Making children aware of our rivers
The award-winning Coomhola Salmon Trust environmental group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and has recently been nominated for Ireland’s 2014’s Get Involved Project.
StreamScapes is the creation of the Coomhola Salmon Trust, Bantry, and produces innovative and fascinating environmental awareness programmes.
Its child-friendly, hands-on approach has been welcomed in schools across the country and it is engaged with 22 schools in its catchment area.
From its earliest beginnings, the organisation had its roots deep in the local community, relying heavily on the expertise and voluntary contributions of local people, and the financial support of the West Cork Development partnership, Cork County Council, Kerry County Council, the Heritage Council, the Marine Institute, and the Fisheries Board.
All of the 22 primary and secondary schools — together with several community, voluntary, and corporate groups within the Ilen river and coastal zone in West Cork — are currently busily taking part in studies of their local aquatic habitats and species.
The project points out that along the Ilen’s banks, in the surrounding landscapes and out into the coastal zone, there is a wealth of biodiversity including fish, birds, insects, animals, trees, wild flowers, and people. But in order for these various lifeforms to function healthily, waters must run pure and clean.
The StreamScapes message is that the benefits from such responsible stewardship are considerable.
Businesses and enterprises thrive, general health is improved, rates and taxes are lower, and wildlife flourishes.
But rather than simply conveying this information — fascinating though it is — solely in a classroom setting, the hands-on aspect has proved irresistible.
It’s a survey of the local landscape and waterways, and in the case of the Ilen project, the story of water’s journey from Mullaghmesha to Roaring Water Bay. Provided with user-friendly booklets, students are encouraged to chart all the wildlife they can find in and around their river.
StreamScape teachers join school groups to interpret and explain all that they are encountering.
Salmon and trout feature largely in StreamScapes’ programmes as, along with other species, wherever they thrive, they are proof of clean water and a healthy habitat.
Mark Boyden, the Coomhola Salmon Trust’s founder and project director, is a passionate environmentalist, who has seen interest in environmental education grow over the years.
Well, there’s an increase in awareness and a willingness to learn and share infor-mation.
When we first started, the idea of programmes like those we are currently running wasn’t something many people were familiar with.
But today, these are issues that are just so much better understood and which are debated and talked about.
And very early on, we decided that in order to engage those who we wished to reach, we wanted to come from a place of respect.
We believe that there is no place for finger pointing and blaming this or that sector for our woes, not if you are hoping to win hearts and minds.
We want our participants to voluntarily aspire to be stewards of local water and its biodiversity.
No. I’ve been here for 40 years. I’m originally from northern California, and I always had a lot of Irish friends in San Francisco, so I grew up with a sense of Ireland, plus I had an interest in mythology.
I had always planned to visit. I came to Cork first of all, worked at the Opera House as a backstage handyman, and then travelled west, because I’ve always had a keen interest in rivers, and I wanted to take a look at the rivers in this part of the world.
Obviously I didn’t know at the time that I’d still be here all these years on.
But I loved the place and the community, and my children grew up here.
And I could relate to the concerns of the people. I’m very pro-farming, I did an apprenticeship with a dairy farmer, and I’ve worked here helping out with calving and milking.
I believe anyone who isn’t pro-farming should ask themselves where their breakfast comes from.
We started the Salmon Trust in 1989, and at that time, we were really learning how to learn.
My fellow director is Paul Kearney.
The different people who were involved all contributed their own particular intelligence and local knowledge.
At that time, we were stocking local rivers, and those who were participating in the scheme would ask, “How’s my fish getting on?” after they’d released their salmon into the river, and that changed everything, of course. They also wanted to know how they could help ensure that “their” fish had a good life.
Today we have seven part time staff, and things are definitely shaping up, as people realise more and more that we are a species too, we are a part of it all.
And with the “Who Lives in My Townland” project, everyone can contribute.
Mythology and biodiversity
The mythology of a race springs from its lands and its waters.
One of the Coomhola Salmon Trust’s earlier handbooks included an introduction by Éamon de Buitléar, and an essay by poet and artist Eaoin O’Toole, among others, on the extensive mythology surrounding the salmon in Irish culture.
Éamon de Buitléar pointed out that the sacred salmon, king of the fish, is the gatherer of wisdom.
The prophecy was that he who would catch and eat Fintan the Salmon of Fec, would gain all the wisdom of the world.
Demna was charged by Finnegan the Druid, who caught the fabled fish, to roast it on a spit for him, but on no account to eat any of it.
But when he was turning the spit, Demna burned his fingers and put them in his mouth to ease the pain and so fulfilled the prophecy, and became Fionn MacCumhaill, with the eternal knowledge that the salmon had got from eating the nuts of the nine hazel trees that hung over Connla’s well.
www.streamscapes.ie
