Bugged by Dame Ellen
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- Are you a true Isle of Wight local? - 30th October, 2022
Today the Ranger spent the day attending a conference for work, where I was manning a stand for parish councillors to learn about the new duty of biodiversity. They were pleasingly interested – some good things might come of our chats over cups of tea.
I also had the pleasure of listening to the speeches from local and national speakers. Some were better than others, as is invariably the case, and for the less riveting I could sit down behind my stand and catch up on some reading. But one speaker had me on my feet for the whole speech – and not only because otherwise I couldn’t have seen her. The diminutive sailing dame and Island resident, Ellen MacArthur, gave a really great talk about sustainability, drawing a compelling analogy between her own experiences conserving fuel and food in a small boat, and the wider issues facing not only the Isle of Wight but the world. It’s not always the case that successful sporting heroes are lucid thinkers as well – but in the case of Dame Ellen I’d recommend you listen to her.
Then, whilst I was standing listening to the great lady, a strange thing happened – I noticed right under my nose that some of the biodiversity had ventured all the way into the cavernous conference hall to see for itself. this little shield bug sat on the biodiversity stand for some time before buzzing off. Let’s hope it enjoyed what it heard.
Yes, I thought I could see you waving. I think you most likely would be seeing Ashey Down (130m) and Culver Down (104m) which would be the biggest hills on the east side of the Island. We can often see a hazy fuzz on the horizon looking east, and the tower of Shoreham power station is often visible.
EcoIsland!, well if I climb to the top of one of the higher hills (on a good day) I can just see it from our Biosphere City.
Actually I can only see the top of Ventnor Down as the IOW is over the skyline so anything under about 200ft (60m) isn’t visible. How do I know, well someone once told me he had done the Maths and you couldn’t see the IOW from Brighton. So even though I have seen it on many occasions I had to do the maths to prove to him that you could!