TONAL - Rivers Beyond Sewage explores water issues nationally with a special focus on the River Tone in Somerset. Through riverside conversations with people who have different and profound relationships with water Feral Practice leads us on a deep dive into the politics, law, art and science of rivers with curiosity and humor.
Moving beyond the adversarial tone that dominates news and social media, Tonal offers powerful and entertaining listening — professional, political, ecological and spiritual — while keeping a close ear on the river herself.
Artist Feral Practice lives in Somerset, UK. They work to explore and expand our relationship to other species and the living earth.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
TONAL - Rivers Beyond Sewage explores water issues nationally with a special focus on the River Tone in Somerset. Through riverside conversations with people who have different and profound relationships with water Feral Practice leads us on a deep dive into the politics, law, art and science of rivers with curiosity and humor.
Moving beyond the adversarial tone that dominates news and social media, Tonal offers powerful and entertaining listening — professional, political, ecological and spiritual — while keeping a close ear on the river herself.
Artist Feral Practice lives in Somerset, UK. They work to explore and expand our relationship to other species and the living earth.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Vanessa Becker Hughes is the founder of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project. As we walk along the riverbank at the confluence of the Tone and Parrett near Burrow Mump we discuss the mysteries of eels, who begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea on the far side of the Atlantic, yet need to find their way back to a stream or waterway near you.
Vanessa went eel fishing as a child with her grandfather and now inspires and educates people to help eels (now on the ‘red list’ for species in danger of extinction) and connect to nature through building a relationship with them. SERP’s work includes bringing tanks of glass eels into classrooms and making straw ropes that help young eels climb up the many river barriers that currently cut them off from their homes.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Anne Marie Culhane is an artist who works with Jo Salter and others on the wonderful project Tidelines, which brings together arts, science, action and research, working with communities and the public, to celebrate and care for the Exe estuary and coast, and to find ways to adapt and respond collectively to the changes caused by climate breakdown and species loss.
Anne Marie relates the poignant story of the Salmon, who hang out in the Exe estuary while they adapt from salt to fresh water, before they swim upstream, or try to, where the few extraordinary survivors who leap over fifteen weirs and escape the predatory seal get to spawn in the beautiful shaded upper reaches of the Exe. The Tidelines project Salmon Run is a community relay race, and ultramarathon for the ultrafit, along that 45 mile route, that raises awareness of the salmon and their plight.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dr Liz Chadwick has led the globally important, 35 year-long study and archive called the Cardiff Otter Project since 2004. She and her colleagues and doctoral students autopsy and preserve samples from the bodies of otters who have been found dead (usually they have been run over) across the UK.
As Liz shows me the lab and the archive, we discuss the main focus of their research - toxicology, critically important to our understanding of rivers because chemicals accumulate in otters bodies, and reveal the changing state of the rivers over time. Liz talks about the worst kind of pollution - Persistent, Cumulative and Toxic. Sewage, for all its faults and yuk factor, is none of these per se. PCBs were banned in 2001 but still turn up in all the otters. Otters were nearly wiped out in the UK by DDT type pesticide use, and though populations have recovered since they were banned, these toxins are still present in all otters livers, just in lower concentrations. PFAs are the contemporary equivalent, the ‘forever chemicals’ of our pans and waterproofs. Fire retardants are another source. As one specific chemical is banned, another is invented. We urgently need to CHANGE this terrible game.
The Otter Project stores tissue from the otters collected in a freezer archive, as a resource for future investigation. Questions will arise and techniques will be invented that make the collection a potential time machine of otter, and river, knowledge.
We talk about difficult choices, the hormones and medicines people take that would be hard (impossible?) to give up, but leach into rivers and negatively impact on aquatic species. We also talk about the much more fun enquiries they are leading on, such as how DNA testing of otter spraint has built a picture of otter diversity around the country, and given some glimpses into individual otter activities.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jane introduces her work - as a river pilgrim, healer, wise woman, spirit practitioner - through telling the story of how the river called her one Winter Solstice, through the actions of three dogs. As we walk along a disrupted part of the river in Nynehead, Jane offers insights into her path, her profound connection to land and river, and describes the significance of healing work at the level of spirit.
Jane lives in Ashbrittle, at the headwaters of one of River Tone's tributaries that forms a boundary between Somerset and Devon. As a healer and pilgrim she has walked the Tone three times, from source to sea, sea to source, source to sea.
Tonal explores water issues nationally with a special focus on the River Tone in Somerset. Each podcast episode is a riverside conversation with someone who has a specific personal or professional relationship to water and the river, building a broad base of knowledge from many distinctive perspectives.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
An inspiring conversation about how DIY action is the driving force behind changes in the law. If you want your river to have legal personhood, to have rights, act as if it already did!
Paul Powlesland is one of the founders of Lawyers for Nature. He fights and campaigns for the rights of nature, especially trees and rivers. He is also a River Guardian for the River Roding in London, and Founder of the River Roding Trust. He acts on the river's behalf by contesting planning applications, planting trees, litter picking, creating habitat for biodiversity, walking the river to find problems such as the influx of Japanese knotweed and the unlisted sewage outflows, hassling the Environment Agency...
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode deals with the difficult topic of flooding, and how to build resilience: in people, buildings and communities. Dr Bel Deering is the community engagement officer for Somerset Rivers Authority. Her PhD was on the recreational uses of graveyards, a hint that the conversation contains many flashes of quirky humour alongside the serious stuff. Somerset Rivers Authority is a partnership organisation set up in response to the devastating floods of 2013-14 in the Somerset Levels and Moors. Any errors are the speakers' own.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Love and learn your rivers by subscribing to new episodes :)
Visit the website - https://www.tonal-uk.com/
Follow Feral Practice - https://www.instagram.com/feralpractice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
