Nige usually likes to keep his new ideas under is hat for a while. Sometimes he forgets they’re there though and needs Ian to remind him!
Take a dive into a Vertipool™!
Let’s take a quick plunge into a Vertipool and see who lives there!!
How Did Your Engineering Project Begin?
For us it all started at Yarmouth Primary School, a coastal school in the Isle of Wight World Biosphere Reserve. Our Vertipool project really got going when we invited the school children there to join us on a journey of discovery where we could all start to understand the future problem of coastal squeeze caused by sea level rise and the impact it could have on the lives of the people who live in coastal towns and cities across the world. We enlisted musician/singer/songwriter Spike Oatley and artist Ian Whitmore and together with the children and teaching staff we began to unravel the story of climate change. Together we sung about coastal squeeze, we danced a ‘rising sea level dance’, we made an animation showing how Vertipools work by creating homes for seashore wildlife, and finally together we made a Vertipool.
This is a classic example of our ‘Shaping Better Places’ delivery framework in full flow. It was joint funded by the brilliant Solent Forum, the superb APE UK and ourselves. Funding bids where administered by Natural Enterprise.
The Vertipool intertidal habitat creation project has gone on to connect with environmental agencies and universities across the world, funny to think that it all started here with a unique collaboration made up of scientists, artists and children.
Turning the concrete tide – Artecology to feature in BBC Countryfile’s Coastalfile
Unless your TV is at the menders, you can’t have missed that this is a seminal week for the wild world. Twin emergencies, Biodiversity and Climate Change are finally and fully making headlines… globally, the UN has been pushing the agenda with back-to-back conferences on both and meanwhile here in the UK, Defra have launched a consultation to make biodiversity net gain mandatory in development. Forget popular plastics for a minute, the world is looking for ways to turn the concrete tide too now… at last. Meanwhile (zooms in to the Isle of Wight), our small team of ecologists and artists have always been on it. To find out how Artecology are making that tide work for wildlife, tune into BBC Countryfile this coming Sunday!
With presenter Margherita Taylor at the helm, the BBC Countryfile team joined us on the Solent and our Science Beach to find out more about the coastal side of our work, heading out with Ian Boyd to see how our Vertipools, artificial rockpools, at a Wightlink ferry port are bringing marine wildlife to blank walls, and finding out how artists Nigel and Hannah George employ paper-folding, materials expertise and hands-on sculptural making techniques to transform concrete into beautiful and bio-receptive habitat.
So to see how tides could turn for the better and how art, science and ecology can rewild our world, make sure to watch BBC Countryfile this weekend… BBC1 Sunday 9th December from 5.45pm https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bvgw3r.
Thanks to the brilliant teams at BBC Countryfile, Wightlink, the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and Bournemouth University!