Island 2000 Trust Blog

Saturday saw the re-opening of Yarmouth Pier after months of work replacing piles and improving the look of the pier. Alan Titchmarsh officially opened the pier, and unveiled a plaque listing donors to the pier appeal. Meanwhile Island 2000 provided all manor of excitement in Pier Square and at the end of the pier, including arts and craft activities, a Gribble hunt, pier wildlife safari and a display of the New Pier Archive including an audio-visual presentation. In the evening an estimated 500+ people returned to light the pier and enjoy a fantastic fireworks display.

Some pictures below courtesy of Cat James

No Ian, Alan Titchmarsh is opening the pier, get down!

The second sexiest man on TV charms the crowds by discussing piles before opening the pier.

and then unveils a plaque, assisted by Richard Gribble, who is very proud of his curtains. A member of Island 2000’s crack security detail hovers to the right, hiding behind a silly grin…

…while another guards the image of Roger Herbert. Don’t let the smile fool you, this man is SAS trained you know.

We’re working through both the Gift to Nature and Landcare programmes to develop a series of carbon-conservation projects under the title ‘Island Climate Care‘. One such project is a focus on Isle of Wight wetlands to gain a better understanding of their carbon capture role. We are especially interested in the deep peats of the East Yar Valley where we have worked to keep water levels high and the peat wet for the past 10 years but we are only now beginning to realize the essential importance of protecting and managing these as flooded prehistoric carbon stores. There’s still a lot to learn, about the methane/CO2 balance, about water quality and peat formation and about coastal and estuarine peat. There is a growing recognition too that ponds in the landscape provide a vital service as silt-traps and organic stores. We create or restore a pond somewhere on the Island every year but now we see them as contributing to a bigger picture. Island Climate Care will be working with partners on specific schemes to protect and enhance Island rivers, marshes, floodplains and ponds not only to conserve wildlife but also to take some demonstrable local action against climate change.

Flooded Peat nearAlverstone.

Island 2000 have teamed up with staff at St Georges school to present Dolly Mixtures.

Dolly Mixtures is an eclectic mish-mash of art dolls created from an equally eclectic range of materials by more than 20 Island-based artists exhibited in the Learning Curve Gallery at Quay Arts from 17th May in support of the St George’s School DRAGON Project.

Visitors to the exhibition will have the rare opportunity to own these pieces of art and to support a good cause at the same time as they will be raffled off to raise funds for the project.

Catalogues will be on sale at the Quay for £5 which will include a raffle ticket on which you can indicate your favourite ‘dolly mixture’ doll. The draw takes place on Thursday 29th May (between 6-8pm), so do go along to buy your ticket and see the draw. If you can’t get to the Quay to buy a catalogue e-mail hannah@island2000.org.uk for info on other outlets.

The DRAGON project at St George’s is an amazing and ambitious new kind of learning centre run by students for students. It will offer new opportunities for pupils at St Georges School as well as pupils across the Island who can come and use the unique bespoke facilities.

Check out the official website to read more about the project

image courtesy of Judes Crow

On Monday, Island 2000’s bio-tech department reported the results of the latest stage of its GM trials. A joint investigation with Yarmouth Harbour Commission is seeking to establish whether splicing DNA extracted from the gribble (Limnoria lignorum) into the human genome can impart the ability to breathe under water.

Samantha Buck, who has been running the trial said “There’s nothing unusual about breathing in an aquatic environment. Lots of species do it. We just need to make some minor adjustments to the way our bodies function. If we can crack this one, it could provide a significant boost to the Island’s tourist industry and would be the perfect accompaniment to the launch of our Isle of Wight snorkelling guide. Although results up to now have been disappointing, we must remember that this study was very small and we cannot be sure that the results are statistically significant.”

The trial recently ran into controversy when three volunteers were admitted to St Mary’s A&E suffering from water on the lung and two others developed an uncharachteristic urge to gnaw wooden objects.

The wonderful mosaic on the wall of the East Cowes Floating Bridge waiting room has finally received the recognition it deserves. For months people have admired this mysterious work and wondered who had created it and how it came into being. Now a plaque produced on Ryde High School’s high-tech laser-cutting equipment has been fixed up beside it explaining all.

The artwork has been dedicated to Lizzie King, one of the young artists who helped make it and who has sadly died.

Sean took some fabulous pics of these delightful Long-tailed Tits carefully constructing their nest from lichen and spiderweb (can it get any more ethereal?). Eventually the nest will be a dome with a small entrance hole and by then well-hidden by the rapidly sprouting willow.

As part of Sandown Primary’s grounds development project Dan was commissioned to make a lovely wooden xylophone fence. The children love it and it’s a special musical addition to the rest of the creative outdoor classroom at the school.

Hmmm… but how would one transport a 3m wooden xylophone from our offices in East Cowes to Sandown I hear you ask…..?

At night, by bicycle of course.

No, you weren’t and yes, it did. And to make sure we had photographic proof of the miracle of the morning of Sunday April 6th we created this little reminder from the white stuff itself:

A quick update on IoW poets and the way they’re putting their words to some down-to-earth uses:

A few weeks ago Clea Barton of Oakfield, Ryde told us how she had got sick of encountering all the dog’s mess around the Oakfield Arc play area, so she wrote a poem about it and nailed it up on one of the fence posts along the fence. Her direct action seemed to have a real effect and a few days later the path was nearly clear.

We thought it would be interesting to test more scientifically Clea’s hypothesis that poetry can have an impact on dog poo, or at least the dogs owners’ willingness to clear it up, so we commissioned her to pick another fouled path in her area and monitor the effect over 12 days of putting up anti-poo poems (poo-ems as Clea calls them).

Below are the results - I think they’re quite remarkable.

As the perennial issue of fouled footpaths seems to dog almost every local council meeting, Clea’s research might be worth serious consideration where other measures have failed. More broadly, it’s interesting to note that poetry can be a good way of communicating even very mundane messages which people otherwise ignore.

Why would this be?