NESBiP & NESCAN Spring Seminar – Guest Blog – Grace Green

The Gathering

It’s March 7^th. It’s the North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership’ (NESBiP) and North East Scotland Climate Action Network’ (NESCAN) Spring Seminar. Hosted at the Garioch Heritage Centre. It’s my first visit to the Garioch, my first ecology conference, and it’s my first dose of n e r v e s  of the year.

My name is Grace, I’m 28 and a mere fledgling in the ecology world, and I brim with impostor syndrome. I like the world better when I know precisely what I’m doing in it. So, being invited to the spring conference to just be me and then write a blog about that? Terrifying.

To combat the night-before-nerves my friends help me chose an outfit of my best and brightest: I want to take me to the conference, not the nerves. We choose tartan textures in earthy tones, a knitted jumper that feels like home, a pink and red shirt that was a gift, and earrings that in the light their colours change and shift. I weave myself a blanket of warmth and iridescence to fortify my authentic presence.

The theme for this year’s Spring Seminar: Supporting Local Biodiversity using the Climate Adaptation Route Map

At 9.30am a flurry of attendees descends sheltering from spring’s first smell: muck spreading. On sticky labels with my friend Callum, we write nearly 100 attendee names and organisations. The sheer breadth of knowledge, backgrounds, connections, specialisms and stakeholder ranges in this room emerges. I want to draw a map of Scotland and mark where every person has travelled from, the location of their organisation, and the scale of their project. The scale of impact is immense, and it is all here in the people in the Garioch Heritage Centre. We connect and fill the space with a noisy vibrancy fitting of the emergent spring. Our work is beautifully held in this space made for celebrating the past, gathering in the present, and inspiring action for our future. The Spring Conference begins.

The Transformation of People and Place

For those of you new to the Spring Seminar, it goes like this:

• 3 or 4 talks from a range speakers presenting their organisations and projects, what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, who they’ve done it with, and their results so far
• Q&A with those speakers
• Coffee break / lunch
• Repeat

For the whole day at the back of the room I watch the speakers and the audience. As stories are unfolded in front of us, we lean in, laugh, mourn decline and loss, and celebrate new life and connections. I realise that I am so engaged I’ve forgotten how to be nervous. In the Q&As sometimes questions come thick and fast, other times reveal prejudices and preconceptions, and sometimes the story told is so whole, the experience of learning so delightful that no questions are asked at all. We just sit in appreciative silence.

Coffee breaks and lunch offer the opportunity to move the body and mind away from careful listening and provides essential time to digest, process, and imagine. During lunch I chat with folks, asking for their thoughts on the day so far. The main response? Inspiring. Because each talk allows us to reimagine the world a little more hopefully. Because, I realise, at the core of each story are people. Specifically, the people in this room who hoped for a better future, so they imagined a better future, and now they are building that future. Nothing happens in isolation. So, the project leaders, the speakers at the Spring Conference are taking their communities, biological and human, with them. Fortifying, connecting, transforming.

It truly feels like spring has sprung, and hope is blooming.

Below is a map showing where attendees and speakers travelled from to join NESBiP and NESCAN for their Spring Seminar.

If this blog has filled you with inspiration and hope, you can watch our spring seminar on NESBiP’s YouTube channel.

Map of NESBiP & NESCAN Spring Seminar Attendees