On May 19th 2023, Heartstone with NatureScot, RSA Scotland and Highland Council launched Cùra Guardian, a new website and roadshow, at the Main Chamber of Highland Council HQ in Inverness followed by a first roadshow event at the Dingwall Word on the Street Festival.
A Highland badger called Cùra is at the centre of this programme, which shines a new light on the natural environment combining documentary, spectacular images, latest scientific research, including the impact of climate change, cultural story and history intertwined. It starts in Highland Scotland but then spreads out making connections with cultures across the world.
This is a powerful, engaging, insightful route into the environment, to see it from a different perspective and be inspired. Nick Sidle’s environmental photolibrary of over 2m images, built over a period of 30 years, alongside the Cùra story, provides the foundation for the entire project. Many of the images have been gathered with special access from a wide range of environmental partners within Scotland and globally, all of whom have contributed background and research information alongside, and the library continues to grow as new assignment invitations are continuously received making this a significant collaborative initiative.
The preliminary phase of the website at www.curaguardian.scot and www.curaguardian.org was presented at this event to a specially invited audience of partners, funders and supporters all helping to make this project take shape.
This included representatives of Edinburgh’s Interfaith Group, the Inverness Interfaith and Multicultural group, local Councillors.
The Pilot Phase of Cùra Guardian
This initiative is the next stage of the project which began in its earliest phase in 2021 with an event at Inverness Cathedral to mark the start of COP26 in Highland. Children who had participated in that event were also present together with their magnificent Cùra artwork, presented as a centrepiece at the Cathedral event.
Prior to that event, an earlier pilot event of the roadshow component of Cùra Guardian was presented at Kiltarlity Village Hall in Highland before the pandemic and some of those who had helped in the staging of that event were also present.
Introduction and Welcome
Cllr Chris Ballance gave a warm welcome to everyone assembled on behalf of Highland Council who had donated their Main Chamber for this event. He said:
“The Cùra Guardian performance in the Council chambers wowed a large group of school children, their teachers, members of multicultural associations and other guests. This is a unique method of story-telling with dance, linked to a massive library of images of the natural world, and stories connected with them. It’s a magic mixture of art forms – theatrical, dance and visual arts, combining a first rate performer with a very experienced photographer.”
Dr Clive Mitchell, NatureScot’s Strategic Resource Manager, said
‘The climate-nature crisis is far-reaching and wide-ranging, so it’s wonderful to see this powerful, new tool to communicate nature stories and reach as many people as possible. We are a part of nature, but for too long we have seen and managed nature as if it was separate from us. We hope the images and stories that have been collected for Cura Guardian will inspire more people to take more care of nature, because each and every one of us is a guardian of nature. Our lives depend on it.’
Amy McInulty from RSA Scotland, who featured this as an RSA event for their global network, presented the wide reach of the RSA and how it aims to highlight projects which are inspiring change, socially and environmentally.
Dance and Story – Sitakumari
Sitakumari, in her role as dancer/storyteller for Heartstone, presented the Cùra project and performed part of the Cùra story and one of the stories connected to the Comet and formation of the Eclipse, both images featured on Cùra Guardian, before handing over to the main speakers.
Global Partners
As in the first pilot staging of the roadshow in Kiltarlity Village Hall, for this event a connection was also made with two of Cùra’s overseas partners – officers of the Rocky Mountains Tribal Leaders Council in Montana USA, and Dr Rajiv Bhartari, recently retired from his role as one of the Directors at Corbett National Park, India.
Director of the Rocky Mountains Tribal Leaders council, Bill Snell(centre) together with Les Left Hand, Program Director for All Nations Youth Partnerships for Success (on left) and Ada Bends, Program Co-ordinator (on right), first joined the Cùra Guardian programme in 2020 and have contributed since then.
For this event, they introduced Lauren Big Hair, who presented the role and importance of environmental stories within Native America.
Dr Rajiv Bhartari, recently retired from his post as one of the Directors at Corbett National Park, India, first joined the Cùra programme in 2020 and contributed since then.
Since that very first event, partners for Cùra, including indigenous communities, now stretch across the world, bringing their own cultural stories to connect with the animals and environment featured showing how they have been connected with the natural world over millennia, how they demonstrate respect for the natural world, and challenges and issues they are both facing now from opposite sides of the world to preserve and protect the environment they know and love for future generations. This includes the impact of climate change.
So who is Cùra?
Cùra is a character from the book Heartstone was founded from, ‘The Heartstone Odyssey’. His name in Gaelic means ‘protector’ or ‘guardian’. In the story, his role is that of a protector of place and home, both social and the natural world, and he has a strong Highland historical connection, a story for children which is also capturing the hearts and minds of adults, which is why he was chosen as the centrepiece of this project.
Cllr Karl Rosie, Chair of the Highland Climate Change Committee, joined the launch event remotely and spoke of the value of Cùra Guardian and its role in raising awareness and from that starting point, to be inspired to preserve the environment and understand how we all have a role in preventing climate change.
New Access Partners and Locations
The most recent addition to Cùra Guardian has been the Dark Bordered Beauty moth, one of the rarest moth species found in Scotland and England and a species in danger of extinction. This assignment was made possible thanks to special access with the help of Mick Acourt who invited Nick Sidle to join him in one of very few sites of an older established population, and Pete Moore, Species Champion for the moth at the Rare Invertebrates in the Cairngorms Project.
New locations added to Cùra Guardian since the 19th include the area around Ben Nevis. Both have been featured on X @curaguardian
Latest supporters of Cùra Guardian include the Highland Species Champions covering a range of species, starting to be featured on www.curaguardian.scot and X. Minke Whales and Adders are the first two species with the Species Champion connections and more will be following.
The Next Show
Cùra Guardian is building to its next roadshow as part of the Climate Change Festival in September. Sitakumari, Director of Heartstone said
‘Cùra Guardian is another route to connect the world, this time through images and story connected with the natural environment that surrounds us, to see the common human experience and the need to put aside differences and work together on an issue that affects us all.
TO ACCESS CURA GUARDIAN STORIES AND IMAGE GALLERIES, GO TO:
WWW.CURAGUARDIAN.SCOT OR WWW.CURAGUARDIAN.ORG FOR ALL OVERSEAS ASSIGNMENTS AND STORIES.
AND FOLLOW ON X @curaguardian
Our grateful thanks to NatureScot and Highland Council for their funding and support for this project and event and to RSA Scotland for including this show as part of their events programme.
