The Size of Wales Mbale programme has passed its ten million milestone as climate change activist Leah Namugerwa and first minister Mark Drakeford plant trees on two continents.

The ambitious Mbale tree planting scheme, which is funded by the Welsh government’s Wales for Africa programme, plants trees in the heavily-deforested region of Mount Elgon region in eastern Uganda.

It is also supported by the Welsh government’s Plant! scheme, which plants two trees for every child born or adopted in Wales – one in Wales and one in Uganda.

Soil erosion 

Ms Namugerwa, 15, planted the 10 millionth tree in a special ceremony in Uganda. 

At the same time, Mr Drakeford planted a “twin tree” in Bute Park, Cardiff. He will be joined by children from Cwmcarn Primary School’s Eco team.

As well as fighting climate change – one of the biggest issues of our time – fast-growing trees protect local people in the Mount Elgon region from the effects of soil erosion, which can cause deadly landslides.

The trees also provide local communities with fresh fruit and shelter and an important source of income.

Trailblazer

The tree planting took place as Wales and the world celebrated the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl Child.

Leah Namugerwa is one of a new generation of young, female climate change activists, blazing a trail alongside fellow activist Greta Thunberg. Her work campaigning for tree planting and a ban on single use plastic has begun to have a significant impact across Uganda.

She was joined by 600 children from Makunda Primary School and the members of the Sunu Women’s Group, planted more trees to celebrate the project and its plans to plant 25 million trees by 2025. 

Mr Drakeford said: “The Mbale tree planting programme has been a great success, helping the most vulnerable Ugandan communities adapt to climate change.

“Tropical forests absorb nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions, making them crucial in stabilising the world’s climate.

“Planting trees in Wales and Uganda is vital in helping to tackle climate change, and helps the children of Wales feel a personal connection with their environment.”

enormous achievement

Elspeth Jones, director of Size of Wales, said: “The planting of the 10 millionth tree in Uganda is an enormous achievement.

“The programme has been working towards this point for many years and immense passion has been invested by a lot of people in both Wales and Uganda to make this happen.

“We are all extremely proud to see these trees being planted today to mark this amazing milestone. We hope that many people from all over Wales will visit our tree in stunning Bute Park and use it as an opportunity to learn about this wonderful project and the importance of trees in tackling the climate emergency. 

“We’re really excited about the next stage of the project, which is to plant 25 million trees by 2025 – anyone who wants to support this effort can donate to plant a tree in the project via the Size of Wales website.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Size of Wales. 

Image: Wikipeda. 

The UK Ivory Act – which introduces tough regulations on the buying and selling of ivory from, to and within the UK – received Royal Assent in December 2018 but will now be subject to Judicial Review at the High Court on 16 October.

John Stephenson, CEO of Stop Ivory, said: “To lose this law before it has even taken effect would be a tragedy for Africa’s elephants. The UK is one of the world’s leading exporters of antique ivory and sends more to China and Hong Kong than any other country.

“Any legal trade in ivory provides cover for the illegal trade because it is difficult to distinguish between antique and newly carved ivory. Moreover, it fuels a continued demand for ivory by perpetuating its perceived value in the eyes of consumers and making it a socially acceptable commodity.”

Lobbying

The antiques lobby group, a company of antiques dealers and collectors called the Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures Ltd (FACT), argues that the Ivory Act is incompatible with EU law, which allows trade in pre-1947 ‘antique’ ivory. The group also claims the act infringes antiques dealers’ human rights by not letting them buy or sell ivory.

However, the European Commission is currently considering new restrictions on ivory trade across Europe which are based in part on the UK Ivory Act and even use similar language. Other countries, such as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, similar legislation also based on the Act.

Mary Rice, Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which has campaigned against the ivory trade for decades, said: “The UK Ivory Act has been welcomed globally as an important step in stifling a demand for ivory which threatens elephants in the wild. So we’re extremely concerned about attempts by British antiques dealers to have the UK ban quashed.”

While the antiques trade claims the UK Ivory Act will result in “substantial economic damage” to the industry, ivory accounts for less than one per cent of annual sales in many UK auction houses.

The Act does not prevent individuals from owning ivory, from passing items on as family heirlooms or donating it to museums and includes a number of carefully crafted exemptions.

The UK Ivory Act also has the support of many African countries with significant elephant populations, which are calling for stricter controls on the sale of ivory abroad as they struggle to control poaching at home.

Poaching 

Thirteen African governments belonging to the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) signed a statement hailing the passing of the Act in 2018: “We believe the UK’s new law will … support and encourage enforcement efforts and initiatives to reduce ivory trafficking in Africa, and around the world.”

Approximately 55 African elephants are poached every day, an unsustainable rate of loss.

According to a 2017 survey, 85 percent of the British public are in favour of the UK Ivory Act.

A decision from the High Court is expected before the end of the year.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Elephant Protection Initiative. 

In 2020, The Ecologist will be fifty. In 2022, it will be fifty years since our landmark publication of A Blueprint for Survival. As our team approaches these twin anniversaries we’ve been thinking about this early writing’s legacy, and about how to make better use of our capacious archive – a huge body of knowledge – at a time when we are reaching further and publishing more than ever. We have been thinking, too, about what a Blueprint for the twenty-first century might look like. 

Outside of my work as The Ecologist’s content editor, I also teach and research. In the classroom, there are two questions I like to pose to students who are encountering a difficult text for the first time: what does this writing make possible and what does it close down? These questions can help us to see what and who is at stake in a given argument. 

The promise that drives so much amazing work in the climate justice movement is that ‘Another World is Possible’. I believe that. But in the pursuit of possibility we must also ask, what might we be shutting down; who might we endanger; what’s the blueprint? 

Disingenuous and dangerous 

It’s timely, if unexpected, that the mass mobilization of Extinction Rebellion activists (XR) last week directed our attention to articles published in The Ecologist’s more recent history. 

When Rupert Read appeared on BBC Question Time as a spokesperson for XR, some online commentators turned to his stance on immigration. An article surfaced – published by The Ecologist in 2014 – that asked: ‘Can we love individual immigrants, while opposing mass migration?’. In it, Read argued: ‘We ought to accept the power of reasoning that shows that high level of immigration leads to significant problems.’ Readers are left to wonder: by whose ‘power of reasoning’, to what ends, why?  

I’ve worked for The Ecologist for a little shy of a year. Not too long, but long enough to have developed a pride in the platform and joy in the work. It is a great privilege to use my skills in a way that feels grounded and progressive, and to learn so many new things each day as writing comes in from activists and thinkers the world over, many of whom are on the frontlines of the struggle for climate justice.

Encountering Read’s article for the first time, I felt several shades of shame, rage and exasperation. The standfirst that introduces the piece – and which characterises migrants as ‘educated, needy, obeisant, low waged workers’ – was not Read’s responsibility but that of The Ecologist as an institution. As a member of the incumbent editorial team, the continued existence and recent republication though social media of those words are, in part, my responsibility. 

As a whole, the article feels to me to be dangerous. While it rails against growth-obsessed capitalism, its whole premise is bizarrely neo-liberal: “We Greens need to be absolutely and resolutely pro-immigrant – while turning against large-scale immigration”. It should be noted that this article was not endorsed by the Green Party UK. 

Whatever its author’s intention, the article’s individualising focus offers a stalking-horse from which one might more safely attack whole swathes of society; it focuses our attention on an undeserving scapegoat, rather than on the austerity-driven policies that are destroying our communities and the corporations that are destroying our planet. 

False equivalence

In arguing that migration ‘reduces social cohesion’ and ‘puts pressure on public services’, the article stokes counter-productive and harmful division between British and migrant workers. This is particularly concerning given the context of nascent eco-fascism. 

The article is right to criticise an obsession with GDP, but its argument is governed by a false equivalence between economic growth and population growth. 

Rather, economic growth is contingent on colonial conquest and extractivism. The challenges of resource distribution and finitude cannot be met by a fortress-like mentality that stands guard just as fiercely as it has plundered. I recall a line from a play about displacement and detention, written by members of the All African Women’s Group: ‘We are here’, they say, ‘because you are there.’ 

But there’s another important point of principle at stake here for me and for many others. Migration is crucial, desirable and enriching. An ecologically and socially just world is a world without borders. Extinction Rebellion wants to be inclusive – we are all crew it says – and therefore inclusion of migrants is central to its objectives and values. 

So, ‘Can we love individual immigrants, while opposing mass migration?’ Whatever our definition of ‘mass migration’, my answer is no. When we speak out against free movement, we speak out against those who have contributed the least to rising emissions but who are bearing the greatest burdens of global heating; we speak out too against our friends, colleagues and neighbours, our fellow activists, our history; we slice up our world not along arbitrary lines, but along lines that enshrine age-old oppressions and present-day inequalities. Borders are hypocritical, short-sighted and violent. 

We needn’t pick nor choose, pitting the ‘good migrant’ against the swarm. In this, we are for justice or we are against it.

Meaningful solidarity 

So yesterday’s news remains today’s problem. Our editorial team found itself in an invidious position, not least as we unearthed a handful of other old articles that put forward similarly anti-migrant arguments: Do we act on a call from some readers to delete Read’s article, fearful of harm to migrant communities, reputational damage, and the sense that each time this article was shared it was effectively republished and validated on our watch? Do we leave it up, wary of revisionism and loathe to conceal arguments that remain all too pervasive? Do we ask for Read’s article to be updated, hopeful that people grow, ideas change, and words don’t always reflect our intent? These are ongoing discussions.

The environmental movement is a broad church. I don’t much like the phrase, but the principles of inclusion and diversity are important. That must not come, though, at the expense of integrity, responsibility and meaningful solidarity. Our ‘power of reasoning’ is rarely neutral – we must be honest about that which mandates and motivates it, and about what and who is at stake in the stories we tell. These issues are not about a single article nor a single contributor. 

Racism – on the scale of everyday microaggressions to structural oppressions and institutional violence – remains the scourge of the environmental movement and society at large. The Wretched of the Earth have made that clear, as have Power Beyond Borders, Extinction Rebellion’s own Global Justice bloc, and many of our own valued contributors among others. 

I’m proud to work for a platform with a rich history, that publishes countless articles that document the legacies and present-day manifestations of imperialism and environmental destruction. The Ecologist seeks to amplify important new research, and celebrate the inspiring resistance and resilience of communities all over the world – people who are calling out injustice and developing innovative solutions to the crises we face. I want to focus on and act in the best interests of those stakeholders. 

Moving forward

It’s clear that it’s time to redraw our blueprint, and that means asking some hard questions and facing up to some hard truths, in the archive and beyond. In doing so, so much more becomes possible. 

At The Ecologist we want to acknowledge our own historic contradictions and shortcomings, as well as the present and future challenges of a changing world. We want to support diverse movements for climate justice that are themselves safe and equitable. Recently we have been developing a section of our website dedicated to international solidarity which you can explore here, and we will be further exploring best practice for holding our processes and platforms to account. 

We will be placing a link to this piece in a number of articles already published by The Ecologist. If you would like to suggest an article that we might need to revisit, or if you would like to discuss these issues, make recommendations for our processes, or contribute a story yourself, please get in touch. 

In moving forward, we must continue to ask, as Elia Koenig wrote recently in The Ecologist: ‘How do we revive ideas of mutual aid, cooperation and solidarity in circumstances of scarcity and trauma? What is our vision for justice?”

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor.

Image: BBC World Service, Flickr. 
 

Extinction Rebellion protesters have blocked a junction outside the Bank of England in a bid to disrupt the City of London.

Dozens of activists are sitting or standing in the road as City workers leave Bank tube station.

In some surrounding streets traffic has been brought to a standstill, with long queues of buses sat empty with their engines off.

Leave

Protesters, sheltering under umbrellas, are holding aloft flags bearing the Extinction Rebellion logo, while drummers play.

Others nearby are handing out leaflets which say “We’re sorry” and explain why they are protesting.

Activists have covered themselves in a large green tarpaulin to protect against the rain.

Many are holding banners and placards bearing messages targeting financial institutions, such as “divest from climate change” and “invest in soil not oil”.

Dave Evans, 32, an IT consultant from London, said he had taken two weeks unpaid leave to join the Extinction Rebellion protests. He said the finance sector needed to “stop funding the climate crisis”.

Extinct

“These huge corporations are financing fossil fuels and [are] being subsidised by the Government,” he added.

Iris Skipworth, who was handing out Extinction Rebellion leaflets to commuters at the obstructed crossroads at Bank, said she had received “death threats” from passers-by.

The 20-year-old, who was wearing a waterproof poncho, has been camping at Vauxhall with “some 400 others” for four days.

She said: “A lot of commuters are very annoyed, because they are trying to get to work quickly. I can understand, but it’s shortsighted.

“I have had people saying things like ‘Get a job’, ‘Get out of the road’, and ‘Why don’t you go extinct?’.”

Protesters

Ms Skipworth, who has taken time off from her job as a garden centre assistant in Manchester, added: “I’m here because the 33 banks around the City of London gave £66 billion to the fossil fuel industry this year, and £0.9 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

“The government has declared a climate emergency, yet they’re not even scaling this back slightly … we’re here to hit the government in the wallet, hopefully.”

Twenty double-decker buses queuing down Lombard Street and King William Street were rendered stationary by the climate change protesters at Bank station.

The driver of the bus at the front of the queue said he had been stuck there for two hours – since 7am – and protesters showed no signs of moving.

This Article

This article is based on copy supplied by PA.

The National Theatre has declared a climate emergency and is ending its partnership with the oil company Shell.

In a statement quoted in The Stage, a spokesperson for the theatre said: “Shell have been valued and longstanding supporters of the National Theatre, most recently as corporate members – this membership will come to an end in June 2020.”

Shell had been a Corporate Gold member of the National Theatre, giving the oil company access to exclusive perks and facilities at the theatre in return for £15,000 per year.

Climate emergency 

The move comes after actors, artists and theatre professionals staged a walk-out of the National Theatre on September 20th, in support of the global climate strikes, and called on the National Theatre to step up to its responsibilities on the climate emergency and end its relationship with Shell.

This news came just two days after the Royal Shakespeare Company publicy announced the end of its long-running sponsorship deal with BP.

The RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran and Executive Director Catherine Mallyon said: “Amidst the climate emergency, which we recognise, young people are now saying clearly to us that the BP sponsorship is putting a barrier between them and their wish to engage with the RSC. We cannot ignore that message.”

The ending of these two sponsorship deals in the space of three days increases the pressure on the shrinking number of UK arts institutions that still have promotional deals with fossil fuel companies.

Attention is turning in particular to the British Museum, where a BP-sponsored Troy exhibition is due to open on 21 November. Yesterday, activist theatre group BP or not BP? announced plans for a “mass creative takeover” of the British Museum on the exhibition’s opening weekend.

Toxic 

In a cheeky twist, the group are crowdfunding to build a Trojan Horse to bring to the event, which they believe will be the largest protest the museum has ever seen.

Sarah Horne of BP or not BP? said: “It’s deeply ironic that BP is sponsoring an exhibition called Troy: Myth and Reality, because this sponsorship deal is essentially a Trojan Horse for BP’s real activities. Just like in the myth, BP pretends that it’s giving us a gift, when in reality it’s trying to smuggle its deadly climate-wrecking business plans past the public’s defences.”

Speaking in response to the RSC’s decision to drop BP, Chris Garrard, co-director of Culture Unstained, which campaigns for an end to fossil fuel funding of culture, said: “The Royal Shakespeare Company’s decision to drop BP as a sponsor years before the partnership was due to end is a clear sign that – in a time of climate emergency – fossil fuel funding is just too toxic.

“This seismic shift is down to the actors, activists and school strikers who have powerfully shone a spotlight on BP’s destructive business and how, even now, the company is 97% invested in fossil fuels.”

Danny Chivers, from the activist theatre group BP or not BP?, said: “With both the RSC and the National Theatre ending their oil company partnerships, the remaining oil-sponsored institutions are looking increasingly isolated.

Rebel performance 

Chivers continued: “It is simply no longer acceptable for any cultural organisation to be promoting and supporting the fossil fuel industry in the middle of a climate crisis.

“It’s time the British Museum, Royal Opera House, Science Museum, National Portrait Gallery and Southbank Centre followed the ethical leadership of the National Theatre and the RSC – otherwise they seriously risk losing their legitimacy in the eyes of a public that is only becoming more concerned about the climate emergency.

“We’re looking forward to bringing a mass rebel performance and a Trojan Horse to the British Museum in November to continue this conversation.”

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from BP or not BP? 

Image: National Theatre, Wikimedia. 

Sustainability is the fashion buzzword of 2019 – with designers and retailers everywhere pledging to do more to protect the planet.

Yet somehow, animal leather is still being used in allegedly “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” collections – and this does the ethical fashion movement a big disservice. The leather industry – like other forms of animal agriculture – is responsible for serious, far-reaching environmental damage.

Turning animal skins into leather requires the use of dozens of chemicals, including highly toxic mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and various oils, dyes, and finishes, some of which are cyanide-based. Tannery run-off contains large quantities of pollutants, such as lime sludge, sulphides, and acids. 

Pollution

Tanneries are far from the only problem with leather. The 2017 Kering Environmental Profit & Loss report found that 93 percent of all the environmental damage caused by leather occurs even before the tanning stage, while the 2017 Pulse of the Fashion Industry report ranks it as the most polluting material in fashion.

Indeed, animals on factory farms produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases and 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population – without the benefit of waste-treatment plants.

Farming animals for their skin or flesh also requires massive amounts of water and grain, both of which are scarce in much of the world, and 80 percent of all deforestation in the Amazon is linked to cattle ranching.

More than a billion animals are killed for the leather trade every year. Almost all leather – even if it’s labelled, “Made in Italy” or “Made in France” – originates in Bangladesh, China, or India, where animal welfare laws either are non-existent or go unenforced.

In India, the slaughter of cows is legal in only three states, so animals may be forced to walk hundreds of miles on “death marches”, during which many collapse and die by the side of the road out of sheer exhaustion. When the survivors arrive at the abattoir, their throats are cut while they’re still conscious.

Toxic chemicals

In China, the world’s leading exporter of leather, an estimated two million cats and dogs are killed each year for their skin.

A PETA exposé shows a processing-plant owner explaining that the facility identifies items made out of dog skin, which are exported around the globe, as “lambskin”. If you buy leather, there’s almost no way, short of conducting a DNA test, to tell what – or rather, whom – you’re wearing. 

Leather production also harms human health. People who work in or live near tanneries suffer as a result of exposure to the toxic chemicals that are used to process and dye animal hides. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the incidence of leukaemia among residents near one US tannery was five times the national average.

Arsenic, a common tannery chemical, has long been associated with lung cancer in workers who are exposed to it on a regular basis. Studies of tannery workers in Italy found cancer risks “between 20 percent and 50 percent above those expected”, while in developing nations where the industry is poorly regulated, the figures are even more alarming. In certain areas of Bangladesh, 90 percent of leather workers die before the age of 50. 

Innovative alternatives

But there is hope. Vegan materials crafted from natural, eco-friendly resources such as mushrooms, pineapples, cork, and apples are gaining in popularity with designers and consumers.

The launch of Vegea, or “wine leather” – made with grape residue from the Italian winemaking industry – made waves in the fabric world, earning it H&M’s Global Change Award in 2017.

Last year, Peruvian brand Le Qara won the same award for its vegan leather derived from flowers and fruits. And Piñatex, Ananas Anam’s pineapple leather, is rapidly becoming a household name, thanks to its use in H&M’s Conscious Exclusive collection and in ranges by other brands, like Hugo Boss. 

High-fashion events like Helsinki Fashion Week are banning leather from their catwalks, and Stella McCartney, Bruno Pieters, Vika Gazinskaya, and Faustine Steinmetz are among the top designers who have sworn off the use of skins in their collections. Even the likes of Givenchy and Versus Versace have prominently promoted vegan “eco-leather” items in order to attract ethically aware millennial consumers. 

Minimising impact 

The vegan leather market is predicted to be worth $85 billion by 2025 – and in the long run, the practice of raising and slaughtering animals for leather is likely to be made obsolete by the arrival of lab-grown leather, which is currently being developed by US-based company Modern Meadow.

Its “bio-leather”, Zoa, can be manufactured to look similar to cow leather or exotic skins – but without using any animals. This innovation will allow designers to use animal leather without harming living, feeling beings and with less impact on the environment.

Truly sustainable fashion seeks to minimise its impact on the natural world – and leather production is one of fashion’s biggest crimes against the living planet.

For brands to be able to proclaim their products “sustainable” with any credibility, they must distance themselves from animal skins and embrace natural, ethically produced vegan fabrics. 

This Author

Elisa Allen is the director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) UK.

Image: Tomascastelazo, Wikimedia. 

Rural families in Bangladesh, many of whom live in poverty, are spending an average of almost two billion US Dollars (158 billion taka) a year ― US$79 (6,608 taka) a year per family ― on addressing the impacts of climate change, a new report reveals. 

This is twice as much as the government and nearly 12 times the amount Bangladesh receives in multilateral international climate financing in absolute terms, according to the latest data.

The report – Bearing the Climate Burden – is the first report to measure household spending on climate change in any country compared to public climate finance.   

Diverting resources 

Even though the Bangladesh government’s annual budget for addressing climate change in rural areas rose in 2018-19 to 1.46 billion dollars (123.18 billion taka) – up from 884 million dollars (74.32 billion taka) in 2014-15 – it is still substantially less than the amount rural households are spending on climate change.  

Rural households receive an estimated total of 154 million dollars a year in international climate and disaster finance ― or 6.42 dollars (533 taka) for each rural household per year.     

The research found female-headed households spend three times more money as a share of their income than households headed by men, evidence that addressing the impacts of climate change is more of a priority for women.

As a result, households living in poverty are diverting money away from basic necessities including food, education and health in order to repair damage to their homes and replace animals or destroyed crops. Or on such defensive measures as raising their houses above flood levels. 

This is causing climate disaster-affected households to borrow from informal sources at high interest rates pushing them deeper into poverty.

Climate finance 

It is vital for more climate finance to be directed to the local level. This is crucial for developing countries to be able to achieve the Paris Agreement’s targets and for keeping temperature rise below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Low-cost loans from formal financial institutions and microfinance NGOs also need to be more widely available.

It is important that local people are included in designing programmes to tackle climate change and address its impacts to ensure their priorities are met. And to make sure that female-headed households are given the extra support they need.

Andrew Norton, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said: “This research reveals an alarming imbalance. It is unacceptable that the poorest people are shouldering the burden of spending for adapting to climate change in Bangladesh.

“Far too little support is being directed to the women, children and men who are living on the frontline of climate change. Much more needs to be done to make sure more public climate finance reaches the people who need it most.” 

​​​​​​​Local funding 

Previous IIED research shows that less than one dollar in every ten of international climate finance is being committed to the local level.

As a result, local priorities and the flexibility to respond both to rapidly changing needs and new opportunities are not being met.

This will make it significantly harder for developing countries to implement the Paris Agreement and meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

The majority of Bangladesh’s population (65 percent) lives in rural areas. The country is one of the most vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events and is one of the poorest countries in the world.

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from the International Institute for Environment and Development. 

Image: DFID, Flickr. 

The air is partitioned, apportioned, and legislated like every other part of the environment.

At London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, the needs of aviation collide with those of daily suburban life, rendering the air a site of significant contestation. For some, the air is a hypermodern space of networks, flow, and transit where routines and daily rhythms are structured around economic priorities.

For others, it is what they must breathe. The conflation of incompatible requirements within a shared space presents a significant societal challenge that has implications for sustainable development, wellbeing, and human dignity. If these are considerations for policy at national and supra-national levels, then there is a need for fresh though.

Air and culture 

Air Matters is an exhibition and programme of events that responds to this challenge. Through walking tours, workshops, a symposium and commissioned artworks we ask: What are the local cultures of air use?

How does the air shape our societies, and how democratically is it governed? How is the air fought over and by whom? What ethical questions around air use, noise and air pollution do planners face and how might we equip them to shape its future?

In her work Ascending Composition 1 (For planes) (2019) Kate Carr reflects on the governance of air by using sound to infiltrate its forbidden zones. Working with the conception of the air as a contested space, this artwork inverts the relationship of residents subject to the vagaries of aircraft noise by using helium balloons and kite tail sound systems to take the terrestrial sounds of Heathrow’s neighbourhoods into the sky.

The three kite tail sound systems shuffle through recordings taken in residential and natural areas surrounding the airport, creating a shifting soundscape intended for broadcast along the flight path.

In a world where both who gets to make noise and enjoy silence is so tied to wealth and corporate influence, this work seeks to carve out a moment where forgotten, over-powered and fragile sounds take flight. The composition is broadcast via the balloon-elevated kite tails in Watermans gallery.

Global transfer

Nick Ferguson’s research has focused on the aircraft landing gear compartments as an instrument of global transfer. Aside from housing aircraft wheels, landing gear compartments are mobile pods in which organisms, such as spores and aphids become trapped, and in which they are transported, into the UK from faraway places.

These themes pointed to the idea of forensically examining the landing gear compartment of a long-haul aircraft and representing it in a way that evokes the space at a physical level. On display in the exhibition is the outcome of such a project.

The work, Capsule (2019), comprises s 0.7 scale model of an aircraft landing gear compartment accompanied by a set of photographic prints. Suspended from the ceiling and occupying a central part of the gallery, the model is proposed as a pavilion or auditorium in which to host discussions of air politics.  

The prints show samples of material gathered forensically from a wheel bay of Ethiad Airways Boeing 777-200LR A6-LRC upon retirement in the UK in March 2019. Captured under an electron microscope, the sample includes sand, spores, seeds, insects and fragments of reflective runway paint which have become trapped and transported from one part of the world to another.

Pest control 

The work of Hermione Spriggs and Laura Cooper takes up the issue of bird exclusion. Their work The Substitute (2019) is a sci-fi ghost story responding to the “bird free” environment of Heathrow Airport.

The story is delivered via Tannoy speakers common to airport announcements and pest control, and is accompanied by a spinning bird decoy on which are mounted images of the artists’ eyes. The Substituteis presented in the square overlooking the river Thames, Brentford Ait and Kew Gardens, natural reserves for birds.

Narrated through the speakers, the work explores the spectral transformation of birds as we know them into data bodies and zombie-like decoys.

Mapping Heathrow

Matthew Flintham’s Heathrow (Volumetric Airspace Structures) is a planning table showing a map of the Greater London area and focused on the land surrounding Heathrow.

The shape of the table is defined by the limits of the London airspace control zone which consists of two intersecting irregular rectangles combining rounded edges and hard corners.

The map shows the major traffic routes across central and west London, as well as the polygonal restricted and controlled airspace zone over Heathrow.

The map also extends vertically, projecting the airspace zones into three dimensions, revealing the invisible volumetric structures that define the London skies. In this way the structure becomes an extension of the map following its stylist design and iconography.

Radio transmission

If the works discussed so far focus on the present, Magz Hall engages with a historical dimension of aerial contestation. Her installation Skyport (2019) takes its name from the pirate radio station Skyport Radio which broadcast from a garden shed under the Heathrow flightpath between 1971 and 1979.

Aircraft noise could be heard in the transmissions. The commission extends the artist’s enquiry into the contested nature of radio frequencies and their governance.

In the skies above London private transmissions from air traffic control compete for wavelength with a range of public transmissions, both pirate and licenced, and indeed, the AM spectrum is dominated by the airport’s transmissions.

While these transmissions are available for all to hear, in the UK it is both illegal to listen to them and to relay what has been heard to a third party. In defiance of these regulations, aviation enthusiasts eavesdrop on air traffic control and there is a burgeoning market for the scanning technologies that make it possible.

On display for Skyport are items from the Skyport Radio archive, a set of scanners and a plasma screen showing in wave form current air traffic radio activity.

Human experience 

Louise K Wilson’s Frequency explores human experiences of flying. In an audio installation voice and field recordings are combined to explore the affective and ‘felt’ experience of air travel.

Verbal accounts from passengers describing their memory of take off and landing are undercut with a layer of airport location recordings. These soft, whispered voices are suggestive of recordings made in an ASMR (‘autonomous sensory meridian response’) register, typically created with the intention of stimulating a ‘tingling’ and relaxing sensation.

They are amplified with the use of resonance devices that turn the skylight windows themselves into speakers, broadcasting the voices both downwards into the atrium space and outwards into the ether.

Elsewhere, recordings of the ‘sonic fallout’ collected from the Airport provide a ‘darker’ background for the presence and effect of aviation. Accompanying this piece is a set of postcard drawings sourced from photographs distributed on social media showing passengers’ window views of cloudscapes.

Frequency alludes to a set of contradictory positions implicating anxiety and desire within the context of air travel.

This Author 

Nick Ferguson is an artist. He is Associate Dean for Research at Richmond University and Senior Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies at Kingston School of Art.

Air Matters: Learning from Heathrow is at Watermans Arts Centre from 3 October 2019 to 5 January 2020. Watermans Arts Centre, 40 High Street, Brentford  TW8 0DS. 020 8232 1010.