This animation is an introduction to the ZWNW family. It shares how ZWNW came to be, what we work for, and how we support one another along the way. It captures the spirit of our movement and the personalities that enliven our work. Come join the fun!
The animation was a big team effort, from writing and editing the script, to the narration, to the illustrating. This was made possible through the Artitude Project.
This autumn Zero Waste North West is hosting a series of events to explore the meaning and possibilities for rights of nature on these islands. Zero Waste North West is part of the movement that seeks to fundamentally change the way humans relate to and respect the interconnected web of life so that we might enable a flourishing future for all beings.
Derry City and Strabane District Council was the first council on these islands to pass a rights of nature motion, advanced by People Before Profit councillor and Zero Waste North West member Meabh O’Neill. Since then, Omagh and Fermanagh and Donegal councils have done the same. Moreover, the 2023 Citizens Assembly on Biodiversity Loss recommended the Republic of Ireland enshrine the Rights of Nature and the human rights to a health environment within the Irish Constitution. This autumn series of events explores how rights of nature ideas shift our practices and mindsets.
On 10 September from 6:30-7:15, the Derry Rights of Nature group is hosting a meeting via Teams to learn about ways the Hare’s Corner Collective in Garvagh represent the interests and voices of nonhumans within their work, including within their meetings and decision making. Join the conversation here.
On 21 September from 4:30- 5:45, the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry-Londonderry will be screening the 40 minute film “Rights of Nature” in association with the closure of the exhibition Strata. Artworks within the Strata explore minerals, extractivism, and embodiment. The film introduces the rights of nature concept through a distinctive Irish perspective and was produced by Ravenhill Films and the Environmental Justice Network Ireland. Following the film will be a short Q&A and panel discussion featuring Meabh O’Neill, Mary McGuiggan, and Marella Fyffe. This film is the first in a short series that ZWNW is coordinating alongside the Playhouse as part of the Artitude Project. Reserve your seat here.
On 12 October, Ulster University’s Magee campus will host a symposium, “Rights of Nature and Heritage on the Island of Ireland”. This symposium is organised by ZWNW committee member Anjuli Grantham. The symposium features academics, activists, and heritage practitioners as they explore the connections between more than human wellbeing and heritage practices within Ireland. Register for the symposium here.
Remember the hugging tree in Prehen Woods? A number of mature trees around it have now been felled. More are marked with an X for felling. The hugging tree is now very vulnerable. Gemma has sent us this poem she wrote. Can we help her raise awareness!?
Join Zero Waste North West at Climate Justice Now, a panel discussion convened by Trócaire, at 7 PM on Tuesday 13th August at Pilots Row Centre. Anjuli Grantham of Zero Waste North West, Fidelma O’Kane of Save Our Sperrins and Sinéad Loughran of Trócaire will share visions for climate justice, both locally and internationally, and consider ways that climate justice is underway now in the North West and beyond.
This panel is associated with the Climate Justice Now photo exhibition at Eden Place Arts Centre. The exhibition features the impact of climate change on global communities and the activist catalyzing solutions. The exhibition will be open to visitors from Saturday 10th August – Saturday 17th August.
Handy list of local, online and telephone breastfeeding support for the week ahead! The North West BAPS Walking Group is meeting outside the Cafe at Brooke Park on Monday 29 July at 10.30am – join us for a short walk and a cuppa to get the week started!
Celebration of World Breastfeeding Week 2024 across the North West
Lots going on across the North West to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week – check out these flyers & this brochurefrom the Western Trust ?
Thank you so much to Poet and Educator Maura Johnson for leading us in a creative exploration on the Saturday morning at the recent Gathering at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy. The Theme was “Water Is Life”. Some of the beautiful creative people there have kindly agreed to share their compositions with us all below. Fabulous.
I am one with Water
by Jennie Sze
Water is inside me
I feel the water as there are bubbles
Small bursts of gas bubbling inside the water
The tingling sensation inside all areas of my body
Bubbling, letting me know I am alive.
I’m flowing in a current of life.
I’m flowing, flowing down a river
Water is all around me
Carrying me as I float above the surface
Facing the sky, seeing the clouds in the sky
Patches of water in the sky,
Reflecting on the surface of the water below
Like a mirror showing their friends up there
What we see down here
The river up in the sky smiling at the river below
Both moving by an invisible current.
Life is always, constantly moving.
Above me
Below me
Within me.
There is no stopping this flow.
There is a dam that was built by humans, trying to slow the flow of the current
There is energy blocks in my body, trying to make known something that needs a release.
How comforting it is when the dam is released
All the pressure rushing out downstream
Back into the river it has always been.
I am a river
I am a cloud
I see my reflection in my friend.
Like a dam
The clouds release rain or downpours depending on the pressure contained.
I am a river
I am a cloud
I hold pressure inside the water within me.
I seek release, relief, reprieve
I want to re-enter the flow that I was never really ever away from.
But I seek this union
This surrender feeling of oneness
Of peace
Of unity
Tears, sometimes tears need to flow
From inside to the outside
To feel cleansed once again.
This writing is inspired by Coleraine River.
The edge of the Island. Tir fo Thuinn
– by Narayan O’Tuathalain
I am at the edge of this Island
Water rushes up through the passage
Slapping the rock in churning white foam
The ground here is older than water’s memory
I step as close to the drop as I dare
As three seagulls call back and forth
Talking to seagulls under the sea
I only see a gigantic, prehistoric rock
As I slip down the grassy bank
Near sliding into an underworld
Of foaming water, chronometic waves
As I find my feet I look over
Would I survive down there, Tir fo Thuinn
Climb out of the watery cave, find a footfall on rock
The mother rock of this Island
But only the wing’ed ones will ever walk there
This writing is inspired by the headland of Banba’s crown at Cionn Mhalanna (Malin Head)
Water Is Life
– by Rosaline Callaghan
We gathered at this place beneath the summit of Sliabh Liag. Angry gusts tossed our hair and carried our incantations over the Atlantic, where they swooped over troughs and crests, kittiwake and a circling pair of peregrine falcons.
We paid homage and beseeched the waters of the wellspring to keep our sailing menfolk safe – to cut a boat path through the roiling ocean – and bring them home again.
We gathered at the Well of the Fair Winds, before the old ways shorn and scattered, before beehive huts and transubstantiation of sacred springs to holy wells.
An Bhanna
– by Mary McGuiggan
Panic, Anger, Fear
The oak barrel, black and silver
Overflowing, gushing
Rain water from my shed roof.
How dare they!
How dare you pollute my waters
Birds chittering from roof top to roof top
From beech to oak, hawthorn to elder.
Danger:
Suffocating slurry, toxic dumping,
flooded river banks, sodden grass, parched hedgerows,
A bit like running with the bulls at Pamplona. – Conall Morrison
My chest is still sore like having done too many push-ups, or taken a knock.
It’s from the shoves of the police “Get back” as they surround the vans leaving Court but we find a way to flow through them and tap the sides to communicate our support for those inside. I’m sorry it’s come to this, I’m sorry that you’re inside. It’s not fair 4 and 5 years locked-up.
For what?
I think it hasn’t sunk in yet?
I call it peaceful protest,
Wilful obstruction of the highway? Public Nuisance? Not conforming.
Checking the papers later the judge decrees them guilty of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022”
And yet every mention of climate change inadmissible. “The end of the world is neither here nor there”.
I cried when the news came out: 4 years for 4 of them and 5 for Roger. Cressida is only 22. The bitterness and hate that they will experience makes me sad.
I didn’t bring my phone
So that if I was arrested they couldn’t tell who I was immediately. This wastes their time… and means they can’t arrest so many people.
I didn’t think that there was a high likelihood of arrest, (I wrote Ruth’s number on my forearm, just in case). I wanted to be present, able to feel it, and also to make friends.
To act in solidarity. These people are going away for 4 years the least I can do is to turn up for an afternoon.
At the end of the road when the van pulled out into the traffic and hummings of the high street hustle-bustle, people stopped wide eyed and stared, “What is going on?”
“5 years for peaceful protest!” We shout, “not democracy!”
Heart beating hard in my chest,
police running at me from a long way off.
I got separated from the crowd with one other man. The police man was trying to grab hold of me and I made it to a side street. After a short while afraid of arrest it quietened down.
I made my way signless back to the front of the court. Wondering if anybody would be there still… and it was just like before, maybe just warmer in the sun.
Dale Vince, Chris Packham hanging around with aides and organisers, the same faces smiling back. The police back behind the iron gate, catching their breath. I rehydrate, should’ve brought a banana.
The second van came out, we carried a song and chanted “we love you!” to those inside. Again drumming on the sides and shouting and whooping to show support.
I saw some of the famous activists motion go for a drink. And was invited a couple of times to go for soup (you can get arrested for that). I’m tired, I’ve been enough of a nuisance on one hand and on the other not nearly enough. I go home.
I shook a few previous-to-then strangers’ hands and shared a smile. I talk to a covid masked lady on the tube, still doing outreach with her sign “Stop Jailing Truth Tellers” she has deep concern for the trees. I missed my stop, she apologised and I said “not at all”
Debriefs are important and I watch the footage when I get back.
It looks like quite a crowd, quite a nuisance, and again so sad. A victory for the elites, the string pullers, the point zero zero one percent.
I watched it back with brother in law Simon and again, able to pick myself out. Great tactic from the man just lying in the road. He does it at least 3 times. The crowd like water…
The police under-resourced just like the teachers, the doctors and the nurses. Only just hanging on. The illusion of power, that can crumble fast.
The strength of the arm of the law pushing people away and moving along, like some kind of swarm defense of a sports team, the risky high press.
I feel it now again in my chest, like Christiano Ronaldo,
My pride muscle
————————
This was written after the sentencing of 5 Just Stop Oil members that were guilty of being on a zoom call inviting people to join them in Nonviolent Direct Action, specifically climbing gantries on the M25.
The following speeches (YouTube playlist link) were made after the sentencing by other activists:
Throughout The Gathering, held at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy on the 27 and 28 June, we celebrated the work of environmental activists, learned about the many challenges and solutions underway to restore the integrity of Lough Neagh, and bolstered our own resolve to continue protecting what we love.
A man walked among the thick trunks of beech, chestnut and oak trees in Prehen, the ancient woodland remnant within Derry City. There, he encountered George, who has worked tirelessly over the years to protect this small, remaining fragment of ecological vitality. The man shared with George how Prehen saved his life, providing him with a healing place as he battled cancer.
The sedge warbler never sings the same song twice. It’s syncopated whistle rang through the room as Doris Noe shared how people in Northern Ireland adore birds, but that this adoration is ignored when development projects destroy habitat, even within designated conservation areas.
Lough Neagh residents have been working for years to regain their rightful ownership and become stewards of the lough, Bernadette McAliskey affirmed. In fact, this was part of her campaign in 1969! Her children were raised in the boglands around the lough, so unaccustomed to walking on concrete that it hurt their legs to do so.
Lough Neagh is amidst an ecological crisis, one that will likely persist for many years due to the accumulated phosphorous within its bed, according to environmental scientist Les Gornal. The most urgent task is to stop harmful agricultural runoff, he says. Alan Keyes of Ballinderry Rivers Trust shared biotic surveying as a rapid way to assess water quality within streams, thereby locating polluters within Lough Neagh’s catchment and targeting the worst offenders first. James Orr shared the principles local citizens have developed as a just transition plan for Lough Neagh, including community ownership and and a rights of nature framework for the lough.
It’s through poetry, stories, song and performance that we both celebrate and mourn. In the morning, Maura Johnson led a writing workshop. Thomas McErlean led a walking tour to the Strand at Lough Beg, where attendees sang amidst the trees and listened to Heaney’s poetry. Later in the day, children from local primary schools shared poetry about water as part of a learning programme initiated by Maura. Jim Cor performed his famous song about Lough Neagh eel fishers. The Gathering ended with “Food for My Soul,” where history, memories, song, dance, and poetry celebrated the Bann.
Over the weekend, we heard many messages united around a common theme: local citizens, working together, have been the independent EPA of Northern Ireland. And now, we demand not just protection, but also justice and restoration.
We will be walking along the Quay this morning (Monday 10 June) and stopping off at the City Hotel Derry for a cuppa and a chat about all things perinatal & parenting. Meet us anywhere along the way. All welcome – we will be setting off from the Statues at Sainsbury’s at 10.30am ?♀️?
Breastfeeding and Perinatal Support for the week ahead
Handy list of local, online and telephone support available for the week ahead – compiled by North West BAPS ?
Save the Date: North West BAPS Network Celebration of World Breastfeeding Week
North West BAPS looks forward to celebrating World Breastfeeding Week – we will be hosting an event on Saturday 3 Aug 2024 in collaboration with members of the North West BAPS Network and other organisations and friends in the community. The event will be held at St. Columb’s Park House & Gardens, with lots of activities & information relating to breastfeeding, perinatal and parental support. If you would like to host a stand or volunteer to help out on the day, give us a shout on nwbaps@gmail.com ?
North West BAPS Network
There was an excellent turnout at the online North West BAPS Network meeting last week – brilliant opportunity to discuss progress and issues with a wide range of participants including parents, representatives from support organisations and the Council. Minutes and actions will be shared shortly – we look forward to collaborating with others to help ensure that local families who want to breastfeed, receive the support they need to do so successfully. The next North West BAPS Network meeting will be held in person in the Autumn. Let us know if you would like to join the Network.
Here’s our Monica Downey of Life Cycles in conversation with Rosalind from NIRN and Jonathan Henderson from DCSDC. It’s National Bike Month! There’s so much going on!
Come down to Life Cycles at the Train Station to find out more. If you want to begin, or return to cycling, come and join a led cycle along our greenways, meet likeminded folks and develop confidence to get out there!