Tiree surrounding sea area is for sale along with a cash back guarantee underwritten by Scottish government and uk tax payer.
Bit like a bond issued by a Spanish government surely the way forward to solve the euro crisis would be for the Greek government to build windfarms in Scottish onshore water and sell so called offhsore bonds for this.
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