This month brought pretty depressing climate news. The  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has brought out its report,  reviewing all the available science on the state of the climate. The  message was clearer than ever – we are in big trouble and we need to  take radical action, fast. It’s code red for humanity. This time it does not feel like just a theoretical scientific  argument – we are starting to see the evidence of the change around us.  Who can forget the footage from Australia, California or Greece which  have also been in the headlines over ..read more

With the start of the holidays we bring you creative inspiration for the summer -  full of planet friendly tales for the whole family. The episode was recorded at the Storytelling in the Garden which took place last Saturday at our Tayport Community Garden. It was one of the events we are putting on this year as a part of Climate Action Fife, Climate Friendly Gardens series to help everyone in Fife get involved in climate action. Today, I talk to the storyetller we met on the day, Owen Pilgrim, about his passion for sharing tales and myths, and how they can better connect us to each other ..read more

Since the 1970s, every year on the 22nd of April, people around the world have been taking part in Earth Day to demonstrate their support for protecting life on our planet. So for this month’s episode we have decided to speak to Pinkie Maclure whose unusual art often explores how we humans have been affecting the places we all call home, and her personal responses to modern environmental issues. Before listening you may want to have a look at the pieces we discuss by following links in the episode notes below. Interview, production and editing: Kaska Hempel Resources Pinkie’s pieces discussed ..read more

As usual this February PLANT have joined the annual show the love campaign by Climate Coalition which encourages everyone to celebrate things we love and want to protect from climate emergency. So we thought it would be fitting that for our podcast this month we should talk about Tentsmuir - everyone’s favourite place here on Tayport’s doorstep. Hear Kathleen in conversation with Marijke Leith, new Tentsmuir NNR manager and Kaska talking to Tony Wilson, ex-countryside ranger in the area.  Resources: Tentsmuir NNR Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tentsmuirNNR NatureScot volunteerin ..read more

In celebration of Veganuary, Kathleen interviews a couple of locals, Linda and Caley about their vegan diets and lifestyles. Here are their recommendations for further reading: Vegan Cookbooks The Scottish Vegan Cook Book by Jackie Jones Easy Vegan by Sue Quinn East - Meera Sodha Non-vegan cookbooks - easy to veganise Plenty - Yotam Ottelenghi (Vegetarian) Taste of India - Meera Sodha Fresh India - Meera Sodha Vegan Blogs The Little Blog of Vegan by Holly Jade RomyLondon UK thismuslimgirlbakes.com for the Pakistani curries and dahl (easy to veganise) Lazy Cat Kitchen  School Night Ve ..read more

World Soil Day celebrates the importance of our soils for healthy food, flood prevention, tackling climate and biodiversity emergencies. To mark the occasion and find out about how regenerating soils can help us fight climate change, we got together for a discussion of "Kiss the ground" documentary on 26th of November, 2020.  We were joined by three experts who provided local Scottish context to the material covered in the film:  - Peter Christopher, PLANT Community Gardener and horticulturists with over 30 years gardening experience, talked about how the regenerative methods can be ..read more

Last year saw a Line in The Sand event on West Sands beach in St Andrews on the 20th of September. It was a part of a day of massive strikes across the world calling for urgent action on climate emergency. As you may know the wave was a culmination of over a year of Fridays for Future, a climate school strike movement, inspired by a young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg. The event was repeated this year in a much more scaled down, altogether quieter, covid-safe version - which some say was even more poignant than last years crowds. One of PLANT members, Kathleen, took part in both representin ..read more

In PART 2 of our podcast exploring how we got closer to nature under lockdown, Kaska talks to Tayport’s own John Wills about his life-long fascination with nature sounds, his lockdown listening project and the awesome sounds of spadefoot toads, swan’s wings and Weddell seals.  Resources:  The Great John Cage Project – in Lockdown https://anchor.fm/greatjohncageproject John's recordings of nature: Tayport dawn garden sounds under lockdown (including brid wings on feeders): https://johnwills1.bandcamp.com/track/fife-garden-just-past-dawn-in-lockdown Draft: a 50 minute journey around s ..read more

There’s been a lot of talk about how one of the benefits of lockdown which probably kept a lot of us sane, when we were in the depths of it a couple of months ago, was that we got to spend time watching, listening to and learning about nature close to home. We decided to explore this a little over the next couple of podcasts. In this episode I talk to Calum who was involved in running a Backyard Bioblitz, an online project in North East Fife, which encouraged people to look at and record nature around them in early June, at the peak of lockdown. We also chatted to some visitors to Tentsmuir ab ..read more

Just how many pollinators can you find on one wild carrot flower? And what exactly is a pollinator? Listen to find out! In this podcast episode, Kaska and Johanna Willi, Fife Council's Biodiversity Officier, marvel at the flowers, bugs and beasties which can be found in Tayport’s wildflower meadows established by Fife’s Buzzing project. PLANT volunteers turned out in force to do the sowing and planting in the Spring of 2016. We hear about the extraordinary benefits of this project for protection of these rapidly vanishing natural spaces locally and how it’s already helped our precious pollinat ..read more