News
Our first in-person Coffee & Doughnuts session
For almost exactly one year BLC has been running fortnightly online sessions to move through a process of co-creating a People’s Doughnut for Devon, based on the principles in the book Doughnut Economics by economist Kate Raworth. Today we ran a workshop in North Devon as part of Ilfracombe’s ‘Fete of the Planet’ event in the beautiful Lantern building, a community project supported by the people of Ilfracombe. It was our first in-person Devon session and we look forward to many more as we share the work of the Devon Doughnut Collective across the county.
Murky waters: the battle for our rivers
A 6-page article ran in the October 2nd edition of the Telegraph Magazine: “Less than four percent of our rivers have a clear and undisputed right of access, yet a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts insist enjoying them is an incontestable privilege.” It’s a well-balanced article that suggests that BLC’s River Charter approach “may just offer a way through the current conflict where peace comes…’dropping slowly’.
To read the article, click here.
People’s Doughnut wins award
BLC was given an award by the Place Marketing Forum in Marseille today on behalf of the Devon Doughnut Collective. The Devon Doughnut Collective is now a group of over 140 changemakers (convened by BLC) who are putting the ideas of Doughnut Economics into practice in Devon. Here’s the film we submitted for the conference and award ceremony to give a sense of what we do and how we do it, featuring participants reflecting on BLC’s action learning process. Next stop Casablanca in November!
24 August 2021
Tamerton Lake & Budshead Creek Manifesto
In NW Plymouth, the Friends of Ernesettle & Budshead Wood group has decided to create a Manifesto (a broad starting point of wishes) for Tamerton Lake–known locally as Ernesettle Creek–and Budshead Creek. The Friends group is working with BLC, local councillors and Westcountry Rivers Trust (Plymouth River Keepers) to achieve this. A further step, should the community show its support, would be to undertake a wider collaborative process resulting in a River Charter like the River Charter for the Dart at Dartington.
Plymouth has been awarded £9.5 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to protect the area’s 1,000 marine species within an offshore ‘park in the sea’ to help tackle the impact of climate change. A portion of this funding has been ring-fenced to regenerate Tamerton Lake. The Lake’s fundus (riverbed) is currently for sale as part of an area of land that includes woodland–trees whose roots make the banks more resistant to erosion. Now is a good time for the area to be acknowledged by future landowners, stakeholders and authorities as a natural asset valued by the community. Also to ensure that the local community’s relationship with the land and the water is respected and valued into the future.
Follow the progress on their Facebook page.
Updated 10 August 2021
Voices of the Dart
Closing Date: Friday 10 September 2021 5.00 pm
BLC is excited to re-launch the arts-led strand of its work, with a project that has been waiting in the wings for a while. Voices of the Dart is a new arts, community and science project that will act as a wake-up call to the challenges that our rivers in the UK are facing. With funding from South West Water’s Water Saving Community Fund, the Bioregional Learning Centre is leading a large team that will focus on the River Dart in Devon this autumn. Partners include Westcountry Rivers Trust, the Environment Agency, Soundart Radio, Tidelines, the Global Systems Institute at Exeter University and South West Water.
If water could speak and spur humans to generative action what would it say? We are taking an innovative and creative approach to the issues around drought, flooding, water saving, pollution and behaviour change by inviting the water itself to speak, through local people, and remind us that water is life and it is up to all of us to take care of the rivers that our drinking water comes from. This is the first stage of a larger project in which we will create a prototype that can be widely shared with other UK rivers.
We are currently advertising for an early-career artist who would like to come onto our team. For more information, download this PDF.
We work in and at the intersection of economy, ecology, learning, arts and culture and the gaps in between.