Over the last 6 months filmmaker Sitar Rose has been travelling along our shoreline collecting memories of times gone-by. She has interviewed local residents about their memories of growing up in the area – on life, work and recreation on the coast. We’re delighted to be able to share these films with you. Just follow the links to hear each of the stories on our YouTube channel: Ella – Living in Newhaven and Granton George – Childhood in Newhaven Janis – Portobello memories John D – Living and working in Granton Jim – Changing Leith John H – Newhaven stories Tom – On the lifeboats

The Edinburgh Shoreline team recently visited the Central Scotland Green Network Trust to view a map they had pulled together of lots of different types of data which related to our shoreline; the map showed locations of hard sea defences, different habitats both natural and man made, access points to green space, active travel routes and more. All of the data is currently available to the public in various places, but they had pulled it together into one place! What a fantastic resource! On Thursday 21st March we held a Green Tease event, led by our friends at Creative Carbon Scotland, to look at the map and think about how we might use it to identify areas of opportunity on our coastline. For example, we looked at all of the green spaces near to the coast, such an abundance of little pockets! We discussed ways in which we could potentially...

How time flies when you’re having fun! On Saturday 2nd March we held a celebration event to mark the first anniversary of the project. At the event we launched our project documentary, community map and oral history interviews. Many thanks for the 100 people who came along and helped to make it such an enjoyable day. Our documentary film, which charts what we have been up to over the last year, as well as local people’s vision for the future of our shoreline, was very well received. We are delighted to be able to share it with you now! Just follow the link to see why the Edinburgh shoreline is so special: https://youtu.be/i4G8jqpgu70 Our sincerest thanks go to both René Sommer Lindsay, who gave an interesting talk on how Copenhagen is adapting to climate change, and Emily O’Brien, who spoke about the work of Seafield Shoreline who are improving planting and...

We hope you were all watching Countryfile last night and spotted Artecology’s vertipools! Here’s a handy link if not (minute 27-34): https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bvgw3r/countryfile-isle-of-wight?fbclid=IwAR0wKaQJAzloqnxnuPD5Uda8eckE8D6Gw2leub-7GfbhajSlGamg3oqW7PY Did you know that in the pilot stage of the Edinburgh Shoreline project we (along with Artecology, Concrete in the Classroom, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and local schools) installed some vertipools and biodiversity tiles on the sea defences at Cramond? We’ve also been developing some more tiles with Craigroyston High and Leith Academy in September of this year. Find out more here: https://edinburghlivinglandscape.org.uk/project/grey-to-green/?fbclid=IwAR1CrXYg3qD9U1KT0u_dudkD-Jt08LiOfwgleV-wHbcrbgLy4ecThTsZPFs   An artificial rockpool installed on the sea defences at Cramond on the Firth of Forth as part of the Concrete in the Classroom project. Front Larissa Naylor (Lecturer in Physical Science Glasgow Uni) rear Leonie ALEXANDER (RBGE Urban Biodiversity Project. Images courtesy of Lorne Gill, Scottish Natural Heritage.

Our Edinburgh Shoreline documentary is almost complete, and we’re delighted to share this sneak preview with you! Over the past 6 months the incredibly talented Margarita, Josefa and Fraser of Shakehaus http://www.shakehaus.com/ have been following the Edinburgh Shoreline project to document our journey. They have caught on film our community engagement events (from choir performances to rockpooling!), captured our beautiful landscapes and interviewed local residents to find out what is so special about our 27km of coastline and how we must protect it for the future. We’re pleased to share with you this sneak preview, and cannot wait to show you the finished documentary – coming soon!

Over the past 4 months, tens of thousands of people have seen the Edinburgh Shoreline exhibition while on display at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. We’ve had lots of nice feedback about the exhibition, so we thought it would be a good to allow more people to see it! Six community groups produced a display for the exhibition, telling a story they felt was important to them: herring and oyster fishing in Newhaven & using derelict land for a community garden in Granton to name a few… We’ll be taking these displays on the road during the months of November and December, and we hope you get to see them at a venue near you soon!   Portobello Library, 5-23 November Victoria Primary School Newhaven, 5-30 November North Edinburgh Arts, 26 November-8 December Rosebery Hall South Queensferry, 3-20 December Leith Library, 10-31 December Please remember to check the opening times...

Watch this great new drone footage (by Dr Lubino do Rego) of Hawthorn Bank Community Garden, which has just reopened to the public, as well as great views of South Queensferry. We’ll be working with the GreenFerry Trust, who look after the garden, over the next few months to help plant up the garden with native Scottish coastal wildflowers.  

Those who have visited the Edinburgh Shoreline exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (on until 28 October) will have seen beautiful prints by artist Fiona McAndrew of wading birds she has observed on the Firth of Forth. Fiona has written a blog post on the research that went into making her work and in particular a video she has produced for a piece of her original music ‘Waders’ Lullaby’. Read Fiona’s update here: http://www.fionamcandrew.co.uk/making-of/ For those of you who would like to find out more about the internationally important populations of wintering birds found in Edinburgh please see the Events section of this website where you can sign up to a Shoreline winter bird walk on 10th November.

Some Portobello parents and their wee ones are hoping to set up their own Wildlife Watch group and are looking for help. If you’re interested in helping youngsters enjoy and explore the amazing nature found on our Edinburgh coastline then please get in touch with Liz. All details available on the attached poster.  

Hi, I’m Rosslyn and I’ve been volunteering with the Edinburgh Shoreline project since February this year. I’m delighted to have returned to environmental work as the next step in what has been be a varied and enjoyable career so far. Where have I come from? I originally graduated as a zoologist and started to work for an academic publication in York. They gave me the chance to move into their IT area where I discovered I wasn’t a very good IT programmer! Fortunately, I was a better organiser and people person, so I quickly gravitated towards project management. I moved back to Scotland when I had children and got into financial services. I’ve been very lucky to grow my career there moving from managing projects, to governing and managing change, to helping businesses understand their strategy so that they can identify the right projects to do. More recently I focused...