The day is finally here, the Edinburgh Shoreline exhibition is open! We have been working hard with our exhibition designer The Port Creative to bring you an engaging and thought-provoking display on the Edinburgh shoreline; it’s important history, how the area has developed over time, and the unique landscape which supports a wealth of different species and makes the area internationally important for wildlife. We’ve also explored the challenges our shoreline faces and looked at the creative ways that other cities around the world have embraced their proximity to the sea. We’re currently working with 6 community groups from along the shoreline to create their own displays, which will be added to the exhibition from 28 July. We have a really interesting mix of creative projects coming up for visitors to see, such as a knitted display of species such as seaweeds found along our coast and recreations of the...

The Edinburgh Shoreline project, part of Edinburgh Living Landscape, is a community based initiative to raise awareness of the rich history and biodiversity of the city’s coast and consider the environmental and economic pressures on it.   It involves artists, specialists and people living and working here creating responses to these pressures including demonstrating how the now necessary sea defences can be designed to create new marine habitats. Karen Chambers explains the inspirations behind this exciting initiative. For some reason vaguely connected with my past involvement in improving Edinburgh’s biodiversity, including two years developing the city council’s Urban Forestry Strategy in the 1990s, I decided to cycle along its 27 km coastline. There were many stretches I hadn’t seen for about 10 years and I was pretty knocked out by what I found. Two things struck me in particular. ‘Going to the Beach’, a bronze sculpture by Vincent F Butler ©...

Schools, community groups and individuals who care about the local environment and heritage are being invited to join together and regenerate natural habitats along Edinburgh’s 27km coastline from Port Edgar to Joppa. By connecting with scientists and conservationists in the new Shoreline project everyone who lives, works or plays in the area will have the chance to celebrate the area’s relationship with the sea and the plants and animals to be found along the coast. Over the next 12 months there will be opportunities to search for little-known species, explore rock pools and mudflats, undertake practical conservation work and much more.  Communities will be given the chance to tell their own stories in different ways along the shoreline and through a major summer exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). The Shoreline project has been developed by Karen Chambers, Vice Chair of Scottish Wildlife Trust; historian and researcher Elspeth...