Interspecies Council Workshop

Should a river have rights? Is a river a natural resource for humans or should it be entitled to a right to exist as it’s own living entity? If the species who depend on our rivers could speak, what would they say?

These are questions that we have been workshopping in collaboration with artists Jess Balla and Nikki Hill.

Following an informative and emotive presentation around the theme of Rights Of Nature attendees took part in an ‘interspecies council’ a methodology created by Phoebe Tickell. The idea behind the interspecies council is to ‘introduce more-than-human ontologies and perspectives into decision-making and policy-making’ or in our case to help community members explore the issues facing local rivers from a different lens.

Each person was given the opportunity to bring forward ‘their’ case in a meeting chaired by Grey Heron (Nikki). It was fascinating to see the different approaches everyone took to representing their chosen species. There was lots of talk of the emotive nature of the exercise where commonalities were around the themes of; loneliness, sadness, respect and empathy.

The workshop feedback also highlighted how the workshop concept stretched comfort levels and challenged people to engage in a new way. We are looking forward to continuing our work in this area, with a focused look on the Afon Cegin.