On 13th and 14th November 2024 Paperboats, in partnership with Scottish Borders Climate Action, held creative writing workshops in Ayton and Galashiels. Local people brought their passions and knowledge, their fears and hopes, and talked and wrote about what nature means to them, and how vulnerable it is, in their own neck of the woods, here and now.
The result are these ‘letter-poems’ to John Swinney, The First Minister of Scotland, calling for action. Voice upon voice, people will make a difference.
Dear First Minister
We are seeing the green lands of the Borders – meadows, village commons, sheep fields, badger paths, birch woods – threatened by climate change, decision-makers, humanity.
We live on an old, hurt world in a chaos of drilling, fracking and mining.
There is a feeling of despair we have come to know so well.
We need one another. Why do we not change?
We need to care for one another and for the ash trees, apple trees, birch trees and hawthorns, the oaks and the pines of our lowlands and hills.
We would do anything to live in a greener world.
We want to see the deer in the fields of the Eildon Hills every morning for a thousand years.
We want to see the barn owl every evening drifting by in the peaceful dusk.
Support Rewilding
Sign The Fossil Fuel Treaty
We are concerned citizens who participated in the creative writing workshop at Ayton Community Hall on 13th November 2024, facilitated by Scottish Borders Climate Action Network and Paperboats.
Download the Poster of this letter:
Dear First Minister
We are seeing what is green and beautiful and natural threatened by concrete, fossil fuels, climate change, our addictions, the things we cannot see, the things that lie just around the corner.
Mindless actions are turning the earth into a chaos of seasons.
Why not admit the truth? Why not deal with what’s happening?
Why isn’t climate change on page one of your manifestos?
No more pootling on! Let us be mindful. Let us nurse all that we have.
We will never weary of the trees of Lanton Wood – oak, ash, sycamore, chestnut, pine – the midnight inspiration of star-studded border skies (light in the right place), rivers that flow well and thrive, the intricate delicacy of a dragonfly’s wing, the infinite, profound, essential variety of fungus.
Hear our wild hope and act.
This is the way a new world begins.
Support Rewilding
Sign The Fossil Fuel Treaty
We are concerned citizens who participated in the creative writing workshop at the Little Arts Hub, Galashiels on 14th November 2024, facilitated by Scottish Borders Climate Action Network and Paperboats.
Download the Poster of this letter:
If you belong to an organisation that would be interested in hosting a Paperboats workshop and making your voice heard, please email hello@paperboats.org