Eco-Isle Conference Success
The Conference is a great success! Well-designed, well-attended and well-addressed by relevant speakers.
Organised by the Island Strategic Partnership (ISP) to launch the Eco-Isle Vision, their many speakers repeatedly brought the message home - we WILL get there.
journey planning
Setting the scene were David Pugh, speaking as leader of the Isle of Wight Council, and John Owen, Chair of the ISP. They reminded us that we have to commit to our destination before we plan the journey. And what an ambitious destination!
They have chosen to aim for the smallest carbon footprint in England by 2020. Our journey will include finances, politics, research, business, and community. Several of the initial speakers confirmed this in different ways.
sustainability is vital
Dame Ellen MacArthur spoke movingly about the whaling towns on South Georgia, an island near the Falklands. When the whale catch dropped early in the twentieth century, the towns were mothballed in the belief that the whales would return and business could resume. Now we know why they disappeared - but have we learned a lesson? Or will we just use up the next resource (oil) and expect to move on again?
She went on to say that sailing a boat single-handedly across an ocean forces you to understand sustainability. If you run out of almost any resource you carry, you could die. Literally. And as an Island, we are nearer that state than the mainland.
Professor Bull Wakeham from Southampton University spoke about research and Eugene Dreyer spoke as Sir Terry Farrell’s stand-in (due to illness). Both had useful things to say, and both were listening, too. I was pleased to hear that tide power was definitely on the agenda.
where there’s a will
With more speakers following, the audience was being told quite clearly “This is important to all of us, and we need to act now - journey details are not clear yet, but the will is there”.
Island futures
I noted a few relevant facts as they whizzed past -
98% of our food is imported,
but a higher tonnage of produce is exported!66% of our water is collected on the Island,
so water sustainability is perhaps the easiest target to reach.23% of our carbon footprint comes from transport.
We have just heard that a fantastic amount of money is available to the Island from central Government to improve Island roads - some of which will be threatened by rising sea levels.
But we also need to get our CarShare scheme off the ground.
It was very nice to see some of our home-grown initiatives featured - the Ventbag “plastic-bag-free towns” group and Wight Made Diesel who re-use chip frying oil to make fuel without chopping down trees!
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