WDC at Scottish Parliament
On Monday 16th February, we, Lorna (Education officer) and Katie (Conservation officer), along with our Edinburgh based colleague Sarah Dolman, took a little trip to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to take part in the Scottish Environment Festival 2015 run by Scottish Environment LINK, the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment organisations, of which WDC is a member.
The theme for Scottish Environment Week 2015 was Sharing Scotland, highlighting all the resident and visiting species with which we share our environment and the human duty to share the space fairly and responsibly.
Our presence at the festival was sponsored by David Stewart MSP, allowing us to take part to highlight the amazing species of whales, dolphins and porpoises that inhabit our seas and showcase our education programme and citizen science programme Shorewatch, here in Scotland. Thank you to Mr Stewart for his support and the support of his staff.
With a stall alongside the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust and the Marine Conservation Society as part of a drop-in session for MSPs and public visitors alike, we also ran the day’s seminar. This gave us the chance to really show off our work and the amazing commitment shown by our Shorewatch volunteers!
Using skulls, baleen and life size cut outs we introduced MSPs to some of the whales and dolphins found in Scottish waters and we even got them to conduct a mock Shorewatch, giving them an excellent idea of the work we carry out through our education and Shorewatch programme.
To find out more about how the entire week went check out this video;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIvRVMOU43w&feature=youtu.be