New chair of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh appointed

The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment today announced the appointment of Sir Muir Russell as the new Chair to the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, said:

“I am delighted that Sir Muir Russell has agreed to become the Chair of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The Garden brings international visitors to Scotland and shares its expertise with many other countries of the world.

“I am confident that Sir Muir’s expertise and extensive leadership experience at the highest levels in the public sector will ensure that the RBGE continues to make an important contribution to the current challenges facing the environment of biodiversity loss, climate change and low carbon living.”

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a Non-Departmental Public Body established under the National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985 and is mainly funded by the Scottish Government. Its mission is “to explore and explain the world of plants” and its primary functions are: science, horticulture, education and information and visitor services.

Sir Muir has wide experience as a Chairman and extensive experience of giving direction and leadership, building and leading teams and of change management. He has been the Chair for the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland since 2008 and was reappointed by Scottish Ministers for a further 3 year term in 2011.

He joined the Scottish Office in 1970 where he held a number of positions in policy and administration, legislation and other parliamentary work leading to senior management responsibility. He was the Permanent Secretary from 1998 to 2003. In 2003 he was appointed Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow and served for 6 years.

Sir Muir said:

“I am delighted to become the Chairman of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, an organisation I have admired and supported for many years.

“I attach particular importance to the continuing international excellence of its scientific work, as well as to its roles in education and in providing a fine experience for those who visit, from Scotland and elsewhere. There is huge potential in all these areas and I look forward to working with my Board colleagues and with the Regius Keeper and staff to help realise that potential.”

This appointment will be for four years and will run from December 19 2011 to November 30 2015.

This appointment is part-time and attracts no remuneration. The total time commitment is approximately 20 days per annum and includes preparation for and attendance at up to four Board meetings.

Sir Muir is also Chairing Member for the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland which attracts a remuneration of £17,500.

This Ministerial public appointment was made in accordance with the code of practice published by the Public Appointments Commissioner for Scotland.

All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity within the last five years (if there is any to be declared) to be made public. Sir Muir has declared no political activity within the last five years.

Tarnished Earth – exhibition at Botanics

Tarnished Earth, a dramatic open air gallery of photographs by Jiri Rezac, telling the story of one of the world’s biggest ecological disasters, has arrived in Edinburgh this month.

The free outdoor exhibition shows how Canada’s magnificent Boreal Forest is being destroyed and polluted by the rush to extract oil from the tar sands just below the surface.

Staged by The Co-operative Group in conjunction with WWF-UK and Greenpeace, Tarnished Earth is touring the UK and has so far been seen by more than five million people. The three metre high installations of astounding images will be displayed in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, throughout September .

The photographs are illuminated at night and contrast the destruction caused by the oil extraction with the area’s pristine wilderness and the traditional way of life of the indigenous First Nation Cree. The exhibition forms part of The Co-operative’s on-going Toxic Fuels campaign.

Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals and Sustainability at The Co-operative, said: “It is really important that people see for themselves the scale of the environmental destruction which is being done in order to extract oil from tar sands.

“The greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil are far greater than those of conventional oil, and its exploitation alone would be sufficient to take the world to the brink of runaway climate change.

“Tarnished Earth vividly portrays the impact tar sands operations are having on this beautiful area of boreal forest which has been home to wildlife and the indigenous Cree nations for thousands of years.”

 

 

Trees for 2nations at the Botanics

by Thomas Haywood

Earlier this month at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh the American Consul, Dana Linnet & the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Richard Lochhead, helped to launch Trees for 2 Nations.

This is an initiative linking a new partnership between the RGBE and the Knoxville Tennessee Botanical gardens.

The aim is to exchange knowledge and to work together to enable survival of rare trees in both countries. The consul and the minister are seen here planting a rare Arran Rowan tree. The event was also attended by an invited audience  & the RBGE staff.

Thomas Haywood Photography
25 Polwarth Crescent 2f1
Edinburgh
EH11 1HR

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Five things you need to know today

The Scotland rugby team play France at the Stade de France in Paris today at the start of the Six Nations.

According to the BBC the Blindcraft factory will close following the decision by workers not to accept the three day working week. We told you a little of the story about Blindcraft last month and will have an update for you at the beginning of the week.

There are planned protests in town today against potential cuts in library services, on what is called National Libraries Day.

Edinburgh to Glasgow rail passengers suffered cancellations last night due (yet again) to flooding at Winchburgh Tunnel and Glasgow Queen Street station.

Michael Jackson asked ‘What have we done to the world?’. Bob Dylan told us ‘The answer is blowin’ in the wind’. This display at The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh looks at how the natural world and future of our planet have been highlighted within song lyrics.

Part of Let’s Get Lyrical in our City of Literature, the display runs for the month of February.

Garden Music at the Botanics with Frieda Morrison

Broadcaster and musician, Frieda Morrison, and Curator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, David Mitchell, are at it again! They will be down in the Botanics telling stories and making music… on the 12th February at 7.30pm.

Read all about it here……

Click FULL SCREEN to see the poster at its best

[scribd id=47748770 key=key-12m2uupgk4nl47i69o3y mode=list]

And you can listen to Frieda’s lovely music here…..

RBGE appoint new trustees

The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Richard Lochhead has announced the appointment of two new members to the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE).

Patricia Henton and Frank Kirwan will begin the four year appointments on November 1, 2010.

Patricia Henton is an earth scientist by background and until recently was a corporate director of The Environment Agency. She brings strong leadership and communication skills to the board having previously held a number of relevant posts. These include the Council of the RSPB, President of the Institution of Water and Environmental Management, Chief Executive and board member of Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Director of Our Dynamic Earth.

Mrs Henton holds a public appointment with the Coal Authority with offers remuneration of £11,666 per annum. She is also a Board member with the British Geological Survey Board which offers remuneration is £3,430 pa

Frank Kirwan is currently chairman of KAL, an international software company, and chair of the Finance & Audit committee of the International Institute for Environment and Development. He has previously been a non-Executive Director of Standard Life Assurance and an Executive Director with the Royal Bank of Scotland and has held the position of Treasurer of two international charities, Oxfam and Actionaid International. He has taught in several universities, most recently on the MBA programme at the University of Edinburgh’s Business School. He will bring to the RBGE Board strong financial management skills as well as a wide knowledge of strategy development, budget setting processes, and risk management.

The posts are part-time and attract no remuneration. The total time commitment is approximately 16 days per year.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a Non-Departmental Public Body established under the National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985 and is mainly funded by the Scottish Government. Its mission is “to explore and explain the world of plants” and its primary functions are: science, horticulture, education and information and visitor services.

This Ministerial public appointment was made in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland’s Code of Practice.

All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity within the last 5 years (if there is any to be declared) to be made public. Mrs Henton and Mr Kirwan have declared no political activity.

Review : Frieda Morrison and her band at the Botanics

And a lovely time was had by all. The Reporter was lucky enough to catch one of the events in The Scottish International Storytelling Festival which has just begun in the city.

What made this evening of music and stories different was that the stories from the curator of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, David Mitchell, were only complemented by the music provided by Frieda Morrison and her “band”. The band is actually Morrison, who plays a pretty mean guitar, her guitarist John Carnie and her niece Delayne Morrison who plays the autoharp. (If you don’t know what an autoharp is then think of Reese Witherspoon playing June Carter Cash in Walk The Line)
Mitchell has a great storytelling voice, and uses it to good effect, telling us the stories of eighteenth and nineteenth century plant collectors who travelled all over the world to bring back plants and seeds previously unknown here in Scotland. Pioneers such as George Forrest, Archibald Menzies and David Douglas proved yet again that Scots are great travellers with much purpose. Menzies brought the monkey puzzle from Chile.

Morrison has a very lovely singing voice, and, backed by her Ladies of Birse, she played some tracks from her new CD Morven which was recorded at the Dunkeld studio of Dougie McLean and which we are told is available on Amazon.

More information about The Scottish International Storytelling Festival here

Music at the Botanics

Broadcaster and singer-songwriter Frieda Morrison joins RBGE horticulturalist David Mitchell to explore the plants in the gardens next Saturday. With songs from Frieda’s new album Morven and adventure stories about the Scottish plant-hunters from Dave, this will be a uniquely entertaining evening at the Lecture Theatre at 20a Inverleith Row.

Part of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival the evening kicks off at 7.30 and tickets cost £10. An invitation from Frieda here and more information from the Botanics website here.

What’s on This Week? – 20th September

Sustainable events all weekend 25th -26th September at The Out of the Blue Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street just off Leith Walk. Organised by www.transitionedinburgh.co.uk

If you are interested in history then there is a meeting of the Leith Local History Society on 21st September at Leith Community Centre on Kirkgate at 7.30pm. More details here. They have a talk by Simon Fraser about Fisherrow.

On 24th September there is to be an event at Word Power Books starting at 6pm. Alex Miller is one of Australia’s best loved writers, and will be in Edinburgh to discuss and read from his fantastic new novel Lovesong, which has just won the Age Book of the Year prize at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.

He is twice winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia’s premier literary prize, and his book The Ancestor Game was the overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. More details here.

At The Scottish Storytelling Centre on 21st September there are two events for children at 10.00 and 11.30am. An entertaining morning for wee ones to discover the joy of tales, with raconteur Grace Banks. Age 6 months to 3 years, accompanying adult free. Child ticket is £5. More details here.

Darden Smith, a man with his musical roots in Texas, is on at The Village, 16 South Fort Street on 22nd September. More details and tickets here.

Portobello Village Show takes place at Rosefield Park on Sunday 26 Sep 2.00 pm – 5.00 pm Details on their website

At The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh there is an evening lecture about Edinburgh in Arabia and the creation of the Oman Botanic Garden  by Leigh Morris.

The National Library of Scotland is hosting an evening to highlight The Faded Map by Alistair Moffat. This takes place on 22nd September at 18.00. To be followed by a book signing. More details here.

On Saturday 25th September enjoy a behind the scenes tour of the Herbarium & Library building at The Royal Botanic Garden. It houses one of Europe’s largest botanical libraries and a collection of around 3 million preserved plant and fungi specimens supporting RBGE’s global research, conservation and education programmes.

Waterstones West End are hosting celebrated science fiction author Peter F. Hamilton who will be in the store reading from ‘The Evolutionary Void’. This takes place on 23rd September at 18.00. More details from the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature website here.

Also at The Botanics Patrick Hickey from NIPHT Technologies will demonstrate the phenomenon of bioluminescent fungi and showcase how technology has made it possible for Patrick and musician Yann Seznec to create music from the patterns of falling mushroom spores. Not to be missed! 1-4pm at The John Hope Gateway.

You could help raise money for charity by packing bags at Marks & Spencer on the 25th September. More details here. And then when you’ve finished that you could have champagne afternoon tea at The Hilton Caledonian Hotel on the 26th. Details on the same fundraising website.

Don’t Stop Believin’  – A tribute to Glee and other gleeful tunes is on at The Festival Theatre, from Sunday 26th – Wednesday 29th September

And then there is Lainey’s Fashion Show on the 30th at The Ghillie Dhu. Details here.

Remember the Farmers’ Market this Saturday from 9am till 2pm on Castle Terrace.

Phew! And we probably don’t have your event – so why not email us now? theedinburghreporter@gmail.com

Research at the Botanics

A new study documents waves of forest degradation advancing 120 km across East Africa in just 14 years. Scientists from 12 organisations in Europe, Africa and the USA showed that forest exploitation started with the removal of the most valuable products first, such as timber for export, followed by the extraction of less valuable products such as low value timber and charcoal in strict sequence. This ‘logging down the profit margin’ in tropical forests follows the same pattern of removal seen for fish in unmanaged oceans.

The study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA tested an economic model that predicts the sequential removal of products from high-to-low value. Researchers visited forests at varying distances up to 220 km from Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, in 1991 and again in 2005, tracking the trees that remained. They found that waves of degradation moved, on average, 9 km a year out from the city. For example, charcoal extraction extended 50 km from Dar es Salaam in 1991, but in 2005 it was found up to 170 km from the city.

In 2005, on average, forests had 48 tree species per sample and stored 46 tonnes of carbon per hectare at 200 km distance, but this had declined to only 14 species and 5 tonnes of carbon in the forests closest to the African city.

Dr Antje Ahrends, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and lead author of the paper said, “The degradation waves have spread rapidly. Urban migration and rising demand for timber, particularly in China, are amongst the major reasons for this. By the end of the study, high value timber logging production took place over 200 km from the city. This is very likely to be unsustainable.”

The ability to predict forest degradation is essential if new plans to protect forests using payments for ecosystem services are to be successful. Such schemes, like the proposed ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation’ (REDD) being negotiated under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, may channel billions of dollars into conservation and poverty alleviation if these instruments can be shown to verifiably reduce carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and degradation.

Co-author on the study, Professor Neil Burgess, University of Copenhagen and WWF, said “REDD would create incentives for developing countries to conserve tropical forests and to adopt low-emission strategies for sustainable development. REDD could rapidly cut carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and degradation, which are currently responsible for 15% of total emissions from human activity”.

Much logging in Tanzania is illegal resulting in major financial losses. A trade survey by TRAFFIC estimated that in 2005 some 96 per cent of harvested timber was exported illegally, losing the Tanzanian government an estimated US $58 million of revenue. Charcoal burning is similarly mostly illegal, but carried out by local people
who have no alternative means of income, and is used in towns by poor people to cook their food. Policy interventions therefore need careful tailoring to the type of degradation activity, and care needs to be taken to provide alternative income sources and prevent increasing levels of poverty in an already poor country.

Co-author Dr Simon Lewis, University of Leeds, added, “This study highlights the value of strong interdisciplinary research coupled with large-scale and long-term datasets. Both are needed if scientists are to provide the knowledge to assist managing the natural world sustainably whilst benefiting local people.”