tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/britain-1199/articles
Britain – The Conversation
2024-02-27T12:41:39Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219140
2024-02-27T12:41:39Z
2024-02-27T12:41:39Z
Could a couple of Thai otters have helped the UK’s otter population recover? Our study provides a hint
<p>Otter populations crashed in Britain around the 1960s from the lethal effects of chemical pollution in rivers and lakes – or so we thought. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/40/11/msad207/7275014">Our research</a> has looked more closely at what happened to otters in Britain over the last 800 years and has revealed a more complex picture. </p>
<p>Since Eurasian otters (<em>Lutra lutra</em>) are at the top of the aquatic food chain in Britain, any contamination consumed by their prey, and by the prey of their prey, <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c05410">accumulates in otters</a>. So otters are particularly susceptible to any toxic chemicals in their environment. </p>
<p>Following the banning of many chemical pollutants, otter populations began to recover, and we now have otters in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.13505">every county in Britain</a>. National otter surveys have been conducted in Wales, Scotland and England since 1977 and have helped to track population recovery. </p>
<p>However, we didn’t have a good grasp on what population sizes were like in the decades before this time. We only had anecdotal evidence that otter hunting was becoming less “successful” over time, and that both sightings and signs of otters were rarer. </p>
<h2>Otter population decline</h2>
<p>Our research shows that roughly between 1950 and 1970, an extreme population decline happened in the east of England, and a strong decline in south-west England. They were probably caused by chemical pollution. </p>
<p>In Scotland, otter populations showed a long-term, but smaller decline, which suggests less chemical pollution. There was a smaller population decline in Wales, which started around 1800, possibly linked to otter hunting and changes in how people shaped and used the landscape. </p>
<p>While both deal with DNA, genetics focuses on individual genes and their roles, while genomics examines the entire set of an organism’s DNA. Although there have been genetic studies of otters in Britain, our research was the first time genomics was used to study Eurasian otters anywhere in the world.</p>
<p>Working with scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Wellcome Sanger’s Darwin Tree of Life project, we looked at the entire otter genome. The upgrade from genetics to genomics threw up a few surprises. </p>
<p>First, there was a mitochondrial DNA sequence found in the east of England, which was very different to the sequences in the rest of Britain. Mitochondrial DNA is a sequence of DNA found in a cell’s mitochondria, which is what generates the energy. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother, while the rest of the DNA is a mix of both the mother’s and the father’s DNA.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19768354.2023.2283763">recent study</a> by our research group, in collaboration with colleagues in South Korea, suggested a divergence between these two lineages at least 80,000 years ago. Finding this mitochondrial lineage (that, based on our data, is otherwise restricted to Asia) in the UK was surprising. </p>
<p>Second, we found high levels of genetic diversity in the east of England. Normally, after an extreme population decline such as the one we identified in this area, genetic diversity decreases. Yet we saw much greater diversity here than in the population in Scotland, where there was no clear evidence for such a decline. </p>
<h2>Thai otters</h2>
<p>With a little detective work, we discovered that a pair of Eurasian otters (the same species that we have in the UK), were brought to Britain from Thailand in the 1960s. Populations of Eurasian otters range right across Europe and Asia. Although they are the same species, there are several genetically distinct subspecies, particularly in Asia. </p>
<p>It seems possible that these genetically different otters from Thailand bred with otters in the east of England. At the time of the population decline, when native UK populations were at their smallest, even a few individuals introduced into the population may have made a big difference. And they left unexpected marks on the genome. </p>
<p>We don’t know for sure if this is what happened, and we need to do more work to find out what effect this may have had on otters in the east of England. High genetic diversity is usually good for a population or species. But on the other hand, conservation often strives to maintain genetic differences between populations, rather than mixing distinct populations.</p>
<p>One way to find out more would be to compare the genome of a Eurasian otter from Thailand to the otters we see in the east of England. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Since the 1960s, otters in Thailand and across Asia have become increasingly rare. This is due to habitat loss, pollution and the illegal otter trade. So getting samples for genome sequencing is very difficult. It highlights the importance of conserving the species in Asia, despite population recoveries in Europe.</p>
<p>Our work shows the value of using modern genomic tools to look at the genetic diversity of a threatened species. The application of such tools can uncover surprising facts, even in supposedly well-studied species.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Hailer receives funding from NERC and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Chadwick receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and from the Environment Agency</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah du Plessis receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the Global Wales International Mobility Fund.</span></em></p>
Research has revealed how British otters may have been able to recover from species loss in the 1950s with the help of otters from Asia.
Frank Hailer, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology, Cardiff University
Elizabeth Chadwick, Senior Lecturer at the School of Biosciences, Cardiff University
Sarah du Plessis, PhD Candidate, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223224
2024-02-21T13:04:38Z
2024-02-21T13:04:38Z
Gut bacteria may explain why grey squirrels outcompete reds – new research
<p>Across large parts of the UK, the native red squirrel has been replaced by the grey squirrel, a North American species. As well as endangering reds, grey squirrels pose a threat to our woodlands because of the damage they cause to trees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.001793">New research</a> from my colleagues and I compared the gut bacteria of red and grey squirrels. We found that differences between the two may explain their competition and red squirrel decline, as well as why grey squirrels are so destructive to woodland.</p>
<p>Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK between 1876 and 1929 and have displaced reds in most areas of the UK. Greys carry a virus called “squirrelpox”, which doesn’t affect them but leads to sickness and often death in red squirrels.</p>
<p>Grey squirrels are bigger than red squirrels and compete with them <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.1083008/full">for food and habitat</a>.
Acorns, a widespread food source, contain tannins, which are hard for red squirrels to digest. But greys can digest acorns easily, giving them an extra edge in competing for resources. </p>
<p>Grey squirrels frequently strip the bark from deciduous trees. In commercial plantations, the damage can lead to fungal infection and result in the tree producing low quality timber. The annual cost is an <a href="https://rfs.org.uk/insights-publications/rfs-reports/report-overview-the-cost-of-grey-squirrel-damage-to-woodland-in-england-and-wales/">estimated £37 million.</a> with sycamore, oak, birch and beech frequently targeted. </p>
<p>The grey squirrels select the strongest growing trees as these have bark containing the largest volume of sap. Intriguingly, grey squirrels do not select trees with the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230344319_Bark-stripping_by_Grey_squirrels_Sciurus_carolinensis">highest sugar content</a>. This observation has led scientists to posit that the squirrels consume bark to obtain <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716300421?via%3Dihub">certain micro-nutrients</a>. </p>
<h2>Gut bacteria</h2>
<p>All mammals have microorganisms living in their intestines. For example, the typical human colon is host to at least <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5847071/">160 bacterial species</a>, while in birds, research has found thousands of different bacterial species in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33868800/">chicken intestines.</a></p>
<p>The bacteria break down foods and help synthesise vitamins, complementing the enzymes secreted by the body. The diversity of these microorganisms, known as the “microbiota”, can reflect the level of health and also the diet of an individual. But we don’t know enough about the microbiota living in squirrel intestines. </p>
<p>The types of microbes present vary between species, yet the extent to which they differ between grey and red squirrels is unclear. We explored this and investigated the potential for any differences to affect competition between the two squirrel species. We also examined whether gut bacteria might be playing a role in bark stripping behaviour.</p>
<p>We sampled bacterial DNA from red and grey squirrel intestinal contents and performed gene sequencing to identify the range of bacteria present in the samples. The results were analysed to compare any important differences between the two.</p>
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<img alt="A cute red squirrels with a large bushy tail stands on the branch of a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ynys Môn off the north Wales coast is one of the few places in the UK where greys have been eradicated in favour of red squirrels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-squirrel-views-around-north-wales-2232607907">Gail Johnson/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Calcium</h2>
<p>Calcium is an important nutrient in the body and is required for healthy bones, muscles and nerves. It is especially needed by lactating animals and ones that are young and growing.</p>
<p>We found that grey squirrels may have the capacity to obtain the calcium that exists in tree bark thanks to the presence of a bacteria called “oxalobacter” in their gut. The calcium in tree bark comes in an insoluble form and is hard for an animal to digest. But oxalobacter would be able to change this into a form that could be more digestible. </p>
<p>Calcium levels <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716300421?via%3Dihub">increase in trees</a> as active growth resumes after winter dormancy. This happens immediately before the main squirrel bark-stripping season of May to July. Our research may therefore help to explain the destructive behaviour of grey squirrels and why red squirrels appear to strip bark much less frequently.</p>
<p>Our research also identified a significantly higher diversity of bacteria in the intestines of grey squirrels compared to red squirrels. This could hold the key to further understanding why grey squirrels outcompete red squirrels in the UK. </p>
<p>A more diverse range of bacteria being sustained in the gut means that grey squirrels potentially may be able to access a broader range of resources than red squirrels in addition to acorns.</p>
<h2>Adenovirus</h2>
<p>The grey squirrel harbours not just the squirrelpox virus, but also another potential threat – adenovirus. While this virus causes severe intestinal lesions in some red squirrels, curiously, grey squirrels never exhibit the same symptoms.</p>
<p>This discrepancy underscores the fascinating and complex potential role of gut microbiota. Research increasingly reveals their influence on everything from digestion to immune response, and even susceptibility to disease.</p>
<p>In the context of red squirrels, understanding how variations in their gut bacteria might predispose them to adenovirus becomes crucial. This is especially pertinent for captive breeding programs, where adenovirus infections pose a hurdle to successful reintroductions of red squirrels into the wild.</p>
<p>Given we only sampled red and grey squirrels from north Wales, we hope that future studies will map the gut microbiota of other European populations too. Such future research will continue to improve our knowledge of the competition between red and grey squirrels.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Shuttleworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New research suggests the gut bacteria of red and grey squirrels differ significantly, potentially explaining the decline of the native red and the success of its grey counterpart.
Craig Shuttleworth, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221352
2024-02-05T13:34:48Z
2024-02-05T13:34:48Z
How bats ‘leapfrog’ their way home at night – new research
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572171/original/file-20240130-27-o1vlrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3413%2C2539&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The greater horseshoe bat is one of the UK's 18 bat species. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flying-bat-hunting-forest-greater-horseshoe-1494098204">Rudmer Zwerver/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A silent ballet takes place above our heads at night as Britain’s bat populations leave their roosts to forage for food. Although their initial movement away from roosts is fairly well understood, until recently little was known about how they returned home. </p>
<p>But our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-023-01233-5">new research</a> shows how bats may use a “leap-frogging” motion to make their way home, something which could help conservationists in future.</p>
<p>As they flit through the darkness, bats play a crucial role in the health of our ecosystems. From keeping insect populations in check to dispersing seeds and pollinating plants, they provide a multitude of benefits. </p>
<p>In the UK alone, the 18 bat species devour agricultural pests such as cockchafers with impressive efficiency. So, it is imperative that we not only understand and appreciate bats, but also actively support and safeguard their populations for the wellbeing of our planet.</p>
<p>But bat populations are vulnerable to pollution, climate change and loss of roosting locations. Habitat fragmentation and light pollution can also interrupt how bats feed. This is particularly important during the maternity season <strong>in early summer</strong>, when bats gather together to have and raise their young.</p>
<p>An integral aspect of effective bat conservation lies in unravelling the mysteries of how bats move. This not only helps us understand how bats navigate and use their environment, but also helps in identifying and protecting their roosts. </p>
<h2>Radio-tracking</h2>
<p>Conventional methods for pinpointing bat roosts primarily hinge on radio-tracking surveys. This arduous process involves capturing bats, attaching small radio transmitters to them before releasing them and following the signals throughout the night. </p>
<p>Our team conducted a radio-tracking survey in Devon which monitored 12 greater horseshoe bats over 24 nights. The trajectories of seven of those bats over 14 nights were extracted from the data for analysis, ensuring that in each case, a bat’s beginning and ending roost were the same.</p>
<p>Using this data, we measured the population’s average distance from the roost. We found two distinctive patterns in the data we analysed: an initial spread of bats within the first one to two hours after sunset and a gradual return to the roost afterwards.</p>
<p>The initial spread reflects the expected random dispersal of bats leaving their roosts to forage after sunset. The return to the roost, occurring two to eight hours after sunset, is more complicated. </p>
<p>This prompted us to explore two potential mechanisms influencing the bats’ return. First, a “pull mechanism”, where the roost attracts the bats home, and second, a mechanism pushing the bats who range furthest away back to the roost.</p>
<p>We modelled the pushing mechanism as a leapfrog process. Imagine this as a cascade effect, where the outermost bats begin their return. Once the “outer” bats have passed or “leapt over” bats that are closer to the roost, the “inner” bats become the furthest out causing them to return too.</p>
<p>This motion unfolds systematically, like a synchronised dance, as each bat from the periphery of the foraging range follows suit in returning to the roost after being “leapfrogged”.</p>
<p>But what causes the bats to return in this manner? One plausible explanation underscores how bats rely on each other for effective navigation, like tiny radar signals. If a bat experiences prolonged silence or predominantly hears calls from one direction, it might decide to move closer to the roost, anticipating the presence of other colony members. </p>
<p>But a bat might return more slowly, prolonging foraging, if it perceives the presence of bats beyond its current location. So, it is the outer bats that would drive the return as they would not be surrounded by calls.</p>
<h2>How does this research help bats?</h2>
<p>The significance of these findings extends beyond just describing the movements of bats. They have laid the foundation for work that promises easier discovery of new bat roosts, potentially reducing the need for labour-intensive bat tracking surveys in the future. </p>
<p>One of the immediate effects of our research includes informing a measurement of the “core sustenance zone” for greater horseshoe bats. This is where most of their foraging occurs, so it’s important in bat ecology, conservation and construction planning.</p>
<p>The leapfrogging mechanism also allows us to ascribe intention to bat movements. Namely, through using surrounding bat calls they can identify where the population is relative to their position, suggesting whether or not they are on the periphery of the group, which is an indicator of their vulnerability. Should they be furthest from the roost they move back towards the bulk of the population and closer to the roost.</p>
<p>While these interpretations hold promise, further rigorous testing is essential. And we need to think about the safety and wellbeing of the bat population.</p>
<p>Our observations are also specific to greater horseshoe bats during the summer months. Different bat species have distinct flight patterns and habitat preferences, with the same species displaying diverse behaviours at different times of the year. </p>
<p>So, while we have taken some crucial first steps, we still have a lot of work to do in unravelling the characteristics of bat motions in general.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Mathews receives funding from Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Devon County Council and the Natural Environment Research Council. She is affiliated with the UK Mammal Society, Mammal Conservation Europe, Ecotype Genetics and Ecology Search Services Ltd. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Woolley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Maths plays a crucial role in new research which finds that bats “leapfrog” their way home at night.
Thomas Woolley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Cardiff University
Fiona Mathews, Professor of Environmental Biology, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222025
2024-01-30T09:51:37Z
2024-01-30T09:51:37Z
Ghana’s looted Asante gold comes home (for now) – Asante ruler’s advisor tells us about the deal
<p><em>After 150 years, 39 artefacts that form part of Asante’s royal regalia are due to return to the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/">Asantehene</a> (ruler of the Asante people) in Kumasi, Ghana, in February and April this year. The Asante empire was the largest and most powerful in the region in the 18th century and controlled an area that was rich in gold. Many of the gold royal artefacts were looted by British troops during the third Anglo-Asante war of 1874 (<a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/5/0z9u3mtcn3ra21uwolkj7rgpr8jai7">Sagrenti War</a>).</em></p>
<p><em>The first collection of seven objects is expected from the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. The second collection of 32 will arrive from the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the UK. These artefacts are being loaned to the Asante people for six years. Archaeologist and <a href="https://www.theafricainstitute.org/institute-team/rachel-ama-asaa-engmann/">Ghana heritage specialist</a> Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann spoke to the Asantehene’s technical advisor for the project, historian and museum economist Ivor Agyeman-Duah, about the journey to return the items and its implications for cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums.</em></p>
<h2>What are these objects and how did they leave Asante?</h2>
<p>They were royal regalia that was looted in 1874 from the palace in Kumasi after the sacking of the city by British colonial military troops. There was another a punitive expedition in 1896 which led to further looting. They included ceremonial swords and ceremonial cups, some of them very important in terms of a palace’s measurement of royalty. For instance, the Mponponsuo sword, created 300 years ago, dates back to the legendary Okomfo (spiritual leader) linked with the founding of the empire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okomfo-Anokye">Okomfo Anokye</a>. This sword is what the Asantehene used to swear the oath of allegiance to his people. Chiefs used the same sword to swear their oaths to the Asantehene. </p>
<p>Some of the items were sold at auction on the open market in London; art collectors bought them and eventually donated some of them to museums (some were kept in private collections). The British Museum and the <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/">Victoria & Albert Museum</a> also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/12/stealing-africa-how-britain-looted-the-continents-art">bought</a> some of them.</p>
<p>However, not every item you see at the British Museum was looted. For instance, there were cultural exchanges between the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG205733">Asantehene Osei Bonsu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edward-Bowdich">T.E. Bowdich</a>, an emissary of the African Company of Merchants who travelled to Kumasi in 1817 to negotiate trade. Some gifts were given to Bowdich, who deposited them at the British Museum later on. There were 14 of these items.</p>
<h2>How was the agreement reached?</h2>
<p>The issue has been on the drawing board for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65614490">half a century</a>. It’s not just an immediate concern of the current Asantehene. It has been a concern of the last three occupants of the stool (throne). But this year is critical because it marks 150 years since the Sagrenti War. It also marks 100 years since the return of the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh</a> after his <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">exile in Seychelles</a> and 25 years since the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/profile-of-otumfuo-osei-tutu-ii-asantehene/">current Asantehene</a>, Oseu Tutu II, ascended the stool. </p>
<p>So, while in London in May 2023, after having official discussions with directors of these museums, he reopened discussions and negotiations. He asked me and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Asante-M-D-McLeod/dp/0714115630">Malcolm McLeod</a>, former curator and scholar at the British Museum
and <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/asantehene-leads-discussions-with-british-museum-over-regalia-taken-from-ashantis/">vice-principal</a> at the University of Glasgow, to help in the technical decisions that would be made. We’ve been working on this for the past nine months.</p>
<h2>Why is it a six year loan and not an outright return?</h2>
<p>The moral right to ownership does exist. But there are also the laws of antiquity in the UK. The Victoria & Albert and the British Museum are national museums. They are governed by very <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/01/25/british-museum-lends-ghana-looted-gold-artifacts-heres-why-it-wont-fully-return-them/?sh=60ccee735c7c">strict laws</a> which do not permit <a href="https://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ethno/policies/deaccessioning/">de-accessioning</a> or permanently removing a work of art or other object from a museum’s collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.</p>
<p>That had always been the constraining factor over the last 50 years. But there was also a way that we could have these items for a maximum of six years. Not all the objects are being exhibited at the British Museum. Many have never been exhibited and lie in storage in a warehouse.</p>
<p>Based on the circumstances and the trinity of anniversaries, we came to an agreement. Discussions will however continue between us and these museums to find a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Of course, the Ghana experience will be important for restitution claims from other countries in Africa.</p>
<h2>What does this mean to the Asante people – and Ghana?</h2>
<p>The fact that over the last couple of months we were able to reach some form of agreement for this to happen is testimony of the interest in multicultural agreements.</p>
<p>Any set of objects that is 150 years old (or older) will be of interest to many people. Such artefacts help us to connect the past with the present. They are significant for how our people were, in terms of creativity and technology, how they were able to use gold and other artistic properties. They are also something that will inspire those who are in the craft of gold production today. </p>
<p>Manhiya Palace Museum reopens this year in April. The exhibition of these objects is going to increase visitor attendance at the <a href="https://ashantiobjects.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-new-manhyia-palace-museum/">museum</a>. It receives about 80,000 visitors a year and we estimate that it could rise to 200,000 a year with the return of these objects. This will generate revenue and allow us to expand and develop our own museums.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A loan deal for the Asante artefacts offers an opportunity for these objects to return home.
Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Associate Professor at Africa Institute Sharjah & Associate Graduate Faculty, Rutgers University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211287
2024-01-11T17:16:14Z
2024-01-11T17:16:14Z
Hedd Wyn: how the life of one of Wales’ most promising poets was cut short by the first world war
<p>The names Passchendaele, the Somme and Mametz Wood stand as grim sentinels, forever bound to the unimaginable carnage of the first world war. Almost 500,000 men were killed in three months at Passchendaele, the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-third-battle-of-ypres-passchendaele#:%7E:text=Casualties%20were%20heavy&text=Casualties%20among%20German%20forces%20were,the%20Third%20Battle%20of%20Ypres.">third battle of Ypres</a>. On the first day of that battle, Wales lost one of its most talented poets. </p>
<p>Born on January 13 1887, Ellis Humphrey Evans was the eldest child of Mary and Evan Evans and one of 11 siblings. He became known by his bardic name, <a href="https://www.ylolfa.com/products/9781784610425/cofiant-hedd-wyn">Hedd Wyn</a> (Blessed Peace). The family lived and worked at a remote farm outside Trawsfynydd in north-west Wales, called <em>Yr Ysgwrn</em>.</p>
<p>Evan Evans bought his son a book on the rules of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-welsh-developed-their-own-form-of-poetry-73299">strict-metre Welsh verse</a> when Hedd Wyn was 11 years old. He read the book with passion and enthusiasm, and soon mastered the difficult and intricate rules of strict-metre verse, known as <em>cynghanedd</em>.</p>
<p>He wrote his first ever <em>englyn</em> (a short four-lined poem in strict-metre) before his 12th birthday. Soon after, he began competing at local <em>eisteddfodau</em>, Welsh cultural festivals which showcase literary and artistic endeavours.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn spent most of his short life at home. He received little formal schooling. His education was spasmodic and he was frequently absent from school when the weather was bad, as there was a substantial distance between the school and his home.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn was an inept farmer and shepherd, but he loved looking after the sheep out on the mountain pastures, though only because the solitude and silence gave him ample opportunity to meditate and to write poetry.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An old black and white photo of a man wearing a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567888/original/file-20240104-26-q5itn3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hedd Wyn was 30 years old when he was killed.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conscription</h2>
<p>And then came war. Hedd Wyn’s fate, along with thousands of others, was sealed when parliament passed the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1916/104/contents/enacted">Military Service Act</a> in 1916. This new legislation imposed conscription and was aimed at unmarried men or widowers. </p>
<p>Hedd Wyn had no choice but to enlist. He joined the 15th battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and by July 1917, he was stationed at Fléchin, a small village in northern France. </p>
<p>He and thousands of other soldiers were to participate in one of the major engagements of the war, the third battle of Ypres, otherwise known as the battle of Passchendaele. British troops were to occupy the village of Pilkem on Pilkem Ridge, and the marshlands to the east of Ypres before advancing towards Langemarck. Capturing the village of Pilkem and Pilkem Ridge, and holding both positions, was one of the main objectives of this enormous campaign. </p>
<p>It was during a period of intense fighting on Iron Cross Ridge on July 31 that Hedd Wyn was mortally wounded. </p>
<h2>The National Eisteddfod</h2>
<p>For a Welsh poet, winning the coveted chair at the <a href="https://eisteddfod.wales">National Eisteddfod</a>, an annual festival celebrating arts, language and culture, represents the <a href="https://blog.library.wales/the-chairing-of-the-bard-3/">pinnacle of achievement</a>. The chair is awarded to the winning entrant in the competition for the <em>awdl</em> – poetry written in strict-metre <em>cynghanedd</em> . A crown is awarded separately to those writing in free verse.</p>
<p>Chairing ceremonies are presided over by the archdruid, who reads the adjudicators’ comments before announcing the nom de plume of the winning bard. Nobody knows the true identity of the poet until the archdruid asks them to stand. </p>
<p>Before enlisting, Hedd Wyn had started working on an <em>awdl</em> for the chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Due to the war, the Eisteddfod that year was held in England, in Birkenhead near Liverpool. Hedd Wyn had almost won the chair the previous year in Aberystwyth.</p>
<p>While stationed in France, he finally completed his <em>awdl</em> titled <em><a href="https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/modern-period/yr-arwr-hedd-wyn">Yr Arwr</a></em> (The Hero) and posted it to Birkenhead under his nom de plume, <em>Fleur-de-lis</em>. He was working on the poem until the last possible minute.</p>
<p>A packed crowd was watching the chairing ceremony in Birkenhead in early September, and among them was the prime minister at the time, David Lloyd George, himself a Welsh speaker. Without knowing he had died of his wounds several weeks earlier, the adjudicators had unanimously awarded the chair to Hedd Wyn. </p>
<p>As is customary, the archdruid called out <em>Fleur-de-lis</em> three times. But nobody stood up. Then he solemnly announced that the poet had been killed in battle six weeks earlier. The empty chair was draped in black in front of an emotional crowd. The 1917 eisteddfod became known as <em>Eisteddfod y Gadair Ddu</em> (the Eisteddfod of the Black Chair). </p>
<h2>Hedd Wyn’s legacy</h2>
<p>A volume of Hedd Wyn’s poetry, entitled <em>Cerddi’r Bugail</em> (The Shepherd’s Verses), was published a year later. The first 1,000 copies were sold in five days. Eventually every copy of the 4,000 first edition was sold. </p>
<p>In 1923, a statue, depicting Hedd Wyn as a shepherd, the work of artist L. S. Merrifield, was unveiled by his mother in Trawsfynydd. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lAU8frR8GiA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hedd Wyn was the first Welsh film to be nominated for best foreign language film at the Oscars in 1993.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On St David’s Day 2012, Wales’ then first minister, Carwyn Jones, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-17221011">announced</a> that Hedd Wyn’s home, <em>Yr Ysgwrn</em>, had been bought for the nation, to secure and safeguard the poet’s legacy. Two years later, it was renovated and turned into a <a href="https://yrysgwrn.com/en/">museum</a> by the Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park.</p>
<p>Hedd Wyn was a highly talented poet who wrote exquisite work. His <em>englyn</em> in memory of his friend, Lieutenant D. O. Evans of Blaenau Ffestiniog, for example, became an elegy for all the young men who had fallen on the killing fields of the Great War: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ei aberth nid â heibio – ei wyneb</p>
<p>Annwyl nid â'n ango</p>
<p>Er i'r Almaen ystaenio</p>
<p>Ei dwrn dur yn ei waed o.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It can be translated as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His sacrifice was not in vain, his dear</p>
<p>Face will always remain,</p>
<p>Although he left a bloodstain</p>
<p>On Germany’s iron fist of pain.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Llwyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Bard Hedd Wyn was killed in action in France in 1917.
Alan Llwyd, Professor of Welsh, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210941
2023-12-27T09:10:11Z
2023-12-27T09:10:11Z
Horse skulls and harmony singing – two winter customs which bring people in Wales together
<p>Imagine you’re having a quiet evening at home when suddenly there’s a knock on the door. You open it to find a boisterous crowd carrying a horse’s skull mounted on a pole and draped in ribbons – the <em><a href="https://museum.wales/articles/1187/Christmas-Traditions-The-Mari-Lwyd">Mari Lwyd</a></em> has arrived. </p>
<p>The <em>Mari Lwyd</em>, meaning “grey (or pale) mare”, is a Christmas and new year custom in areas of south Wales dating back to the 18th century. A horse’s skull is placed on a pole and covered in a white sheet, decorated with ribbons. A person, concealed under the sheet, carries the pole and operates the horse’s jaw, making it snap. A group of stock characters accompany them including Sergeant, Merryman, Punch and Judy. </p>
<p>The procession goes from house to house and the group sing verses asking for admittance. The household is expected to respond, also in verse. And so begins a (sometimes very long) improvised poetic contest or rhyming ritual known as <em>pwnco</em> before the group is finally invited into the house and offered food and drink.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AcvvWcDLagY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Mari Lwyd goes from door to door but would you let her in?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several explanations have been proposed as to the origin of the custom. Some argue that its roots lie in a pre-Christian fertility <a href="http://www.folkwales.org.uk/mari.html">ritual</a>. Others have argued that the <em>Mari Lwyd</em> has associations with the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2791759">Virgin Mary</a>. </p>
<p>The custom is clearly connected to the practice of <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/art-collections/wassailing-ritual-and-revelry#">wassailing</a>, where groups of merrymakers go from one house to another asking for food and drink. It may be linked to other folk performances found elsewhere in Britain and Ireland, including the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100300697">hobby-horse</a> tradition. </p>
<h2>Plygain</h2>
<p>Further north, a tradition celebrated in Montgomeryshire, where I was brought up, is much less colourful and firmly located within a religious context. Deriving from the Latin “pullicantio” (cock crow), the <em><a href="https://museum.wales/articles/1185/Christmas-Traditions-Plygain-Singing/">plygain</a></em> (pronounced “plug-ine”), was an early-morning service originally held on Christmas Day in parish churches and then also in nonconformist chapels, beginning in candlelight and continuing into daylight. </p>
<p>It is now mainly an evening service, although some stalwarts still adhere to the early morning tradition. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a6Id_jRy1E4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A trio singing plygain.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a congregational hymn, a reading and a prayer, the vicar or minister will announce, “<em>Mae’r blygien yn awr yn agored</em>” (the plygain is now open). There is no programme; rather, a party of singers will get up and make their way to the chancel or the <em>sêt fawr</em> (the elder’s pew in a chapel), and sing a carol, unaccompanied and with no conductor. </p>
<p>These are often from the same family and with an ancient pedigree, their frayed carol books (usually old notebooks) having been passed down through the generations. A tuning fork is often used to pitch the tune – I’ve even seen it struck against a singer’s tooth. </p>
<p>The carols would often have been composed by local poets and sung to popular tunes of the time. They do not describe solely the birth of Christ and frequently focus on the crucifixion. Often very long, they are usually sung in three-part harmonies. </p>
<p>The <em>plygain</em> ends with the spine-chilling sound of <em><a href="http://daibach-welldigger.blogspot.com/2020/12/welsh-carols-15-carol-y-swper.html">Carol y Swper</a></em> (the Supper Carol), when all the men in the congregation come forward to sing. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q0dxs1OL-yg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Carol y Swper performed at a church in Montgomeryshire.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revival and reinvention</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, the <a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/">St Fagans National Museum of History</a>, or the Welsh Folk Museum as it was then known, began <a href="https://museum.wales/collections/folksongs/?action=background">collecting</a> different genres of Welsh folk songs. These included <em>plygain</em> carols and <em>Mari Lwyd</em> verses. This has helped to renew interest in both traditions. </p>
<p>The museum hosts annual <em>Mari Lwyd</em> <a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/whatson/12104/Christmas-Traditions-The-Mari-Lwyd-Performances">performances</a>, while many a Cardiff pub-goer will likely be startled by the sudden appearance of a snapping horse’s skull. The practice has evolved over time – visits can be pre-arranged, participants will sing from song sheets, the <em>Mari</em> may even be made of cardboard. In fact, anything goes.</p>
<p>Today, the <em>Mari</em> (in various guises) is thriving, and can be found as far afield as the USA and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/welshzombiechristmashorse/">Australia</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1477386261761564672"}"></div></p>
<p>The <em>plygain</em> is still going strong in Montgomeryshire and, indeed, all over Wales and beyond. Around 50 <a href="https://plygain.org/dyddiadur.htm">services</a> are held during December and January. </p>
<p>And this tradition, too, has undergone many changes. Several collections of <em>plygain</em> songs have by now been published enabling new carollers to participate. </p>
<p>In 2020 and 2021, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifxPBea1f0">virtual</a> <em>plygain</em> took place during the pandemic. A bilingual <em>plygain</em> <a href="https://www.plygain.org/home.htm">website</a> has also been set up and a new carol composed specifically for women’s voices, so that women, too, have their <em>Carol y Swper</em>. </p>
<p>Purists would argue that traditions should not be revived and re-invented. But it is in the nature of traditions to change and constantly evolve – they must do so in order to survive. </p>
<p>We should continue to celebrate the modern-day versions of the <em>Mari Lwyd</em> tradition and the <em>plygain</em> because they contribute to a shared sense of identity and instil in participants a sense of belonging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sioned Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Mari Lwyd and the plygain are two prominent Welsh traditions celebrated over Christmas and the new year.
Sioned Davies, Emeritus Professor of Welsh, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218062
2023-12-06T15:53:38Z
2023-12-06T15:53:38Z
Rural communities are being left behind because of poor digital infrastructure, research shows
<p>In an era where businesses and households depend on the internet for everything from marketing to banking and shopping, the lack of adequate digital access can be a significant hurdle. And our recent research shows that many <a href="https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/publications/the-socio-economic-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-ceredigion-">homes</a> and <a href="https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/publications/the-economic-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-ceredigion-busine">businesses</a> in the UK are being left stranded in the digital age.</p>
<p>Our two studies focused on a rural county in Wales, Ceredigion, where the lack of reliable digital infrastructure worsened the impacts of the pandemic on families and businesses. Poor digital accessibility and connectivity exacerbated the stress levels of families who were already having to juggle home schooling and working from home. </p>
<p>Similarly, businesses had to struggle with issues around internet provision, availability of effective digital infrastructure and digital proficiency while working and running businesses from home. </p>
<p>Our research involved two online surveys. One focused on households and the other on businesses and the self-employed between April and June 2021. The survey questions were designed to address the challenges and opportunities brought about by the pandemic. </p>
<p>Some important themes emerged in the responses we received to both surveys. These were insufficient digital accessibility and connectivity, lack of digital skills and training opportunities and the cost of broadband and mobile access.</p>
<h2>Household experiences</h2>
<p>Our research showed that 12% of homes did not have enough digital equipment for their needs during the pandemic and 76% of these included children who were being home schooled. Schools and some workplaces provided equipment in some instances, but 18% of households had to borrow equipment. </p>
<p>Despite that ability to borrow, many homes found themselves juggling equipment between homeworking adults and children learning online. Many pupils relied on small mobile devices to access lessons, while others lacked access to equipment like printers.</p>
<p>These problems were compounded in rural and remote areas, where slow broadband speeds and a lack of reliable mobile signal were cited as the biggest issues. Other issues included the cost of broadband and mobile access, the lack of digital skills or training opportunities to improve digital skills, poor customer service from broadband providers and issues with connectivity.</p>
<h2>Business and self-employed experiences</h2>
<p>The pandemic brought similar challenges to businesses. The closure of non-essential firms during the pandemic led to a <a href="https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/e-commerce-in-the-time-of-covid-19-3a2b78e8/">surge</a> in e-commerce. Companies that could embrace online sales were able to continue operating despite lockdowns and restrictions. </p>
<p>But businesses that were slow to adopt e-commerce or lacked the necessary infrastructure struggled to adapt. In fact, our research found that 47% of businesses faced difficulties with digital access and connectivity during the pandemic. Some of the other issues faced by businesses included:</p>
<p>• a lack of reliable broadband or mobile (37%)</p>
<p>• slow broadband speed (29%)</p>
<p>• poor mobile signal (26%)</p>
<p>• lack of digital skills or access to training schemes (16%)</p>
<p>• the cost of access (13%)</p>
<p>People working from home in rural locations also had problems due to a lack of digital infrastructure, poor connectivity and a lack of digital skills. </p>
<h2>Bridging the gap</h2>
<p>In the future, an increased reliance on online work, education and public services, such as online health and welfare support, will further disadvantage those without adequate internet access. The digital divide is widening between those with higher incomes and those with lower incomes. </p>
<p>For example, households with higher incomes were <a href="https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=3051117">more likely</a> to have had access to technology for home schooling and remote working during the pandemic, unlike those with lower incomes.</p>
<p>The gap in access to digital technology is often determined by location too. Remote and sparsely populated areas often lack adequate broadband and mobile signal coverage. Bridging this digital divide is crucial for economic growth, social inclusion and access to essential services. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teachers-supported-children-and-parents-through-covid-19-school-closures-181380">How teachers supported children and parents through COVID-19 school closures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To address the digital divide, the UK and devolved governments need to invest in digital infrastructure in rural areas to ensure that everywhere has at least a minimum quality coverage. Local authorities could introduce schemes that enable people to gain access to cost-effective computer devices and internet access.</p>
<p>Expanding digital literacy and empowering businesses in rural areas is also crucial. Enhancing digital skills training would better prepare future generations for the digital world. </p>
<p>Additionally, businesses in rural areas require tailored support, such as funding for digital infrastructure upgrades, training opportunities and guidance on consumer privacy and protection, to enable their digital growth and sustainability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aloysius Igboekwu currently volunteers for a Childcare charity as a Trustee. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Plotnikova and Sarah Lindop do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New research reveals the digital divide that was exposed by the COVID pandemic.
Aloysius Igboekwu, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Aberystwyth University
Maria Plotnikova, Lecturer in Economics, Aberystwyth University
Sarah Lindop, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Aberystwyth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216116
2023-12-01T12:34:49Z
2023-12-01T12:34:49Z
Why men in 19th century Wales dressed as women to protest taxation
<p>South-west Wales was reeling in the wake of social unrest in November 1843. There had been a series of protests over several years by farmers furious at taxation levels, mainly attacking tollgates. Often, the men involved dressed as women and were therefore known in Welsh as <em>Merched Beca</em> (Rebecca’s daughters). The events that unfolded came to be known as the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Rebecca_s_Children.html?id=7-ohAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Rebecca riots</a> in English. </p>
<p>There has been speculation that the name “Rebecca” stemmed from a literal interpretation of <a href="https://biblehub.com/genesis/24-60.htm">Genesis 24:60</a> in the Bible, which refers to Rebekah’s offspring possessing the gates of their enemies. But the truth is, nobody really knows why the name was chosen.</p>
<p>Tollgates had been <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/transportcomms/roadsrail/overview/turnpikestolls/">introduced</a> in Britain from the late 17th century as a means of raising revenue to maintain public roads. They were regulated and maintained by the <a href="https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/britishturnpiketrusts.pdf">Turnpike Trusts</a>, individual bodies set up by parliament. </p>
<p>Tolls had long been regarded as a burden by the people. But complaints to magistrates about their unfair regulation were largely ignored. The tollgates therefore became regarded as symbols of oppression to be demolished by the Rebeccaites, with unrest largely concentrated across Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire. </p>
<p>The first recorded appearance of Rebecca was on <a href="https://www.peoplescollection.wales/content/rebecca-riots">May 13 1839</a>, when a tollgate at Efailwen in Pembrokeshire was demolished. Rebecca emerged again during the winter of 1842, with protests <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/rebecca-riots/">intensifying</a> throughout the summer of 1843. </p>
<p>The attacks targeted tollgates and private property, while toll-keepers and authority figures were also intimidated. These included the local gentry, who upheld law and order locally as magistrates and oversaw the administration of the tolls as members of the Turnpike Trusts.</p>
<p>Those who protested were predominantly young men who were tenant farmers, farm servants and agricultural labourers. But other protesters included non-agricultural labourers from industrialised regions of Carmarthenshire and neighbouring Glamorgan.</p>
<p>A striking element of the protest was the adoption of women’s clothing to conceal the identities of those involved. This was theatrically woven into the ritual of protest as “Rebecca”, the name given to the leader of the various protests, called on her children to tear down any gate that blocked their way. </p>
<p>However, the Rebecca riots were more than just a protest movement against the tolls. They were also a reaction to the socio-economic climate, to agricultural depression, failing harvests, rising levels of rent and the weight of various taxes. All these factors collectively placed substantial pressure on rural communities. </p>
<p>There was also widespread <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/1834-poor-law/">criticism</a> of the administration of the new <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/19thcentury/overview/poorlaw/">Poor Law</a>, introduced in 1834, which ensured that poor people were housed in <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Victorian-Workhouse/">workhouses</a>, where families were separated, subjected to hard work and harsh living conditions.</p>
<h2>Escalation</h2>
<p>On June 19 1843, a procession in the market town of Carmarthen led to the storming of the <a href="https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/17651/">workhouse</a>. This signalled a turning point that saw the protests intensify, with attacks on private property in addition to tollgates. </p>
<p>There were reports of physical violence and use of firearms too, with one recorded death, that of <a href="https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=site-of-fatal-rebecca-riot-hendy">Sarah Williams</a>, the 75-year-old keeper of the Hendy tollgate in Carmarthenshire. Someone shot her while she tried to rescue her belongings from the burning tollhouse on September 9 1843.</p>
<p>Following the Carmarthen workhouse attack, The Times newspaper <a href="https://oro.open.ac.uk/78848/1/DE-WINTON_A329_RVOR.pdf">sent</a> Thomas Campbell Foster to report on “The State of South Wales”. His reports disseminated news of Rebecca and her daughters across Britain. </p>
<p>Even Queen Victoria was concerned by the events. She wrote in her <a href="http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/search/displayItem.do?FormatType=fulltextimgsrc&QueryType=articles&ResultsID=3399090357290&filterSequence=0&PageNumber=1&ItemNumber=1&ItemID=qvj03918&volumeType=PSBEA">journal</a> how she strongly advised the home secretary, Sir James Graham, to apprehend and punish the Rebeccaites. She feared events in Wales would spur on the movement in Ireland to repeal the laws which tied Ireland to Great Britain.</p>
<p>Into the autumn and winter months of 1843, Rebecca and her daughters appeared less frequently. Although a Carmarthenshire land agent, Thomas Herbert Cooke, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Land_Agent/dy5JEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">wrote</a> in late November how “an incendiary fire however occurs now and then to let people know that Rebecca is still alive, and sometimes awakes from her slumbers”.</p>
<h2>Government inquiry</h2>
<p>During this time, a government <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Report_of_the_Commissioners_of_Inquiry_f.html?id=W5Z7YgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">inquiry</a> was conducted into the causes of the riots, reporting its findings in the spring of 1844. Although the tollgates survived, the findings of the inquiry led to greater regulation of the Turnpike Trusts in Wales. New county police forces were also <a href="https://journals.library.wales/view/1386666/1423395/118#?xywh=-1917%2C-209%2C6097%2C3912">established</a> in the wake of the riots. </p>
<p>In total, around 250 tollhouses and gatehouses were <a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/buildings/tollhouse/">destroyed</a> by Rebecca. In the aftermath, those captured and accused were punished by transportation to the penal colonies in Tasmania. Those such as <a href="https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/hughes/john/72743">John Hughes</a>, known as <em>Jac Tŷ Isha</em>, were never to return to their native Wales. Others took on an almost mythical identity among local people, such as <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/In_Pursuit_of_Twm_Carnabwth/irhAzwEACAAJ?hl=en">Thomas Rees</a>, or <em>Twm Carnabwth</em>, remembered as the leader of the first Rebecca attack at Efailwen.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A wooden sculpture showing a horse flanked by two women leaping over a gate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562391/original/file-20231129-19-8ksnxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wooden sculpture depicting the Rebecca riots in St Clears, Carmarthenshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wooden-sculpture-depicting-rebecca-riots-1839-517024174">James Hime/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, Rebecca did not disappear entirely, and instances of protest and threatening letters sent in her name appear later in other parts of Wales. During the 1870s, Rebecca and her daughters appeared in protests concerning salmon poaching on the river Wye in mid Wales, <a href="https://journals.library.wales/view/1326508/1326739/35#?xywh=-1863%2C-216%2C6676%2C4285">described</a> as the “second Rebecca Riots”. </p>
<p>In the 20th century, the concept of Rebecca was invoked once more. In 1956, Welsh language newspaper, <em>Y Seren</em>, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Tryweryn_New_Dawn/zxn5zwEACAAJ?hl=en">inferred</a> that “the spirit of Beca” was once again needed to campaign against the flooding of Cwm Tryweryn in Gwynedd to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64799911">create a reservoir</a> to provide drinking water for Liverpool. </p>
<p>And Rebecca continues to resonate in Wales to this day, inspiring <a href="https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-village-to-stage-re-enactment-of-historic-tollgate-attack-that-sparked-rebecca-riots/">re-enactments</a> and community <a href="https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2721666-students-and-academics-take-cardiff-university-to-the-urdd-eisteddfod">engagement</a> – it shows that the fight for justice and the tradition of protest continues to play a powerful part in Welsh society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lowri Ann Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Rebecca riots saw Welsh farmers disguised as women destroy tollgates as a way of challenging what they believed was an oppressive taxation system.
Lowri Ann Rees, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211686
2023-11-15T17:44:31Z
2023-11-15T17:44:31Z
How the Welsh language is being promoted to help migrants feel at home
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550026/original/file-20230925-22-4zy1hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4819%2C3174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Welsh government has announced plans to make Wales a 'nation of sanctuary'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/second-severn-crossing-wales-november-2018-1229207257">Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>You can read this article in <a href="https://theconversation.com/maer-gymraeg-yn-cael-ei-defnyddio-i-annog-ymfudwyr-i-deimlon-gartrefol-217503">Welsh</a>.</em></p>
<p>The UK government alone decides who can enter the country and how migration and asylum policies are made. But devolved governments have scope to use <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8599/CBP-8599.pdf">their powers</a> in fields such as housing, education, health and social services to shape the nature of the support that is subsequently offered to new arrivals.</p>
<p>In recent years, the Welsh government has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2198809">looked for ways</a> to use its powers to help refugees and migrants integrate into Welsh society, taking into account the role of the Welsh language. </p>
<p>Overall, this is an approach that seeks to create a welcoming and supportive environment in Wales. It contrasts with the UK government’s commitment to <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/">reducing net migration</a> and to create a “<a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/what-is-hostile-environment-theresa-may-windrush-eu-citizens-legal-immigrants-145067">hostile environment</a>” for refugees and asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The most prominent step taken to date was the publication of the Welsh government’s <a href="https://www.gov.wales/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-plan-nation-sanctuary">plan in 2019</a>, which set out measures aimed at turning Wales into a “<a href="https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-wales-nation-sanctuary">nation of sanctuary</a>”.</p>
<p>However, another significant – but less obvious – aspect of the Welsh government’s work are the steps taken to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in the process of welcoming migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>Reflecting on this work, <a href="https://www.gov.wales/jane-hutt-ms">Jane Hutt</a>, Wales’ social justice minister, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/64811421">has argued</a> that the Welsh language could become “an extremely powerful integration tool”.</p>
<h2>Hospitality and integration</h2>
<p>The shift to viewing the Welsh language as a resource that can facilitate integration is evident when tracing the evolution of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision in Wales.</p>
<p>In 2013, the formal link between ESOL provision and the process of gaining UK citizenship was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tougher-language-requirements-announced-for-british-citizenship">unpicked</a> by the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.</p>
<p>An unforeseen consequence of this reform was that it created an opportunity to initiate a distinct approach to language education for migrants in Wales. Hence, a year later, the Welsh government published its first <a href="https://www.gov.wales/english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-statement">ESOL policy for Wales</a>. It was the first of its kind to be developed by any of the UK’s four governments.</p>
<p>The original ESOL policy did not make a link between the Welsh language and linguistic integration. But a <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-11/english-for-speakers-of-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">later iteration</a>, published in 2019, called on ESOL providers in Wales “to integrate the Welsh language into their classes”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/esol-english-classes-are-crucial-for-migrant-integration-yet-challenges-remain-unaddressed-204415">Esol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was deemed necessary as the “the Welsh language can be a valuable skill in the workplace”. And also because learning Welsh can facilitate “social integration”, particularly in “predominantly Welsh speaking communities”.</p>
<p>Coinciding with this, the <a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">National Centre for Learning Welsh</a> worked in partnership with <a href="https://www.adultlearning.wales/cym">Adult Learning Wales</a>, the umbrella organisation for adult education providers across Wales, to develop a novel Welsh for speakers of other languages (WSOL) provision. Introduced for the first time in 2019, <em><a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">Croeso i Bawb</a></em> (“Welcome to Everyone”) is a bespoke course that aims to introduce the Welsh language to migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>A Welsh government-commissioned <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/review-english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">review</a> of ESOL provision in Wales this year reiterated the value of introducing Welsh for promoting a sense of belonging. The review also called for the National Centre for Learning Welsh to be integrated fully into existing educational networks that work to support migrants in Wales. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>It is important not to overstate the scale of these changes. Overall, English remains the primary medium of integration for the majority of immigrants and refugees settling in Wales.</p>
<p>Yet the increasing emphasis on the Welsh language in integration efforts reinforces the sense of a distinctive Welsh approach to welcoming migrants and refugees. The new WSOL provision <a href="https://wales.britishcouncil.org/en/blog/migrants-multilingualism-and-welsh-language">challenges</a> the monolingual image of life in the UK and promotes multilingualism and multiculturalism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qgjVx8bTMfg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adult Learning Wales’ information on WSOL.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-019-09517-0">research</a> suggests that learning Welsh can enhance the employment opportunities of migrants and refugees. It can also facilitate their ability to access a variety of new social networks. </p>
<p>But if there is to be a serious effort to offer a route to integration, it will not be sufficient to merely focus on offering formal opportunities to learn the Welsh language, important as that may be.</p>
<p>Policymakers and activists should consider other ways to make Welsh language learning more accessible. Providing opportunities for learners to interact socially through the medium of Welsh is also vital.</p>
<p>While the UK government seems set to continue emphasising English as the only way to integrate successfully, the current evidence suggests that Wales wants a different, more multilingual vision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article has benefited from financial support offered by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) as part of a project on the ethics of linguistic integration.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Chick is affiliated with the Welsh Refugee Council as a Trustee.</span></em></p>
The Welsh government has taken steps to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in welcoming refugees and migrants.
Huw Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Aberystwyth University
Gwennan Higham, Senior Lecturer in Welsh, Swansea University
Mike Chick, Senior Lecturer in TESOL/English, University of South Wales
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215832
2023-11-01T17:04:03Z
2023-11-01T17:04:03Z
Our new map reveals the effects of 20th century land-use and climate change on Britain’s wild species
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556825/original/file-20231031-25-eweeyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C5413%2C2553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/arable-land-ploughed-field-background-panorama-2159524289">Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Under the stewardship of geographer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dudley-Stamp">Sir Dudley Stamp</a>, thousands of volunteers (including many schoolchildren) came together in the 1930s on a mission that sounds relatively simple on paper: to record how British land was being used. </p>
<p>Equipped with an Ordnance Survey map, a clipboard and a pencil, these volunteers recorded information that collectively formed the earliest <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1784994?origin=crossref">spatial record</a> of where and how the British people were using their environment at the beginning of the third agricultural revolution. Spanning the mid-20th century, that revolution changed the British landscape almost beyond recognition.</p>
<p>The landscape changed largely because it had to. More land was brought into production to feed a growing post-war population. This involved converting semi-natural habitats to cropland, removing hedgerows and enhancing pastures with fertilisers and faster-growing fodder (creating agriculturally “improved” grassland). More homes were also built to provide a better quality of life.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42475-0">our new study</a>, we digitally converted scanned copies of the Dudley Stamp maps and compared them with modern-day satellite data to record the full extent of land-use change across Britain in the mid-20th century. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.5878/9wks-qg91">change map</a> outlines the level of land conversion for every 10km x 10km grid square of Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A digital map showing the proportion of land converted in Britain between the 1930s and 2007." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556675/original/file-20231030-27-8x99t6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Land conversion in Britain between the 1930s and 2007. Higher values indicate that more land changed use in that area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42475-0">Suggitt et al. (2023)/Nature Communications</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mapping land-use change in Britain</h2>
<p>We estimate that roughly 90% of <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/habitats/grassland/lowland-meadow-and-pasture">lowland meadow and pasture</a> has been lost. Land was converted either to arable farmland, which saw a 22% increase, or to agriculturally improved grassland, which now occupies 27% of Britain’s land area.</p>
<p>Urbanisation saw the nation’s built area expand from 4% to 5%. And woodland cover doubled from 6% to 12%, largely due to a concerted effort to increase the country’s reserve of timber. For better or worse, the nation’s land use became less mixed and more consolidated.</p>
<p>All of this environmental change is thought to have had a profound effect on biodiversity. According to the recent <a href="https://stateofnature.org.uk/">State of Nature Report</a>, the abundance of UK species has declined by an average of 19% since 1970. Some 1,500 species (or 16% of those analysed) are now threatened with national extinction.</p>
<p>The impacts of climate change on biodiversity are also becoming ever more apparent in almost all the Earth’s ecosystems and at all levels of biological organisation – <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaf7671">from genes right up to ecosystems</a>. There is no doubt that increasing human activity is posing a greater series of challenges for the natural world in this new geological epoch we term “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14258">the Anthropocene</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dawn-of-the-anthropocene-five-ways-we-know-humans-have-triggered-a-new-geological-epoch-52867">Dawn of the Anthropocene: five ways we know humans have triggered a new geological epoch</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map from the original Land Use Survey of Britain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556690/original/file-20231030-30-ia0qku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ambleside and Great Langdale, as surveyed by the Land Use Survey of Britain in 1931/32. Large areas of upland Britain were classified as rough hill pasture or commons (yellow shading).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giles Clark</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s driving biodiversity change?</h2>
<p>Although evidence documenting widespread changes to biodiversity is now relatively easy to come by, attributing these changes to a particular driver, or series of drivers, continues to prove quite difficult. This is because we know relatively little about how these drivers can “interact” with one another to make things worse.</p>
<p>But the net effect of drivers acting in concert can be quite different to the individual effect of each driver acting alone. For example, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04644-x">research</a> has demonstrated that climate change is more likely to lower insect diversity in agricultural landscapes compared to more natural systems.</p>
<p>Disentangling the different drivers of biodiversity change has proved particularly problematic in the UK. The intensification of agriculture and the other changes in land use of the mid-20th century occurred before Earth observation satellites were in orbit. Many habitats were lost before we could document the true scale of the change and, just as importantly, which regions, landscapes and locations were most affected.</p>
<h2>Climate and land-use change acting together</h2>
<p>Making our new land-use change map for Britain meant that we could now finally investigate the extent to which this change combined with climate change to worsen the prognosis for the country’s flora and fauna.</p>
<p>Our investigation determined that these drivers did not often interact. In fact, less than one in five of the species we studied were affected by change drivers acting to accelerate or dampen one other. And their combined effect on extinction risk was often mild. </p>
<p>For roughly three-quarters of the species that responded to environmental change (668 of 898 species), we found that climate warming and land conversion acted independently of one other. This means that for species like the <a href="https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/small-pearl-bordered-fritillary">small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly</a> (<em>Boloria selene</em>), which predominantly inhabits cooler and wetter habitats, the impacts of warming temperatures and habitat loss, while detrimental, have not exacerbated each other to increase the chance of the butterfly’s populations dying out.</p>
<p>Many species were only affected by one of the change drivers we analysed, and not both. We found that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/globeflower">globeflower</a> (<em>Trollius europaeus</em>), for example, has declined due to habitat loss alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Globeflower flowering in a meadow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556669/original/file-20231030-27-j6zkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Globeflower has declined due to habitat loss. Some 53% of open grassland habitat such as this has been lost in the UK over the past 75 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pmau</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because our results were less complicated than we expected, the so-called “winners” and “losers” of environmental change among British flora and fauna might be easier to predict than we anticipated. However, the highly individual responses to change we detected – and the wide split between winners and losers associated with these responses – mean it is difficult to come up with rules of thumb for conservationists, authorities or land managers to use when taking action on the extinction crisis. </p>
<p>As such, we need to maintain our emphasis on the inclusion of species-level information when devising plans to maintain biodiversity. We also need to continue supporting biological recording efforts, as these often act as the barometer by which we can judge if conservation measures are successful.</p>
<p>We hope that our study is the first of many to make full use of the valuable information collected by Dudley Stamp and his volunteer army almost 100 years ago. Digital versions of our maps are publicly available for <a href="https://doi.org/10.5878/9wks-qg91">free download</a> so that researchers, conservationists and the general public can see where Britain’s landscape has changed the most.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Britain has lost large areas of semi-natural habitat since the 1930s.
Andrew Suggitt, Assistant Professor, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Alistair Auffret, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211015
2023-10-24T14:59:03Z
2023-10-24T14:59:03Z
Royal Charter storm of 1859: how an almighty tempest led to the birth of the UK’s shipping forecast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551692/original/file-20231003-27-6msxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Royal Charter was shipwrecked at Porth Alerth near Moelfre on Anglesey. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>You can read this article in <a href="https://theconversation.com/storm-y-royal-charter-1859-a-chreur-rhagolygon-tywydd-i-forwyr-215368">Welsh</a></em>.</p>
<p>In British weather history, one storm stands out as a catalyst for change – the Royal Charter Storm of 1859. This devastating tempest off the west coast of Britain played a pivotal role in the founding of the shipping forecast and has had an enduring <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1477-8696.1970.tb04108.x">impact</a> on weather forecasting in the UK and beyond. </p>
<p>Winds gusted at 100 miles per hour between October 25 and 26 that year – <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspl.1859.0047">higher</a> than any previously recorded in the Mersey, in north-west England. And it’s considered to be the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/our-history/the-royal-charter-gale">most severe</a> Irish Sea storm of the 19th century. More than 800 lives were lost and the storm sank or badly damaged more than 200 ships. But it also paved the way for the creation of the shipping forecast. </p>
<p>The storm is named after the most famous of the ships lost to the waves, a steam and sailing ship called the <a href="https://blog.library.wales/a-helpless-ruin-on-the-shores-of-anglesea-the-royal-charter-and-the-rothsay-castle-shipwrecks/">Royal Charter</a>. After a two-month journey from Melbourne in Australia, the Royal Charter was heading towards Liverpool with its valuable cargo of gold. The ship was caught in the full fury of the storm off the coast of Anglesey, Wales. </p>
<p>Despite the crew’s valiant efforts to anchor the ship and cut its sails, the Royal Charter was driven onto the rocks in the early hours of October 26. With the help of villagers onshore, they succeeded in saving around 40 passengers. Other passengers had tried to swim to shore but were weighed down by the gold in their pockets and drowned. The ship eventually split in two and the waves claimed the lives of more than 450 passengers and crew members, including all the women and children aboard. </p>
<p>The tragic loss of life and property made the storm headline news. It even came to the attention of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Shipwreck.html?id=oV_XAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Charles Dickens</a>, who was working as a journalist in London at the time and visited the site of the wreck soon after the storm. </p>
<h2>The shipping forecast and the Met Office</h2>
<p>Weather observations had been collected from around the British coast <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/library-and-archive/archive-hidden-treasures/met-office-history">since 1854</a> by a part of the UK Met Office known then as the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade. The Royal Charter Storm, however, highlighted a need for more accurate weather forecasting and a national storm warning system. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An old black and white photo of a man in a tailcoat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1254&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551757/original/file-20231003-27-52l57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1254&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FitzRoy.jpg?uselang=en#/media/File:FitzRoy.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vice Admiral <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Fitzroy">Robert Fitzroy</a>, founder of the Met Office, had been lobbying for the creation of such a storm warning system since the summer of 1859. Following the Royal Charter storm, Fitzroy was able to <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspl.1859.0111">demonstrate</a> that it could have been predicted. </p>
<p>In December of that year, the new storm warning system was approved and the first warning was issued in February 1861. This was delivered by telegraph to harbour towns, who then hoisted cones and drums on a mast to warn vessels in harbours and along the coast of the incoming storm.</p>
<p>The UK’s storm warning service – which later became known as the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qfvv">shipping forecast</a> – is the longest running national forecasting service in the world. Today, the Met Office <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/specialist-forecasts/coast-and-sea/shipping-forecast">provides</a> the shipping forecast on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and issues a forecast four times a day for the 31 areas of sea around the British Isles.</p>
<h2>A lasting legacy</h2>
<p>In addition to its <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3534836.html">meteorological legacy</a>, the effects of the storm can still be seen around the Welsh coastline to this day. On Anglesey, the <a href="https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/44470">graves</a> of those who died in the wreck can be found in many churches along the coast. Gold nuggets have also <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/gold-nugget-worth-50000-washed-11311063">washed ashore</a> in recent years.</p>
<p>Further south, in Cwmyreglwys, Pembrokeshire, stand the remains of Saint Brynach’s church, which was partially destroyed by the storm.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="One stone wall of a church stands on a beautiful coastline." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551794/original/file-20231003-19-2458g6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ruins of St Brynach’s Church in Cwmyreglwys, Pembrokeshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/st-brynachs-church-cwm-yr-eglwys-141734476">Dr Morley Read/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/our-history">Since 1859</a>, the Met Office has made <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/met-office-and-forecasting-firsts/met-office-and-forecasting-firsts">significant strides</a> in the field of meteorology. In August 1861, the first public <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-14361204">weather forecast</a> was printed in The Times, then broadcast on the radio in 1922 and was eventually seen on television for the first time in 1936. </p>
<p>Step by step, the Met Office has pioneered new technologies by launching the world’s first meteorological satellite in 1960 and using the first forecast by a computer in 1965. It has continued to invest in state-of-the-art <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/technology/supercomputer">supercomputers</a> to improve severe weather and climate forecasting since then.</p>
<p>Today, the Met Office is a globally recognised authority in meteorology and climate science. Its expertise is invaluable for numerous sectors, from aviation and agriculture to emergency services and infrastructure planning. The Met Office is now responsible for providing the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice">National Severe Weather Warning Service</a>, which includes warnings for wind, rain, thunderstorms, lightning, ice, fog, snow and extreme heat.</p>
<p>Through the Met Office’s dedication to scientific research and accurate forecasting, the UK and the world have benefited from improved weather predictions and increased preparedness for extreme weather events. The legacy of the Royal Charter Storm lives on in the Met Office’s ongoing mission to provide essential weather and climate services, safeguarding lives and livelihoods in an ever-changing climate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cerys Jones has previously received funding from the AHRC, EU's Ireland-Wales Programme 2014-2020, and the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol.</span></em></p>
More than 800 lives were lost in the Royal Charter storm but it also led to improvements in weather forecasting.
Cerys Jones, Geography Lecturer, Aberystwyth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212316
2023-10-12T17:11:41Z
2023-10-12T17:11:41Z
Senghenydd colliery disaster: how Britain’s worst mining tragedy revealed the true price of coal
<p>Miners working at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, south Wales, were in the middle of their morning shifts 2000ft below the ground when a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18610076">massive explosion</a> ripped through the deep pit at 8.10am. A spark from an electric bell had ignited a deadly mix of methane gas and coal dust, known to miners as “firedamp”. </p>
<p>The blast on October 14 1913 killed 439 men and boys, with another dying during rescue operations. It was, and remains, the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/census/pandp/places/seng.htm">worst</a> coal mining disaster in British history and also the sixth worst in the world. </p>
<p>But disasters of this dreadful nature occurred with dismal regularity in the south Wales coalfield when the industry was at its height. South Wales was the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4582420/">most dangerous</a> coalfield in what was statistically the most dangerous industry in the UK at that time. </p>
<p>Only a few miles away from Senghenydd, 290 miners had died in an explosion at the <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/albion-colliery-mining-disaster-cilfynydd-16135285">Albion Colliery</a> in Cilfynydd in 1894. The Universal Colliery had itself suffered an earlier explosion, in <a href="https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/glamorganshire/universal-colliery-explosion-senghenydd-1901/">1901</a>, which killed 81 miners. </p>
<p>Everyone in Senghenydd lost family or friends in the 1913 disaster. It left 542 children fatherless and made widows of more than 200 women. Ninety boys and young men aged 20 or less were killed, with the youngest victims being just 14 years old. One chapel in the village reportedly lost 60% of its male members. </p>
<p>Although Senghenydd bore the brunt of the tragedy, its deadly effects were also felt further afield. A sizeable minority of the miners who were killed lived in the neighbouring village of Abertridwr and other nearby villages, while ten lived as comparatively far away as Cardiff. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ancestry.co.uk/c/uk1911census">1911 Census</a> shows a large number of families and individuals from every part of Wales living or lodging in Senghenydd. It also shows that many of those who were killed in the disaster had come to the village from England and some from Ireland.</p>
<h2>Justice?</h2>
<p>From the perspective of mining families, the official investigations into the disaster added insult to injury. The coroner’s inquest into the disaster returned a verdict of <a href="https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/glamorganshire/universal-colliery-explosion-senghenydd-1913/">accidental death</a>. </p>
<p>Following the inquest, the colliery’s manager was prosecuted for 17 breaches of the Coal Mines Act, while the company was charged with four breaches. But most of those charges ended up being dropped. </p>
<p>The manager was eventually fined a total of £24 and the company was fined £10 with £5 and 5 shillings costs. As the Merthyr Pioneer newspaper <a href="https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4000499/4000502/27/senghenydd%20disaster%201914">reported</a>: “Miners’ lives at 1s 1¼d each” –- the equivalent of 5.5p per dead miner in today’s money.</p>
<p>The Universal Colliery went back to work at the end of November 1913. It eventually closed in 1928 and the derelict site was demolished in 1963.</p>
<p>In 2013, on the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24506122">100th anniversary</a> of the disaster, the <a href="https://www.visitcaerphilly.com/en/senghenydd-national-mining-memorial-garden/">Welsh National Mining Memorial</a> was unveiled on the old colliery site, to commemorate miners killed in the Senghenydd disasters and also to remember the victims of the other 150 mining disasters in Wales. </p>
<p>Hundreds of people gathered to pay their respects and to view the unveiling of the memorial. The scale of the public turnout to the commemoration showed the extent to which the people of the south Wales valleys are still aware of the terrible toll of death and injury that the industry inflicted upon its workforce.</p>
<p>The memorial statue itself depicts a rescue worker helping an injured miner. Surrounding the statute is a walled garden, with tiles inscribed with the details of those killed in the two Senghenydd disasters as well as a “path of memory”, which marks other colliery tragedies in Wales.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yy72FYqG5Is?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Channel 4 news report from the 100 year commemoration.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the disaster was <a href="https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2013/10/11/the-mining-disaster-at-the-universal-colliery-in-senghenydd-south-wales-14-october-1913/">widely reported</a> at the time, it faded from memory for most people and is not well known beyond Wales by now. </p>
<p>It is possible that this was due to it being eclipsed by the outbreak of the first world war less than a year later. Or perhaps it was because there were just so many colliery disasters that memory of it merged into a broader, vaguer memory of death and danger in the coalfields. </p>
<h2>Remembering</h2>
<p>Although the collieries are all long gone now, mining disasters continue to retain a contemporary resonance in the folk memory of the south Wales coalfield region. </p>
<p>This was seen in <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/coal-spoil-tips-landslide-safe-17826953">popular responses</a> to a coal tip landslide in Tylorstown in 2020, which is just 11km away from Senghenydd. It was reflective of the visceral horror at the <a href="https://aberfan.walesonline.co.uk">Aberfan disaster</a> of October 1966, in which 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a coal tip slid downhill onto a primary school. </p>
<p>Such latter-day commemoration, as often as not via social media nowadays, is perpetuated by people who in many cases have no personal memory of these disasters –- yet nevertheless, we remember. The people of the valleys have never forgotten that coal was always stained with blood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Curtis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Four hundred and forty men and boys were killed in the Senghenydd colliery disaster, with the youngest victims aged just 14 years old.
Ben Curtis, Historian, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213016
2023-09-13T16:07:24Z
2023-09-13T16:07:24Z
Russia’s disastrous decision to invade Poland in 1920 has parallels with Putin’s rhetoric over Ukraine
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547339/original/file-20230910-199965-8gkxww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1196%2C625&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Polish defences near Milosna, west of Warsaw, August 1920.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the beginning, Russia has framed its invasion of Ukraine as necessary for the defence of the country. According to Vladimir Putin, Nato’s deliberate and aggressive encroachment into a region once dominated by Moscow is to blame, as the west <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/putin-russia-conspiracy-theories.html">seeks to dismember Russia</a>. By extension, Ukraine – a country, according to Putin, without agency and turned into a Nato military outpost – is little more than a pawn in Washington’s nefarious game. </p>
<p>Some conspiracies in Russian propaganda come and go – notably the absurd claims that the US had <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087991730/russia-claims-u-s-labs-across-ukraine-are-secretly-developing-biological-weapons">developed bioweapons sites across Ukraine</a>. But Putin’s core geopolitical framing of the war has remained consistent: Nato and the forces of the “collective west” represent an existential threat to Russia.</p>
<p>Given the popular notion of rival geopolitical blocs and the “no-limits friendship” between Moscow and Beijing, comparisons to the former cold war are commonplace. Commentators and academics are keen to scrutinise various <a href="https://www.vox.com/23568071/are-we-in-a-new-cold-war-russia-ukraine">similarities and distinctions</a>. But there is an underappreciated comparison between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and another act of aggression a century earlier: the Red Army’s invasion of Poland in 1920 under Vladimir Lenin. </p>
<p>Although more than 100 years ago, the Bolsheviks framed this conflict in strikingly similar terms to the conspiracies running through Russian propaganda today. </p>
<p>The Soviet-Polish war of 1919-20 was one of several overlapping conflicts commonly, though simplistically, known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/Russian-Civil-War">“Russian” civil war</a>, sparked in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution. Following escalating fighting between Polish and Soviet forces from 1919 in Belarus, Lithuania, and later Ukraine, Lenin decided to press a rolling Red Army counterattack in the summer of 1920 into a full-blown invasion of Poland. </p>
<p>The plan was to seize Warsaw and “sovietise” the country, creating a <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/radek/1920/07/polish.htm">“revolutionary bridge”</a> that would eventually stretch as far as Germany. Considering the extent to which the Soviet military was already stretched and the hostile reception that awaited invading Red Army soldiers, this was a colossal risk. But, despite doubts from some senior Bolsheviks (most notably Joseph Stalin), Lenin was certain that Poland was on the cusp of a workers’ revolution. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, out-of-touch Polish Bolsheviks in Moscow gave support to Lenin’s misapprehensions that Polish workers would rise and side with invading Red Army soldiers. So the Soviet leader decided to take the gamble.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Józef Piłsudski, Polish military officer inspecting a line of soldiers in 1919." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548051/original/file-20230913-27-jpk44o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poland’s saviour: chief of state, Józef Piłsudski, inspects Polish troops, Minsk 1919.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. 31084)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, and in a moment sometimes depicted as a <a href="https://bitwa1920.gov.pl/en/dabernon/">turning point</a> in modern history, Lenin’s offensive came crashing down in spectacular defeat outside the gates of Warsaw in mid-August 1920. In a matter of days, Polish supreme commander, <a href="https://www.pilsudski.org/en/about-us/history/jozef-pilsudski">Józef Piłsudski</a>, had successfully exploited the strung out Red Army forces. </p>
<p>The Polish Army smashed through its opponent’s overstretched lines, forcing them into humiliating defeat, later immortalised as the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/miracle-on-the-vistula-the-1920-war-between-russia-and-poland/30744735.html">“Miracle on the Vistula”</a>.</p>
<h2>Capitalist encirclement</h2>
<p>Before the <a href="https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/08/12/norman-davies-the-battle-of-warsaw-one-hundred-years-on/">Battle of Warsaw</a>, not all Bolsheviks had agreed with Lenin that “sovietising” Poland was a realistic strategy. But the party leadership, as well as Soviet Russia’s foreign and intelligence commissariats and military establishment, were unanimous on one thing: Poland was not the primary enemy. </p>
<p>They pointed instead to the capitalist west. At the time this was represented by the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/20th-century-international-relations-2085155/The-Triple-Entente">Entente powers</a>” – Britain and France – who were, apparently, coordinating, supplying and sometimes giving direct orders to the Polish Army in an attempt to reverse the revolution. </p>
<p>In truth, Britain and France – which had been Poland’s closest allies since it was reconstituted as an independent state in 1918 – offered little tangible support in the Soviet-Polish war and had moved away from <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/allies.htm">intervention in Soviet Russia</a> by 1920. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks grossly exaggerated the threat from the western powers. “All the Entente states are doing their utmost to incite Poland to make war against us,” Lenin remarked at a meeting of the central executive committee in <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/feb/02.htm">February 1920</a>.</p>
<p>It’s tempting to dismiss Lenin’s public addresses as purposeful propaganda. But the same conspiracies run through masses of internal Soviet correspondence. To take just a few examples, writing in private in 1919, Stalin described how a “single unified command” was preparing operations against Soviet Russia using bases in Riga in Latvia to the north, Warsaw in Poland, and as far as Chișinău in Moldova in the south.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing Polish borders in 1919." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548052/original/file-20230913-25-imqte4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poland and the surrounding region, 1919 with the 1920 post-war borders in black.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PBW_March_1919.png">Halibutt in GIMP via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stalin later described to Leon Trotsky, again in private, that the Entente’s “hypnosis” was “extraordinarily strong” over the countries on Russia’s western borders: the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania. Chief diplomat, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/chicherin/index.htm">Georgy Chicherin</a> claimed without evidence that British and French forces might launch parallel attacks against Soviet Russia, supported by Finland, the Baltic States and Italy. </p>
<p>A complicated anti-Soviet conspiracy loomed large in the Bolsheviks’ minds. Poland, in this fantasy, was seen as possessing little agency of its own – nothing more than a puppet of capitalist Britain and France.</p>
<p>Bolshevik fears of international conspiracies were not unique to the Soviet-Polish war. “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/">Capitalist encirclement</a>” was a deeply rooted conviction stemming from the international isolation of the 1917 Revolution. But the humiliating defeat to Poland in August 1920 – and the way the Bolsheviks explained this in conspiratorial terms – amplified an instinct to see “anti-Soviet blocs” everywhere. </p>
<p>Soviet military intelligence went on to write continuous inaccurate reports to this effect throughout the 1920s. And before Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, Stalin – behind closed doors – identified a coalition of Poland and the Baltic States, backed by Britain and France, as the <a href="https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/3946/">central threat to Soviet security</a>.</p>
<p>Putin, of course, is not a Bolshevik and how much he believes his own propaganda is hard to determine. And while Poland received relatively little support in 1920, the same cannot be said of Ukraine today. But echoes in Putin’s rhetoric and Russian propaganda of an older Soviet worldview – exaggerating interventionist blocs encircling Russia while refusing to recognise the agency of Ukraine – precisely how Lenin once saw Poland – are hard to ignore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Whitewood receives funding from the British Academy and Hoover Institution, Stanford.</span></em></p>
Vladimir Putin’s propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflect themes once propagated by Vladimir Lenin.
Peter Whitewood, Associate Professor of History, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207695
2023-07-06T13:20:25Z
2023-07-06T13:20:25Z
Why earthquakes happen all the time in Britain but not in Ireland
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535373/original/file-20230703-197839-tgybq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C1%2C1126%2C908&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain experiences hundreds of earthquakes each year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raffaele Bonadio</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The village of Tean in Staffordshire, England, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/29/staffordshire-hit-by-3-3-magnitude-earthquake">hit by a 3.3-magnitude earthquake</a> on June 28 2023. The tremors caused windows and doors to rattle in the surrounding area. </p>
<p>Earthquakes of this nature are not uncommon in Britain (the island including England, Scotland and Wales). In fact, hundreds of earthquakes shake Britain every single year. </p>
<p>The majority of these earthquakes are small in magnitude and do not result in any damage. However, there are occasional earthquakes in Britain that have the potential to be destructive. Scientists estimate that the <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/earthquakes/where-do-earthquakes-occur/">largest possible earthquake</a> in Britain is around a magnitude 6.5 – surpassing the intensity of the <a href="http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/research/events/newZealandFeb2011.html">magnitude 6.3 earthquake</a> that hit Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011 and killed 185 people. </p>
<p>The largest recorded earthquake in Britain so far took place in 1931 near Dogger Bank, 97km off the east coast of England. This earthquake measured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Dogger_Bank_earthquake">6.1 on the Richter scale</a> and caused damage to buildings along the east coast.</p>
<p>Most earthquakes in Britain are concentrated within a north-to-south band on the west side of the island. Neighbouring Ireland, however, is almost completely free from seismic activity – a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists for hundreds of years.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/235/1/431/7157104">Research</a> by my colleagues and I has provided a potential explanation for Ireland’s minimal seismic activity. We found that the lithosphere – Earth’s rigid outer layer that makes up its tectonic plates – is thicker and cooler beneath Ireland than it is under Britain. This makes the tectonic plate under Ireland much less likely to deform – a process that can trigger earthquakes.</p>
<h2>Ireland’s missing earthquakes</h2>
<p>Even before earthquakes were recorded by seismographs as they are today, reports of earthquakes were documented in various towns and monasteries across Britain and Ireland. In the mid-19th century, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Mallet">Robert Mallet</a>, an Irish scientist credited with coining the term “seismology”, created earthquake maps based on these reports. He observed that Britain had intermediate seismicity (a term for earthquake activity), while Ireland had low seismicity.</p>
<p>In 1884, Irish seismologist Joseph O’Reilly published the first <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30079053?casa_token=84NU_tDm4dkAAAAA%3AJIEckn73nEm6xP9t25rCa2wtEPlMosx4DxeFs7p_uvTRfI46vtyxx7ejvyp3ey6_CEPqgn-mNrvGIx1BeoNzrVVUAdVYd-1NOvRFKftC6L1kZdBKVQIyKQ">seismicity map of Britain and Ireland</a>, emphasising that Great Britain was “by far more subject to earthquake action than Ireland”.</p>
<p>Understanding the reasons behind this uneven distribution remains important today, especially in terms of how it affects Britain’s growing population. Between 2011 and 2021, the UK population <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2021">increased by 6%</a>, to a total of 67 million people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="O'Reilly's seismicity map of Britain and Ireland" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535349/original/file-20230703-213178-cfskyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">O’Reilly’s seismicity map of Britain and Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30079053">O'Reilly (1884)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Intraplate earthquakes</h2>
<p>Most earthquakes happen at plate boundaries where tectonic plates converge, diverge or slide past each other. Over 80% of the world’s largest quakes occur around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean – an area known as the <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/earthquakes/where-do-earthquakes-occur/">Pacific “Ring of Fire”</a>. </p>
<p>Earthquakes that occur in the interior of the plates are much less common and typically smaller in magnitude. But there are a few notable exceptions. Between 1811 and 1812, the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the central US experienced a <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.24.1.339">sequence of powerful earthquakes</a>, ranging from magnitude 7 to 8.</p>
<p>Britain and Ireland are geologically very similar. They were formed in the same continental collision around 400 million years ago and are composed of parts of the same continents. The two islands are also equally far from plate boundaries and the tectonic stress (the pressure or tension exerted by other plates or underlying mantle) is similar across them. </p>
<p>Why then is the distribution of earthquakes in Britain and Ireland so uneven?</p>
<h2>Through thick and thin</h2>
<p>Seismic tomography, a technique that uses seismic waves from remote earthquakes to create 3D images of Earth’s interior, has provided valuable insights. Research that I co-authored in 2021 <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/226/3/2158/6247624">discovered previously unknown variations</a> in the structure of the tectonic plate that both Britain and Ireland sit on.</p>
<p>Tectonic plates are cold and rigid compared to the hot, slowly creeping mantle beneath them. Thicker plates are colder, mechanically stronger and less likely to deform. Conversely, thinner plates are warmer, weaker and more susceptible to deformation. </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/235/1/431/7157104">more recent research</a>, we found that that the plate thickness below Britain and Ireland ranges from about 75km to as much as 120km. Ireland has a relatively thick lithosphere (around 95-115km beneath most of the island) and very few earthquakes as a result. South-eastern England and eastern Scotland have a similarly thick lithosphere. </p>
<p>By contrast, western Britain has a thinner lithosphere (around 75–85km) and experiences regular earthquakes. Most Irish earthquakes are in the north of the island, the one place where its lithosphere is thinner, warmer and weaker.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two maps showing the location of earthquakes in Britain and Ireland on the left, and variations in lithospheric thickness on the right." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535359/original/file-20230703-262997-k9xj9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left: Occurrence of earthquakes in Ireland and Great Britain. Right: Differences in lithosphere thickness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Raffaele Bonadio</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This discovery solves a longstanding puzzle. Moderate variations in plate thickness, occurring far from plate boundaries, can influence patterns of seismic activity within those regions. </p>
<p>This breakthrough opens up new avenues of research for seismologists. In Britain and Ireland, scientists can now focus on closing the remaining gaps in the coverage of seismic stations (which monitor ground movement at specific locations) and constructing a model of the lithosphere to work out why earthquakes are concentrated where they are. </p>
<p>Earthquake catalogues in other world regions often do not go as far back into the past as in Britain and Ireland. Seismic hazards in these areas can also be much more uncertain. Modelling the thickness and strength of tectonic plates gives scientists the tools to study the puzzling distribution of earthquakes and improve their forecasting ability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sergei Lebedev does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Variations in the thickness of tectonic plates may explain why Britain experiences many more earthquakes than neighbouring Ireland.
Sergei Lebedev, Professor of Geophysics, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204652
2023-05-05T16:24:08Z
2023-05-05T16:24:08Z
How archaeologists can help us live with wild animals
<p>For thousands of years, people in the British Isles lived with and depended on wild animals for food and clothes. The land teemed with species such as deer, boar, wolves, lynx and beavers. Then came farming, population growth and industrialisation. Many species were hunted to extinction and their habitats were lost. </p>
<p>Archaeological research reaches back in time to understand how humans and wild animals interacted. Ancient bones and teeth reveal these complex relationships. </p>
<p>Today, interactions between wild animals and people are often in the news, from <a href="https://www.timeout.com/london/city-life/are-londons-foxes-getting-bolder">urban foxes</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/12/first-wild-beaver-in-wales-in-400-years-caught-felling-trees-in-garden">tree-felling beavers</a> and <a href="https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/humans-caused-the-overpopulation-of-wild-boars">wild boars</a>. Even the red deer – the monarch of the glen, celebrated as a symbol of wild Scotland – is facing widespread calls for population control and, on the Hebridean island of South Uist, total eradication.</p>
<p>Deer were a mainstay of British diets before <a href="https://www.academia.edu/25154142/The_Time_of_Deer">farming</a> and, out on the islands, my research demonstrates they remained an important <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290486458_Red_deer_on_Scottish_islands">food source</a> beyond the 15th century. It was only in the middle ages that deer became the preserve of royal hunts and later the favoured prey of fee-paying hunters. </p>
<p>Today they are often viewed as pests by the communities they impact. A combination of factors, including <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/covid-deer-venison-climate-change-b1785514.html">COVID-19</a> and <a href="https://rumdeer.bio.ed.ac.uk/climate-change">climate change</a>, has seen deer numbers <a href="https://consult.defra.gov.uk/team-trees/consultation-on-proposals-for-the-deer-management/">increase</a> and affect both <a href="https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2022/08/04/reducing-the-impact-of-deer-on-the-natural-environment-consultation-opens/">landscapes</a> and gardens. They also cause <a href="https://www.deeraware.com/background/">accidents on roads</a> and carry the ticks that pass on Lyme disease. </p>
<p>As wild animals, they are <a href="https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/protected-areas-and-species/protected-species/protected-species-z-guide/protected-species-deer#:%7E:text=Deer%20don%27t%20belong%20to,kill%20deer%20for%20certain%20purposes.">not owned</a> and only become someone’s property when they are captured or killed by persons entitled by law to do so. This is usually the owners of the land they inhabit. Land owning estates manage most herds and may provide hunting access for a fee. </p>
<p>The venison can be sold, but often <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19132700.highland-game-scottish-venison-donated-london-food-banks-amid-covid-drop-demand/">goes to waste</a> due to a lack of sufficient trained staff to check carcasses and markets for the meat. Hides are generally not valued and antlers are sold as <a href="https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/antos-antler-chew-p3266--1">dog chews</a>. </p>
<h2>South Uist</h2>
<p>In March 2023, the tensions between red deer and locals reached a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-64979967">crisis point</a> on the Scottish island of South Uist. There was a call to eradicate an entire herd of 1,198 animals, as their behaviour was negatively affecting locals. Arguments on either side focused on their history, use and value.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299840919_Colonization_of_the_Scottish_Islands_via_long-distance_Neolithic_transport_of_red_deer_Cervus_elaphus">As an animal archaeologist, my research</a> has shown that <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-took-red-deer-to-the-scottish-isles-57825">red deer</a> were taken to Scottish islands for food more than 5,000 years ago. </p>
<p>In the absence of any predators, their numbers were controlled through the killing (and eating) of both red deer calves and adults. Hides were worked and the valuable antlers, shed annually from stags, were used to create beautifully crafted tools and adornments. Red deer are represented in early art, both on and off the islands. A recent find of spectacular rock art on <a href="https://www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/news/prehistoric-animal-carvings-discovered-for-the-first-time-in-scotland/">mainland Scotland</a> has highlighted their cultural importance during this period. </p>
<p>Unlike on most of mainland Britain, deer remained an important island food and thrived up until recently. In the 20th century, new animals were <a href="https://guerillaarchaeology.com/themes-and-projects/craftwork/deer-on-south-uist-past-present-and-future/">introduced</a> from the mainland. Genetic analysis suggests these deer supplemented existing populations and the herds became reestablished.</p>
<p>Over the past decades deer numbers across the UK have exploded from 450,000 in the 1970s to 2 million today – the highest level for <a href="https://consult.defra.gov.uk/team-trees/consultation-on-proposals-for-the-deer-management/">1,000 years</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://storasuibhist.com/members-information/documentation/agm-2021-presentation-2/">A recent count</a> found that South Uist deer numbers have increased by a third, from around 800 in 2015 to 1,200 today. This pattern is repeated elsewhere, such as the Isles of <a href="https://www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/business/deer-culls-to-increase-as-numbers-double-3992741">Lewis and Harris</a>. At the same time, the prevalence of ticks and the disease they carry has <a href="https://www.wihb.scot.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/A0-Template-The-ticking-time-bomb.-Incidence-of-Lyme-disease-in-the-Western-Isles-2010-2017.pdf">increased</a>.</p>
<h2>Management</h2>
<p>Deer herds clearly need to be managed, but there is a cost. Culling them requires trained individuals, as well as care to ensure animals do not suffer. Paying hunters provide some income, but the value of deer is not clear to all who live in deer-impacted communities. </p>
<p>As in the past, venison, antler and hides are all valuable items. Investment in resources and training by <a href="https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/members/storas-uibhist/">Stòras Uibhist</a>, the community-owned company that manages the 93,000 acre South Uist Estate, is producing venison. That’s both as a low-cost local food and a high-value delicacy. Antler is also a sustainable resource, grown and shed each year. </p>
<p>Archaeological initiatives are demonstrating to islanders, and beyond, how easy it is to work with this material. With only <a href="https://youtu.be/NpoNjqASV0k">simple tools</a>, saleable items inspired by island heritage and culture can be produced. On South Uist, the estate is looking to process and sell hides, while wildlife focused deer stalking with cameras can provide new tourist activities. </p>
<p>The deer of South Uist have <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-65025200">gained a reprieve</a>. The community voted to keep the herd, but in smaller numbers. In the absence of predators, humans need to actively manage such wildlife to maintain a balance. The value of red deer, both alive and dead, must be realised to create a sustainable wild landscapes for the future. </p>
<p>The deep history of human interactions with these animals can provide inspiration for their future management. Archaeologists like myself hold this knowledge and by sharing the stories and skills of the past, we can reconnect today’s people with previous generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqui Mulville receives research funding from Cardiff University, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Natural Environment Research Council</span></em></p>
There are arguments over the future of red deer on the Scottish island of South Uist but archaeological expertise can help people live alongside wild animals.
Jacqui Mulville, Professor in Bioarchaeology, Head of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204507
2023-05-02T11:20:35Z
2023-05-02T11:20:35Z
DNA study sheds light on Scotland’s Picts, and resolves some myths about them
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523315/original/file-20230427-20-enm6fg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C21%2C4716%2C3137&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pictish stones feature distinctive symbols.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Cathy MacIver</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The people known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts">the Picts</a> have puzzled archaeologists and historians for centuries. They lived in Scotland during the early medieval period, from around AD300 to AD900, but many aspects of their society remain mysterious.</p>
<p>The Picts’ unique cultural characteristics, such as large stones decorated with distinct symbols, and lack of written records, have led to numerous theories about their origins, way of life, and culture. </p>
<p>This is commonly referred to in archaeology as the “Pictish problem”, a term popularised by the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Problem_of_the_Picts_Edited_by_F_T_W.html?id=EWZEtwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">title of a 1955 edited book</a> by the archaeologist Frederick Threlfall Wainwright.</p>
<p>Our genetic study of human remains from this period challenges several myths about the Picts. These include a proposed origin in eastern Europe, as well as a longstanding idea that the inheritance of wealth passed down the female side of the family.</p>
<p>We attempted to shed light on the Picts’ origins and legacy by sequencing whole genomes – the full complement of DNA in human cells – from skeletons excavated at two cemeteries. </p>
<h2>Stone monuments</h2>
<p>These cemeteries, at Balintore in Easter Ross and Lundin Links in Fife, date to between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. The results of our research have been <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010360">published in PLOS Genetics</a>.</p>
<p>The Balintore burials are not well understood, but Lundin Links is characterised by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00766097.2017.1296031">exceptional stone monuments</a>. The burials take the form of round or rectangular cairns – where numerous stones are piled up as markers – and long cists. Cists are stone-built “boxes” that hold the remains of the dead. </p>
<p>The cemetery probably housed people of a high-status, but this is still hypothetical due to the limited knowledge of these burials and society more generally during this period. Human remains in general from the Pictish era are relatively scarce and often poorly preserved.</p>
<p>There is no known settlement associated with Lundin Links. This is a common issue in Pictish archaeology, as the extent of their settlements is still largely unknown. Recently, however, excavations led by Professor Gordon Noble at the University of Aberdeen have <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Picts/J1iZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">discovered several new Pictish sites</a>, frequently hillforts, around Scotland.</p>
<h2>Origin myths</h2>
<p>In our study, we looked at how genetically similar the Pictish genomes were to other ancient genomes from Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and mainland Europe dating to the Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. Our findings support a prevailing view that the Picts descended from Iron Age groups in Britain and Ireland. </p>
<p>This contrasts with older, often elaborate, myths of exotic origins, such as the one recounted in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_History_of_the_English_People#:%7E:text=The%20Ecclesiastical%20History%20of%20the,Roman%20Rite%20and%20Celtic%20Christianity.">Ecclesiastical History of the English People</a>, written by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bede-the-Venerable">Anglo-Saxon scholar Bede</a> in AD731. This claimed that the Picts migrated from Scythia (a historical region around the northern coast of the Black Sea) to northern Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="DNA double helix" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523394/original/file-20230428-16-hmppm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The researchers used a method that involves looking at long stretches of DNA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blue-helix-human-dna-structure-1669326868">Billion Photos / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other theories include an origin in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace">Thrace</a> (a historical region in south-east Europe) and islands to the north of Britain.</p>
<p>We sequenced two genomes to medium or high coverage, meaning that we determined the order of the “letters” in the DNA code multiple times while piecing together the highly fragmented genetic sequence. This allowed us to “zoom in” on the genetic diversity – or variation – in the ancient and modern people from our study, gaining greater analytical resolution.</p>
<p>We were able to look at fine-scale differences among ancient and modern groups across Britain and Ireland. We applied a method that investigates something called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_by_descent">identity-by-descent (IBD)</a>. This involves looking at relatively long stretches of DNA (“chunks” of chromosomes) that are shared by different individuals. </p>
<p>IBD is an indicator of relatedness via shared genetic ancestors. While we all share ancestors, sometimes we share more recent genetic ancestors with some individuals than with others. In this scenario, we would also share more IBD segments of DNA. </p>
<h2>Female inheritance</h2>
<p>The Pictish genomes share more long DNA chunks with present-day people from western Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We interpreted this as a sign of genetic continuity from the Pictish period to the present-day. </p>
<p>But present-day populations in Britain and Ireland also share relatively high amounts of IBD segments with Anglo-Saxon genomes from southern regions, suggesting mixture between populations in a south-to-north direction.</p>
<p>This fascinating insight provides a glimpse into the demographic processes that have shaped genetic diversity and population structure in present-day populations. However, there were also small but significant differences in the genetic similarity between Pictish genomes and other ancient groups, such as Iron Age genomes we compared them with. </p>
<p>This suggests that “Pictish genetic ancestry” was not static or homogenous. Instead, the genetic variation among ancient people reflects dynamic and complex communities.</p>
<p>Lastly, we managed to address an intriguing question. Bede stated that when the Picts stopped off in Ireland before settling in Britain, they were allowed to marry local women on the condition that Pictish succession passed down the female line. </p>
<p>This led to the notion that the Picts followed a tradition of “matrilineal succession”, where the sister’s son inherits the wealth instead of sons on the male line – a system often associated with women marrying locally. Scholars now believe this idea was probably fabricated to boost Pictish identity and validate specific rulers.</p>
<p>We sequenced complete genomes of mitochondria – structures in cells, often described as biological “batteries” – in seven samples from Lundin Links. They all carried unique mutations, meaning that none of the individuals were closely related on the maternal line. </p>
<p>This is more consistent with female exogamy, where women marry outside their social group. This is just one population sample from one location, though, so more research is required to test whether this holds elsewhere.</p>
<p>The study fills gaps in our understanding of the genetic landscape of Britain and Ireland during the early medieval period. It provides a baseline for future studies to investigate the complex genetic ancestry of present-day populations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linus Girdland Link was supported by the school of geoscience, University of Aberdeen. Kate Britton was supported by the Leverhulme Trust during production of this manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adeline Morez was supported by ECR strategic support of early career researchers in the faculty of science at LJMU, awarded to Linus Girdland-Flink.</span></em></p>
The genetic study challenges previous theories about the origins and culture of the Picts.
Linus Girdland Flink, Visiting lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, lecturer in biomolecular archaeology, University of Aberdeen
Adeline Morez, Post-doctorate researcher, Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, visiting lecturer, Liverpool John Moores University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204017
2023-04-27T19:02:11Z
2023-04-27T19:02:11Z
King Charles’s 21st century coronation: Repatriating the Crown Jewels is long overdue
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521871/original/file-20230419-22-sqq0cl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3489%2C2331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The State Gun Carriage carries the coffin of Queen Elizabeth, draped in the Royal Standard with the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign's Orb and Sceptre, following her funeral at Westminster Abbey in London in September 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Mike Egerton/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/king-charles-s-21st-century-coronation--repatriating-the-crown-jewels-is-long-overdue" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>King Charles will be directed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1533/the-coronation-ceremony-of-the-british-monarchy/">“punish and reform what is amiss, confirm what is in good order”</a> at his upcoming coronation.</p>
<p>This language is not just symbolic. It’s a contract between the monarch and the British people. </p>
<p>Throughout British history, that contract has often been illustrated through the Crown Jewels and other coronation regalia, which will play a key role in Charles’s formal ascension to the British throne. Majesty, spectacle and celebrity have long been associated with the British Royal Family, and the Crown Jewels have traditionally enhanced each of these aspects.</p>
<p>But in the 21st century, it’s time for the monarch to make good on the vow to “reform what is amiss” and repatriate those priceless gems.</p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/772104f6-caa7-4803-a167-f6d0eec48d61?dark=true"></iframe>
<h2>Jewels taking centre stage</h2>
<p>I am a settler researcher and teacher of the history of identity politics, historical trauma and British history. </p>
<p>The colonizing and imperial history of three famous pieces of British regalia — the St. Edward’s Crown (Imperial State Crown) and the Sovereign’s Sceptre and the late Queen Mother’s crown — include in their designs the marks of colonialism in the form of the <a href="https://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2022/01/the-queens-cullinan-diamonds.html">Cullinan I, Cullinan II and Koh-i-Noor diamonds</a> as well as thousands of other jewels. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly man slumps on a throne sitting next to a crown embedded with jewels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=349%2C0%2C5819%2C4723&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521867/original/file-20230419-26-5p7ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prince Charles, now the king, reads the Queen’s speech as he sits by the Imperial State Crown in the British Parliament in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These diamonds have a painful history and yet two of them are taking centre stage at King Charles’s coronation at a time of acute post-colonial pain. The Royal Family is aware of this history; that’s likely why it opted against <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64638152">including the Koh-i-Noor diamond</a> in the coronation ceremony.</p>
<p>There have been calls for the Koh-i-Noor diamond to be repatriated to South Asia amid public debates about <a href="https://time.com/6212113/queen-elizabeth-india-kohinoor-diamond/">Britain’s colonizing history</a> (although the Indian government has said it officially has laid this claim to rest).</p>
<p>Nonetheless, other Crown Jewels will be on full display through much of the ceremony: St. Edward’s Crown, the Sovereign’s Sceptre, the Sword of State and the Sovereign’s Orb, as well as coronation clothing embedded with precious gems. </p>
<p>This display is intended to capture attention, reinforce British identity and immerse British and Commonwealth citizens in the sovereign-subject relationship. That’s an especially important aim today since the monarchy’s identity now and into the future is at stake.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charless-coronation-should-canada-become-a-republic-200408">King Charles's coronation: Should Canada become a republic?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The stolen Crown Jewels</h2>
<p>The legacy of colonization by the British Empire — and of decolonization efforts in the United Kingdom in the 20th and 21st centuries — is weighted with trauma and questions of identity and nationhood. </p>
<p>The coronations of English monarchs <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Edgar-the-Peaceful/">back to Edgar in 973 CE</a> mark transitions in power, define monarchs and their subjects and distinguish human skills of governance from those that are supposedly divinely imparted.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charless-coronation-can-the-british-monarchy-shed-its-imperial-past-202027">King Charles’s coronation: Can the British monarchy shed its imperial past?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>In the 21st century, however, the Crown Jewels and coronation regalia are under intense scrutiny amid decolonization and ongoing efforts to repair Britain’s global relationships.</p>
<p>Identity and repair are at the centre of current developments, reinforcing the importance of this coronation — and King Charles himself.</p>
<p>The intense focus <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-queen-the-future-of-the-monarchy-and-how-the-queen-s-death-affects-the-commonwealth-1.6063285">on the meaning of the monarchy</a> following Queen Elizabeth’s death suggests the public is debating its relevance and value in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Living and teaching in Canada, on unceded territory of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/i-can-t-feel-mournful-indigenous-leaders-reflect-on-colonialism-after-death-of-queen-elizabeth-ii-1.6062822">I have noted the dispassionate response of Indigenous leaders to invitations to attend her funeral</a>. That some Indigenous leaders didn’t feel mournful about her passing reflects the impact of colonization on the monarchy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/about-the-queen-and-the-crowns-crimes-or-how-to-talk-about-the-unmourned-podcast-191141">About the Queen and the Crown's crimes (or how to talk about the unmourned) — Podcast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Colonial aggression</h2>
<p>Consequently, the Crown Jewels represent something much more than the majesty of British history because they incorporate gems that are artefacts of colonial aggression and ideology. </p>
<p>If coronation viewers are enchanted by the majesty and historical grandeur of the coronation ceremony, are they also enchanted by Britain’s brutal colonial past? </p>
<p>Specifically, will viewers be struck by the contradiction between the supposed purity and sanctity of St. Edward’s Crown, the Imperial Crown, the Sovereign’s Sceptre and Orb and the savage and demeaning colonial origins of the gems embedded within them? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A balding man in a dark suit sits next to an ornate crown encrusted with jewels." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521889/original/file-20230419-24-igdxop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Britain’s Prince William sits by the Imperial State Crown at the opening of British Parliament in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A fully engaged awareness and acknowledgement of those origins must be part of the coronation if the monarchy is to remain relevant.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00710-018-0601-z">Cullinan I and Cullinan II diamonds</a> are emblematic of Britain’s colonizing and imperial past. They are set in the Sovereign’s Sceptre and the Imperial State Crown, respectively. </p>
<p>They are apparent symbols of power, justice and righteousness yet they don’t possess those attributes at all. Their presence in the Crown Jewels is a stain on the coronation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-crown-jewels-tell-us-about-exploitation-and-the-quest-for-reparations-podcast-204000">What the Crown Jewels tell us about exploitation and the quest for reparations — Podcast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Koh-i-Noor diamond</h2>
<p>The same is true for the Koh-i-Noor diamond, <a href="https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/">forcibly “gifted” in 1849 by 10-year-old Maharajah Duleep Singh to the British East India Company</a> and subsequently placed into the crown of the late Queen Mother for her coronation in 1937. </p>
<p>Although it won’t be seen at Charles’s coronation, it’s still among the Crown Jewels — and it’s hardly the embodiment of virtue. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A crown with a large diamond sits on purple velvet atop a coffin." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521886/original/file-20230419-22-4iyp76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2002 photo, the Koh-i-Noor diamond at the front of the crown made for Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth is seen on her coffin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indian political figures continue to push for the return of the Koh-i-Noor, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36088749">including a descendant of Mahatma Gandhi</a>, who has pointed to its return as a critical component of British “atonement” for brutally colonizing India from the 17th through to the 20th centuries.</p>
<p>Some Crown Jewels aren’t subject to calls for repatriation. They include the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Edwards-Sapphire">blue sapphire in St. Edward’s Crown</a>, which was created in 1661, and the spinel known as the <a href="https://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2021/08/the-black-princes-ruby.html">Black Prince’s Ruby</a> in the Imperial State Crown, created in 1937.</p>
<p>They do, nonetheless, detract from the attributes of a monarch. As symbols of vast riches, they raise questions about what purpose the monarchy serves in the functioning of a country beset by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/cost-of-living-crisis">economic challenges</a>, cultural disruptions, immigration challenges, climate crises and <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/Systemic-racism-in-britain-black-history-month/">a history of institutional racism and inequity</a>.</p>
<p>If King Charles is truly to punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order, then he must begin with the Crown Jewels — and acknowledge and repair the damage done in their acquisition.</p>
<p>Gems do not a monarch make, and repatriating them would strengthen and modernize the contemporary British monarchy at a time when it most urgently needs to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie St. John-Stark is affiliated with the Memory Studies Association, is Co-Chair of the Memory & Trauma Working Group (MSA), and is co-editor of Transdisciplinary Trauma Studies (De Gruyter Press). </span></em></p>
Gems do not a monarch make, and repatriating the Crown Jewels would strengthen the contemporary British monarchy at a time when it most urgently needs to modernize.
Annie St. John-Stark, Assistant Professor of History, Thompson Rivers University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204000
2023-04-27T16:54:41Z
2023-04-27T16:54:41Z
What the Crown Jewels tell us about exploitation and the quest for reparations — Podcast
<p>Although King Charles will have a low-key ceremony on his coronation day this May 6, the Crown Jewels will still figure prominently. An exploration of the story of the jewels tells a tale of brutal exploitation, rape and the original looting. Join us on <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/coronation-day-what-the-story-of-the-crown-jewels-can-tell-us-about-exploitation-and-the-quest-for-reparations"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> to follow the jewels. </p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/772104f6-caa7-4803-a167-f6d0eec48d61?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>Much of what was called the British Empire was built from stolen riches — globally — and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=776527">much of that was from India.</a> </p>
<p>In fact, India was such an abundant contributor to the Crown that at the time of its occupation of South Asia, Britain called India the Jewel in its Crown. </p>
<p>India was called this because of its location — easy access to the silk route, but mostly because of its vast human and natural resources: things like cotton, and tea and of course its abundance of jewels.</p>
<p>Literally, the brightest jewel in Britain’s Crown is the Koh-i-Noor diamond. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523065/original/file-20230426-20-leoksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nader Shah on the Peacock Throne, whose jewels included the Koh-i-Noor diamond.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is considered one of the world’s largest and most valued diamonds and it usually sits on top of the Crown of Queen Mary.</p>
<p>It has a controversial history — namely that it was “surrendered” to the British by an Indian 10-year-old boy, Duleep Singh, whose mother had been imprisoned and whose father had recently died. It’s likely for that reason, that it won’t be on display at the coronation. But plenty of other jewels will be part of the ceremony. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C41%2C3934%2C2907&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523154/original/file-20230427-28-yd7cfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Imperial State Crown on a cushion as it arrives for the State Opening of Parliament.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is the five-pound gold St. Edward’s Crown that Charles will be officially crowned with, the Sovereign’s Sceptre, which has the Great Star of Africa diamond in it and the Imperial State Crown, which is set with almost 3,000 diamonds - including another Star of Africa.</p>
<p>Joining me to explore the history and meaning behind these jewels is Annie St. John-Stark, assistant professor of British history at Thompson Rivers University. Also here today is: Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, instructor of history at both the University of the Fraser Valley and the University of British Columbia. Her newly minted PhD looks at how museums can grow to include voices previously left off the “official record.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523151/original/file-20230427-26-vncuii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Elizabeth II on her coronation day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although many will be out partying next weekend, the pomp of the coronation - along with its display of the Crown Jewels - does not reflect current day British attitudes. Only <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/04/14/first-coronation-what-then">32 per cent believe the Empire is something to be proud of</a> — that is down almost 25 per cent <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire">from 2014</a>. That means, attitudes are changing quickly. </p>
<p>Will the Royal Family catch up? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not just the jewels, it’s the pomp of everything that is attached to the ceremony is such a contradiction now to the things we are talking about globally in our world in terms of privilege, colonialism and class structures. - Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523149/original/file-20230427-308-yyopwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Union flags are raised to celebrate the upcoming coronation of King Charles, in central London, last week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Resources</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523150/original/file-20230427-18-r895dy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This black and white photograph of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Indian owner of the Koh-i-Noor diamond was taken by Prince Albert in 1854 in England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/kohinoor-9781635570779/"><em>Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond</em> by Anita Anand, William Dalrymple</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-koh-i-noor-diamondand-why-british-wont-give-it-back-180964660/">The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond—and Why the British Won’t Give It Back (<em>Smithsonian Magazine</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25483040">Koh-i-Noor: Empire, Diamonds, and the Performance of British Material Culture by Danielle C. Kinsey</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a43522648/what-crown-will-king-charles-wear/">What Crown will King Charles Wear? (<em>Cosmopolitan</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/06/indian-archive-reveals-extent-of-colonial-loot-in-royal-jewellery-collection">Indian Archive Reveals Extent of Colonial Loot in Royal Jewellery Collection (<em>The Guardian</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.saada.org/tides/article/the-ghadar-party">Ghadar Movement</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/fashion/jewelry-ananya-malhotra-india-spirituality.html">Expressing Indian Spirituality in Jeweled Form (<em>New York Times</em>)</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india">How Britain Stole 45 Trillion from India (<em>Al Jazeera</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders">The East India Company: The original corporate raiders (<em>The Guardian</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/21/1144666811/germany-nigeria-returns-benin-bronzes-looted#:%7E:text=The%20Benin%20Bronzes%20are%20sculptures,their%20call%20in%20recent%20years.">Germany Returns Benin Bronzes (<em>NPR</em>)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/316672/the-new-age-of-empire-by-andrews-kehinde/9780141992365"><em>The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World</em> by Kehinde Andrews</a></p>
<h2>Read more in The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charless-21st-century-coronation-repatriating-the-crown-jewels-is-long-overdue-204017">King Charles's 21st century coronation: Repatriating the Crown Jewels is long overdue</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charless-coronation-how-the-place-of-britain-and-the-crown-has-shifted-in-canadian-schooling-204073">King Charles's coronation: How the place of Britain and the Crown has shifted in Canadian schooling</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colonialism-was-a-disaster-and-the-facts-prove-it-84496">Colonialism was a disaster and the facts prove it</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/king-charless-coronation-can-the-british-monarchy-shed-its-imperial-past-202027">King Charles’s coronation: Can the British monarchy shed its imperial past?</a>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/historical-lawsuit-affirms-indigenous-laws-on-par-with-canadas-109711">Historical lawsuit affirms Indigenous laws on par with Canada's</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/about-the-queen-and-the-crowns-crimes-or-how-to-talk-about-the-unmourned-podcast-191141">About the Queen and the Crown's crimes (or how to talk about the unmourned) — Podcast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-how-priya-satias-times-monster-landed-like-a-bomb-in-my-historians-brain-176023">The book that changed me: how Priya Satia's Time’s Monster landed like a bomb in my historian's brain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Although King Charles will have a low-key ceremony this coronation, the Crown Jewels will still figure prominently. An exploration of the jewels tells a tale of exploitation, rape and pillage.
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Ollie Nicholas, Assistant Producer/Journalism Student, Don't Call Me Resilient
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203246
2023-04-18T14:20:27Z
2023-04-18T14:20:27Z
Europe outsourcing asylum to African countries is a terrible idea – there are alternatives
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521017/original/file-20230414-14-uqt1v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerien police processing Emergency Travel Mechanism evacuees in Niamey, Niger in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Lambert </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-349-94972-4_2">For 40 years</a>, western governments have entertained ideas of outsourcing asylum processing and refugee hosting to the global south. It is not a new idea. And neither are the controversies that have accompanied it. </p>
<p>Denmark and the UK have been in the news over this issue recently. In January 2023, however, after fierce domestic criticism, the new Danish government <a href="https://www.thelocal.dk/20230125/denmarks-has-suspended-asylum-centre-talks-with-rwanda">announced</a> it had paused its negotiations with Rwanda to bilaterally “transfer” all asylum seekers out of Denmark. Instead it suggested building an EU alliance to do the same. This step appeared at odds with the <a href="https://euobserver.com/migration/152193">criticism</a> of the Danish plans from both the European Commission and the <a href="https://ecre.org/denmark-meps-confront-danish-minister-on-rogue-asylum-policies-as-syrians-flee-to-other-member-states/">European Parliament</a>.</p>
<p>The UK, too, wanted to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The plan was temporarily <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jun/15/what-is-the-echr-and-how-did-it-intervene-in-uk-rwanda-flight-plans">halted</a> by the European Court of Human Rights in 2022. For its part, the British High Court <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866">didn’t condemn</a> the policy as illegal. So it may be revived. </p>
<p>In line with these and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/new-german-migration-official-aims-to-send-refugees-to-africa/a-64667296">other</a> recent policy initiatives, prominent migration researcher Ruud Koopmans <a href="https://www.berlingske.dk/debatinterview/i-2018-faeldede-ruud-koopmans-en-knusende-dom-over-den-muslimske">supported</a> the idea of sending asylum seekers to Tunisia. But his endorsement was poorly timed, coming right after the African Union <a href="https://theconversation.com/tunisia-presidents-offensive-statements-targeted-black-migrants-with-widespread-fallout-201593">condemned</a> Tunisia for systematic racist violence against sub-Saharan migrants.</p>
<p>We’ve conducted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23340460.2019.1683463">research</a> into European policies to discourage immigrants, and <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/externalisation/lambert">implementation</a> of emergency refugee evacuations from Libya to Niger. Based on this we explain the risks and frequent failures of outsourcing schemes, and offer more pragmatic alternatives for European asylum policies.</p>
<h2>Why these policies fail</h2>
<p>Initiatives to outsource asylum – known as “externalisation” – have frequently failed on different levels. </p>
<p>First, since the 1980s, there has not been enough political support in Europe for these radical ideas. Although vocal, proponents have remained a minority at the common European level. </p>
<p>Second, international organisations have voiced sustained criticism. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)<a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/press/2021/5/60a2751813/unhcr-warns-against-exporting-asylum-calls-responsibility-sharing-refugees.html">implored</a> the Danish government to abandon its externalisation ambitions. It said that they undermined international solidarity and could lead to chain refoulement. This happens when one state after another successively deport a person under inhumane and degrading conditions. Instead, it encouraged Denmark to focus on improving the safe and orderly access to asylum. </p>
<p>Third, most countries have repeatedly rejected hosting these designs. The African Union <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20210802/press-statement-denmarks-alien-act-provision-externalize-asylum-procedures">condemned</a> the Danish plans in 2021. It said that developing countries already hosted 85% of the world’s refugees, and that such policies were xenophobic. A growing academic literature also argues that such externalisation policies actually represent a continuation of racialising <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23340460.2019.1683463">colonial practices</a> of transferring displaced people through imperial territories. </p>
<p>In practice, these proposals offer little substance more than hot air. They appear designed to appeal to domestic voters rather than to solve displacement. </p>
<p>For instance, in 2018 the <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2018/06/29/20180628-euco-conclusions-final/">European Council proposed</a> taking people who had been trying to reach Europe on boats in the Mediterranean to centres in North Africa for asylum processing. It remained a press release issued by national ministers unconnected to any EU policy process. The African Union <a href="https://www.eepa.be/?p=2713">criticised</a> the proposal as a violation of international law.</p>
<p>Yet Germany recently <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/new-german-migration-official-aims-to-send-refugees-to-africa/a-64667296">revisited these plans</a> – but only in a press interview. This seemed geared to accommodate conservative voters after government announcements of liberalising <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/45142/germany-bundestag-passes-opportunity-right-of-residency-law">residency</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-needs-better-rules-for-citizenship-says-scholz/a-63901447">citizenship legislation</a>. </p>
<p>Announcing such plans without consulting potential partner states or regional bodies suggests revived colonial fantasies where all states in the global south can be paid off. Also, it demonstrates a complete disregard for any opposition among such states’ electorates. </p>
<h2>Niger and Rwanda</h2>
<p>Certainly, Europe’s financial-political incentives can weigh on different sub-Saharan governments. Rwanda received <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866">£140 million</a> from the UK in advance to build accommodation. Rwanda has also used Danish and British desires to silence criticism of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/4/rwanda-backing-m23-rebels-in-drc-un-experts">its support for the M23 militia</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo. </p>
<p>Niger got international praise for hosting refugees evacuated from Libyan prisons. Beyond new diplomatic recognition, it also <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-law-in-context/article/changing-the-administration-from-within-criticism-and-compliance-by-junior-bureaucrats-in-nigers-refugee-directorate/613C23CE83F34E83317DBF58173C58F9#article">received</a> additional resources for its asylum bureaucracy. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/45307925/Who_is_doing_asylum_in_Niger_State_bureaucrats_perspectives_and_strategies_on_the_externalization_of_refugee_protection_to_Niger">These included</a> a permanent camp infrastructure and salary increases for senior officials. </p>
<p>However, despite these incentives, outsourcing asylum risks also creates tensions in partner states. </p>
<p>First, refugees may get stuck in transit because their asylum claims are rejected, or because western governments abandon promises of resettlement. </p>
<p>In mid-2019, around 120 of 2,900 evacuees faced a rejection of their refugee claims. Both responsible Nigerien officials and refugees <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/externalisation/lambert">refused</a> their legalisation in Niger for various reasons.</p>
<p>The lack of economic opportunities in Niger weighed heavily on the refugees, as did the precarious security situation on the officials. According to local UNHCR staff in Niger, the government of Burkina Faso refused to host these refugees after hearing about Niger’s difficulties.</p>
<p>Second, outsourcing asylum procedures presupposes that the rule of law is functioning in the partner state. In Niger, the appeals process was <a href="https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/festung-europa-2022/514216/zwischen-abenteuer-risiko-und-ueberleben/">neither operational nor independent</a>. For one thing, the appeal committee had not met for three years and consisted of the same departments as the first instance. </p>
<h2>Political alternatives</h2>
<p>If politicians really want to reduce deaths in the Mediterranean, often used as the purported motivation for externalisation, they should stop <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/45860/international-law-and-the-criminalization-of-sea-rescue">criminalising sea rescue</a>. </p>
<p>EU states could also make it possible to claim asylum at embassies or consulates. Several European countries allowed this until the early 2000s. Similarly, humanitarian visas could be issued from embassies, as <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/da/press-room/20160315IPR19499/meps-want-eu-embassies-and-consulates-to-grant-asylum-seekers-humanitarian-visas">argued</a> by European Parliament members in 2016. This requires more resources for screening and case-processing. </p>
<p>These would be real steps towards dismantling so-called smuggling economies, whose incentives have only increased with the one-sided EU focus on deterrence and border control. Safe entry procedures would be an approach fundamentally different from containing displaced populations far from Europe. </p>
<p>A modern and pragmatic migration policy should abandon <a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/postcoloniality-and-forced-migration">postcolonial illusions</a> that massive global inequalities and displacement can be addressed through deterrence and the outsourcing of refugee protection to third countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Plans by European states to outsource their asylum procedures to African states often fail and don’t offer political alternatives to asylum in Europe.
Laura Lambert, Senior Researcher, University of Freiburg
Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, Honorary Associate Professor, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202781
2023-04-14T11:03:00Z
2023-04-14T11:03:00Z
We asked Sikh men in Britain what the turban means to them – here’s what they told us
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517915/original/file-20230328-962-ckpnai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5540%2C2421&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sikh men wearing the dastaar/turban in temple.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/panoramic-sikh-people-back-their-colory-1583135275">Enselme Arthur/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <em>dastaar</em> – most commonly referred to as a turban – is perhaps Sikhism’s most visible expression of identity.</p>
<p>As part of our ongoing research, we talked to 13 British Sikh men to learn about their identity, religious practice and their experiences of wearing the turban in the UK. They told us that they hoped the recent visibility of the turban in fashion collections, police uniform and advertising campaigns would help to dilute the stigma surrounding the turban.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BADpcHjCScg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Royal Navy’s campaign focusing on a Sikh recruit.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, several projects have sought to promote Sikhism positively in an effort to reclaim narratives around the turban. In the UK, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRTNo39d32U">Sikh Project</a> art exhibition, fashion blogs such as <a href="https://singhstreetstyle.co.uk/">Singh Street Style</a> and YouTube creators tying the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDxYnEGEiiw">turban on camera</a> have contributed to this. </p>
<p>Other noteworthy cases include the 2022 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADpcHjCScg">recruitment campaign</a> for the Royal Navy, which exposed the traumas and stigmas associated with keeping hair and wearing a turban for a young Sikh man in Britain.</p>
<p>The Sikh code of discipline – the <em>Rehat Maryada</em> – states that Sikh men must cover their heads. While most Sikhs in the UK and around the world <a href="https://britishsikhreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/BSR_2013_FINAL.pdf">do not wear the turban</a>, it remains the most recognisable article of faith for adult Sikh men and women.</p>
<p>There has been a Sikh presence in Britain for <a href="https://britishsikhreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/BSR_2013_FINAL.pdf">almost 160 years</a>, but Sikh migration to the UK mostly started in the 1950s. </p>
<p>People (mostly men) from the Punjab region of India – and later from east Africa – responded to Britain’s call to the Commonwealth to participate in its postwar reconstruction efforts. Sikh migrants <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/history/britishsikhism.shtml">mostly found</a> work in industries like foundries and textiles.</p>
<p>According to the 2021 census, there are about <a href="https://britishsikhreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Sikhs-in-Census-2021-Summary.pdf">524,000 Sikhs</a> (0.9% of the population) in England and Wales and around <a href="https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glance/religion/">10,000 in Scotland</a> (0.2% of the Scottish population). This population has <a href="https://britishsikhreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BSR-Report-2022.pdf">higher than average</a> levels of education and employment in professional and managerial occupations.</p>
<p>The first Sikh migrants to Britain faced significant discrimination in securing employment and many had to forgo their identities, resulting in the removal of all outward religious symbols including turban, hair and beard. Having to abandon the <em>dastaar</em> and cutting their hair were not benign acts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It hurts. It really hurts. Why should you lose your identity to gain economic advantage? There was a pressure to change my appearance. Punjabis came to this country, they were misled in a way and told: ‘come on, let’s get your hair cut’ […] When you are born as something, and you cut your hair, deep down it hits you. It hits you all the time. – Gurtej, 68</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More recently, British society has positively responded to inclusion of Sikh ways of life, with the <a href="https://assets.college.police.uk/s3fs-public/2021-02/sikh-articles-of-faith-in-the-workplace.pdf">acceptance of the turban</a> in police and military uniforms. But there have also been real <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-0-387-29904-4_111">challenges and struggles</a> along the way. </p>
<p>Most notably, stigmas and discrimination around the turban were exacerbated following the 9/11 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks">World Trade Center</a> terrorist attacks in 2001. </p>
<p>Alongside Muslims, turban-wearing Sikhs have <a href="https://www.sikhcoalition.org/documents/pdf/go-home-terrorist.pdf">borne the brunt</a> of the <a href="https://www.hatecrimescotland.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Islamaphobia-Anti-Muslim-Hate-Crime-a-London-Case-Study-EMRC-2010.pdf">subsequent rise</a> in hate crimes, anti-Islamic sentiment, discrimination and racial profiling worldwide.</p>
<p>The Sikh men we spoke to for our as yet unpublished research, explained how wearing the turban signalled their observance to Sikhism and the life choices this entails, such as the protection of and service to others:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me, what the turban signifies is a unique identity. To stand out in a crowd of millions is an act of real courage. […] if you need me, I am here for help. If you need food and shelter, this turbaned Sikh will give you food and shelter. It’s about courage, human rights, equality, it’s about commitment, discipline, it’s about compassion. Jagpal, 47</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <em>dastaar</em> holds both practical and spiritual significance:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Apart from the practical use of covering my long hair … the other reason for the turban is to protect the spiritual centre on top of the head so that it doesn’t get damaged in any way. When I meditate with my turban on my head, I feel happy and very good, the turban concentrates those happy feelings. Jagpal</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Big brands have recently begun featuring turban-wearing models including Louis Vuitton, H&M, The Gap, Burberry and more controversially, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/gucci-s-indy-turban-criticized-cultural-appropriation-n1005971">Gucci</a> at the 2019 Milan Fashion Week. </p>
<p>Some of our interviewees hoped that this visibility would help dilute the stigma surrounding the turban:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whatever medium takes [the turban] away from terrorism, is a great thing. I don’t really care if it’s a catwalk, or young dapper Sikhs wearing designer clothing … I think anything that separates the turban from Bin Laden and those images all over the media after 9/11 and takes the turban into the realm of a Sikh perspective [is] great. Jagpal</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kuldeep, 27, who runs a successful fashion blog, spoke of his desire to feature his difference and break stereotypes. However, other interviewees expressed discomfort regarding the new found popularity of the <em>dastaar</em> in marketing campaigns and its commodification as a fashion item.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1128876558108614658"}"></div></p>
<p>The striking visual of a fully observant Sikh keeping hair (<em>kesh</em>) and wearing the <em>dastaar</em> is part of its appeal for marketeers who seek to signal their inclusive values. Interviewees generally implied, however, that simply prioritising the visual aspects of the turban would come at the expense of its symbolic and spiritual dimension.</p>
<p>There is a genuine concern that those representations created for mainstream marketplace consumption may strip the <em>dastaar</em> of its metaphysical and symbolic value and turn it into a commercial commodity, the next cool must-have “cultural” accessory to be consumed by the masses.</p>
<p>As many interviewees explained, to them, the <em>dastaar</em> is so much more. It is not only a symbol of faith and a life of service, but also an embodiment of its long heritage and sacrifice borne by the Sikh community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Sikh men we spoke to explained how wearing the turban signalled their observance to Sikhism and the life choices this entails, such as the protection of and service to others.
Mona Moufahim, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of Stirling
Anoop Bhogal-Nair, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Consumption, De Montfort University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198573
2023-01-26T17:01:47Z
2023-01-26T17:01:47Z
Beavers and oysters are helping restore lost ecosystems with their engineering skills – podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506490/original/file-20230125-26-149wf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C417%2C2216%2C1528&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beavers dramatically change a landscape by building dams that create ponds of still water.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castor_fiber_04(js),_Narew_River,_Poland.jpg#/media/File:Castor_fiber_04(js),_Narew_River,_Poland.jpg">Jerzy Strzelecki/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether you are looking at <a href="https://theconversation.com/ending-amazon-deforestation-4-essential-reads-about-the-future-of-the-worlds-largest-rainforest-194800">tropical forests in Brazil</a>, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2019/01/15/save-native-grasslands-study-invasive-species/">grasslands in California</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-all-know-the-great-barrier-reef-is-in-danger-the-un-has-just-confirmed-it-again-195551">coral reefs in Australia</a>, it is hard to find places where humanity hasn’t left a mark. The scale of the alteration, invasion or destruction of natural ecosystems can be mindbogglingly huge.</p>
<p>Thankfully, researchers, governments and everyday people around the world are putting more effort and money into conservation and restoration every year. But the task is large. How do you plant a billion trees? How do you restore thousands of square miles of wetlands? How do you turn a barren ocean floor back into a thriving reef? In some cases, the answer lies with certain plants or animals – called ecosystem engineers – that can kick-start the healing. </p>
<p>In this episode of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a>,” we talk to three experts about how ecosystem engineers can play a key role in restoring natural places and why the human and social sides of restoration are just as important as the science.</p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/63d27eb5cd0f7200118faf4b" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Ecosystem engineers are plants or animals that create, modify or maintain habitats. As <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/gees/larsen-joshua.aspx">Joshua Larsen</a>, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham, explains, beavers are a perfect example of an ecosystem engineer because of the dams and ponds they build.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A strip of green surrounding ponds in a burned landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506498/original/file-20230125-2999-qvqftz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beaver ponds can create valuable wetland habitats that store water and support life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beaver_ponds_and_wetlands_in_Baugh_Creek,_Idaho,_act_as_a_wildfire_%22emerald_refuge%22_September_6,_2018.png#/media/File:Beaver_ponds_and_wetlands_in_Baugh_Creek,_Idaho,_act_as_a_wildfire_%22emerald_refuge%22_September_6,_2018.png">Schmiebel/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“They create this pocket of still water, which allows aquatic vegetation to start to colonize that wouldn’t otherwise be there,” says Larsen. Once a beaver establishes a pond, the surrounding area begins to change from a creek or river into a wetland.</p>
<p>Larsen is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/beavers-are-back-heres-what-this-might-mean-for-the-uks-wild-spaces-166912">effort to reintroduce beavers into Britain</a>, a place where they have been extinct for over 500 years and the landscape reflects that loss. There used to be hundreds of thousands of beavers – and hundreds of thousands of beaver ponds – all across Britain. Without beavers, it would be prohibitively difficult to restore wetlands at that scale. But, as Larsen explains, “Beavers are doing this engineering of the landscape for free. And more importantly, they’re doing the maintenance for free.”</p>
<p>This idea of using ecosystem engineers to do the labor-intensive work of restoration for free is not limited to beavers. Dominic McAfee is a researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He studies oysters and is leading a project to <a href="https://theconversation.com/huge-restored-reef-aims-to-bring-south-australias-oysters-back-from-the-brink-77405">restore oyster reefs</a> on the eastern and southern coasts of Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large group of thousands of oysters emerging from water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506499/original/file-20230125-18-rvcct8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oyster reefs provide important structure that supports entire ecosystems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oyster_reef_Hunting_Island_SC.jpg#/media/File:Oyster_reef_Hunting_Island_SC.jpg">Jstuby/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“These reefs were the primary sort of marine habitat in coasts, coastal bays and estuaries over about 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) of Australian coastline,” says McAfee. But today, “They’re all gone. All those reefs were scraped from the seafloor over the last 200 years.” </p>
<p>When you lose the oysters, you lose the entire reef ecosystem they support. So, a few years ago, McAfee and his colleagues decided to start bringing these reefs back. Oysters need a hard surface – like a rock, or historically, other oysters – to grow on. But all those old oyster reefs are gone and only sand remains. “So the first step to restore oysters is to provide those hard foundations. We’ve been doing that in South Australia by deploying limestone boulders,” explains McAfee. After just a year, McAfee and his colleagues are starting to see results, with millions of oyster larva sticking to these boulders. </p>
<p>At this point, McAfee says that challenges are less about the science and more about getting community and political support. And that is where <a href="https://www.uidaho.edu/caa/programs/landscape-architecture/our-people/andrew-kilskey">Andrew Kliskey</a> comes in. Kliskey is a professor of community and landscape resilience at the University of Idaho in the U.S. He approaches restoration and conservation projects by looking at what are called social-ecological systems. As Kliskey explains, “That means looking at environmental issues not just from a single disciplinary point of view, but thinking that many things are often occurring in a town and in a community. Really, social-ecological systems means thinking about people and the landscape as being intertwined and how one interacts with the other.” </p>
<p>For scientists, this type of approach involves sociology, economics, indigenous knowledge and listening to communities that they are working with. Kliskey explains that it’s not always easy: “Doing this sort transdisciplinary work means being prepared to be uncomfortable. Maybe you’re trained as a hydrologist and you have to work with an economist. Or you work in a university and you want to work with people in a community with very real issues, that speak a different language and who have very different cultural norms. That can be uncomfortable.” </p>
<p>Having done this work for years, Kliskey has found that building trust is critical to any project and that the communities have a lot to teach researchers. “If you’re a scientist, it doesn’t matter which community you work with, you have to be prepared to listen.”</p>
<hr>
<p>This episode was produced by Katie Flood and Daniel Merino, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. It was written by Katie Flood and Daniel Merino. Mend Mariwany is the show’s executive producer. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. </p>
<p>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>. A transcript of this episode will be available soon. </p>
<p>Listen to “The Conversation Weekly” via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic McAfee receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Joshua Larsen receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK.
Andrew Kliskey receives funding from the National Science Foundation in the U.S.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p>
Restoring entire ecosystems is a difficult and expensive process. Thankfully, certain species, called ecosystem engineers, can make restoration easier. Gaining social and political support is critical too.
Daniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Nehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196076
2023-01-26T11:56:59Z
2023-01-26T11:56:59Z
The Holocaust: remembering the powerful acts of ‘ordinary people’
<p>“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” the British author LP Hartley once <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/17/lp-hartley-go-between-ali-smith">wrote</a>, hinting at the mystique of history – the idea that people in the past were somehow different to us in the 21st century.</p>
<p>As many historians will tell you, it’s not particularly useful to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-past-is-not-the-present-do-food-animals-have-rights-alberto-manguel-s-curious-mind-the-great-hunger-1.3497315/the-allure-and-the-dangers-of-presentism-1.3497463#:%7E:text=The%20American%20Historical%20Association%20has,to%20find%20ourselves%20morally%20superior.%22">project modern values onto the past</a>, or to judge historical figures by contemporary ideals. But the idea that the past far away in space and time, is also flawed. It encourages people to overlook the fact that those involved in seismic past events were real human beings, just like ourselves. </p>
<p>Nowhere is reconciling that distance between past and present more important than in the case of the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-holocaust">Holocaust</a>, which saw the murder of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Drawing on this idea of making the past less of a “foreign country”, the <a href="https://www.hmd.org.uk/what-is-holocaust-memorial-day/this-years-theme/">official theme</a> for <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/remember/international-holocaust-remembrance-day">Holocaust Memorial Day</a> 2023 in the UK is “ordinary people”.</p>
<h2>Difficult questions</h2>
<p>Holocaust Memorial Day is the annual opportunity for people around the world to remember and learn about – and from – the genocide. As the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has outlined in its theme vision:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Genocide is facilitated by ordinary people. Ordinary people turn a blind eye, believe propaganda, join murderous regimes. And those who are persecuted, oppressed and murdered in genocide aren’t persecuted because of crimes they’ve committed – they are persecuted simply because they are ordinary people who belong to a particular group.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The theme of ordinary people encourages us to ask difficult questions of ourselves and society. Those who faced persecution were ordinary people who could do little to stop their fate.</p>
<p>We also tend to talk of the Nazi regime in sweeping terms – as an <a href="https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/mann/Doc3.pdf">amorphous spectre of cruelty and fanaticism</a>. But we must also remember that this regime was composed of ordinary men, women and children. It was a human phenomenon. Even Adolf Hitler – who as the figurehead of the Third Reich has become almost an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/can-we-compare-donald-trump-hitler/572194/">abstract symbol of evil</a> – was ultimately one single man.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tMnAztCHcNo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The Holocaust as part of the British story</h2>
<p>Human stories can bring us closer to the Holocaust in an emotional sense. But in the UK, it is possible to move closer to the past in a geographical sense. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust notes that “while the theme for HMD 2023 focuses on ordinary people, this can be extended to include ordinary locations, or sites”.</p>
<p>It can be tempting to think that the Holocaust happened “<a href="https://holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/6.-BritaintheHolocaust-download.pdf">over there</a>”, far away in mainland Europe. But the Holocaust is <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/responses/british-response/">part of British history</a>, albeit a <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-55932-8">complex one</a>.</p>
<p>During the 1930s, an estimated <a href="https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/responses/british-response/">80,000 Jewish refugees came to Britain</a>. Between November 1938 and September 1939, approximately 10,000 children were transported to Britain as part of the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kindertransport-1938-40">Kindertransport</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, even though by 1941 allied governments were receiving incomplete reports of mass killings in Eastern Europe, no decisive action was taken against the Holocaust specifically. Until the end of the Second World War, the British war cabinet maintained that military victory would be the most effective way to end the genocide (or what was known of it).</p>
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</figure>
<h2>Save the children</h2>
<p>Britain was involved in responding the Holocaust in several different ways, as illustrated by the stories of two ordinary people. One was <a href="https://www.nicholaswinton.com/">Nicholas Winton</a>, a career banker who petitioned the UK government relentlessly between 1938 and 1939 for Czech children to be allowed entry to the UK. The other was <a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/haining.html">Jane Haining</a>, matron of a Jewish school in Budapest who remained with her charges and was sent to Auschwitz. </p>
<p>With a small group of helpers, Winton worked tirelessly to evacuate as many children from Prague as possible, <a href="https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/sir-nicholas-winton/">ensuring the safe passage</a> of 669 children to host families in Britain.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HxkCeVtwHl8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Jane Haining’s fate proved more <a href="https://biahs.co.uk/2019/10/16/jane-haining-the-scottish-protector-of-jews-who-perished-at-auschwitz/">tragic</a>. A committed member of the evangelical United Free Church of Scotland, she took up her position in the girls’ hostel of the Jewish mission school in Budapest in 1932. Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she decided to remain with her young wards, despite her church’s advice that she should return to Edinburgh.</p>
<p>Haining’s assistance of persecuted Jews began before the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hungary-after-the-german-occupation">German invasion of Hungary</a>. From 1940, Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied states had started to arrive in Budapest, and some were taken in by Haining and her school. </p>
<p>The assistance Haining had offered Jews had not gone unnoticed by the new German occupiers of Budapest. In late April 1944, Gestapo officers arrived at the hostel to arrest the Scot for possession of illicit radio receivers. During questioning, the charges were <a href="https://biahs.co.uk/2019/10/16/jane-haining-the-scottish-protector-of-jews-who-perished-at-auschwitz/">broadened</a> to include working among Jews and political activity, amongst other allegations. </p>
<p>Following confession under duress, she was transferred to the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kistarcsa">Kistarcsa transit camp</a> on the outskirts of Budapest. In May 1944, Haining was deported to <a href="https://www.auschwitz.org/en/">Auschwitz</a>, where she died of starvation three months later. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<h2>Bringing the Holocaust closer to home</h2>
<p>Between 2020 and 2022, there was a <a href="https://cst.org.uk/">22% rise in antisemitic incidents</a> in the UK, while distressing <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/copy-of-current-genocide-watch-aler">examples of genocide</a> continue to proliferate around the world. </p>
<p>To ensure new generations understand what happened to the Jews and other minorities during World War II, studying the Holocaust has been a compulsory part of the <a href="https://www.het.org.uk/about/holocaust-education-uk">national curriculum</a> in England since 1991 (although there is no formal requirement in Scotland or Northern Ireland). <a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/holocaust-antisemitism/holocaust-denial-laws.html">Thirteen European countries</a> have legislation that criminalises Holocaust denial and the Nazi message, but this is not illegal in the UK. </p>
<p>In the current climate of social, cultural and national division, it is ordinary people who have the power and the responsibility to support efforts to <a href="https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/educational-materials/why-teach-about-holocaust">learn from and about the Holocaust</a>, so that appalling events from history are not repeated. Education is a vital tool to sow <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64012628">cultural appreciation and overcome social division</a>, but there is always more to be done.</p>
<p>As it was demonstrated over and over during World War II, it is ordinary people, working together, who are capable of achieving extraordinary things.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Adamson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This theme of this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day encourages us to ask difficult questions of ourselves and society.
Daniel Adamson, PhD in History, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197204
2023-01-18T16:34:49Z
2023-01-18T16:34:49Z
Red Lady of Paviland: the story of a 33,000 year-old-skeleton – and the calls for it to return to Wales
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505135/original/file-20230118-7884-mtwnjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C8%2C1787%2C1060&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Human remains dating back more than 30,000 years were found at Paviland cave in Gower. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Left: Leighton Collins/Shutterstock; right: Ethan Doyle White CC BY-SA 3.0. </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When William Buckland from the University of Oxford grabbed his trusty collecting bag and headed for the Gower peninsula in south Wales in January 1823, he ended up discovering more than he had bargained for.</p>
<p>It is 200 years to the day since the geology professor happened upon one of the oldest human burial sites in western Europe, kicking off an archaeological debate that would last for the next two centuries. The anniversary of his discovery has once again sparked a debate about whether the human remains should now be repatriated from Oxford to Wales.</p>
<p>In December 1822, Buckland had received a package containing an elephant tusk and skull (which was really a mammoth), along with a basket full of animal bones. The finds from Paviland cave had been sent by Lady Mary Cole, who lived in Penrice Castle, Gower. The package was so intriguing to Buckland he decided he needed to visit the location in person. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large rocky mound with a small cave entrance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504922/original/file-20230117-11-jm1g8h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paviland cave on the Gower peninsula, where a human skeleton covered in red ochre was discovered by William Buckland in January 1823.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ffion Reynolds</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Buckland, an Anglican priest, was operating at an important juncture in the study of human and geological time. He was about to publish his seminal work, <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/k7twatkd">Reliquiae Diluvianae</a>, in which religion and science were thrust together as one.</p>
<p>At the time, our account of human history was still largely dictated by the chronology of the Bible. This meant Buckland clung to the idea of a cataclysmic biblical “deluge”. </p>
<p>He was adamant any extinct animals found during his explorations had been washed into the caves by the great flood. This idea became his biggest problem when trying to decipher the depth of time presented at Paviland. </p>
<h2>A skeleton story</h2>
<p><a href="https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA132642">Paviland, or Goat’s Hole cave</a>, is a limestone cave between Rhossili and Port Eynon on the Gower coast. Today, as at the time of Buckland, the cave is cut off by the tide for most of the year. Buckland visited during winter when tides are at their lowest, meaning he was able to enter and start his excavations immediately. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504925/original/file-20230117-12-l20ajb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The limestone cave of Paviland, with its distinctive tear drop-shaped entrance. Ffion Reynolds.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t long before he found an undisturbed burial of human bones and objects, all stained red with ochre. The remains lacked a skull, but on excavation were found to be surrounded by ivory objects (including rods and rings), a clutch of periwinkle shells, and worked flints. Buckland took them back with him to Oxford.</p>
<p>At first he thought <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4028256">the human bones were those of a man</a>, and joked that they belonged to a tax collector who had been murdered by smugglers, for which this coastal area was notorious. </p>
<p>Next, Buckland suggested the remains belonged to a witch, due to the presence of a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/531750">blade bone of mutton</a>”. Based on his knowledge of Welsh customs, he imagined this was used as some kind of conjuring tool. </p>
<p>Finally, he argued the skeleton was that of a painted <a href="https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Library-and-Information-Services/Collection-Highlights/Brixham-Cave-and-the-Antiquity-of-Man/William-Buckland-and-the-Red-Lady-of-Paviland">female prostitute</a>, which made the shell beads implements of gambling, while the rings were jewellery made from Roman elephant ivory. This was the story he stuck to, and the one which best fitted his biblical flood theory. </p>
<p>The real issue is that Buckland did not seem to have studied the human bones in detail. Perhaps even if he had, he wanted to suppress what he found. Had he examined the bones properly, he would have noticed the individual wasn’t female but a young male, aged 25–30, who stood about 173cm (5ft 7in) in height.</p>
<p>Buckland’s theories had buckled.</p>
<h2>Who was really buried here?</h2>
<p>In 2008, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18929395/">radiocarbon-dating techniques</a> conclusively showed these bones belonged to an individual buried around 33,000 years ago.</p>
<p>Paviland, at this time, would have been located at least 60 miles inland, on a cliff above a grassy plain. The landscape would have been teeming with prey such as mammoths, woolly rhinos, giant deer, bison and reindeer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Person standing inside a cave" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504927/original/file-20230117-12-frkc0u.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ffion Reynolds at Paviland cave, taken during the low spring tides of March 2016 when the cave was accessible for a few hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ffion Reynolds</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Buckland was spinning a yarn, however, and wanted to largely ignore the human burial as it did not fit his theories. As a result, Wales lost its opportunity to be at the forefront of Palaeolithic studies, which shifted instead to a European focus.</p>
<p>Between their discovery and the present day, the Paviland bones have been on a journey from tax man, witch, prostitute and Palaeolithic hunter to the more recent suggestions of shaman or spiritual figure. People now visit the cave as a form of pilgrimage. But there have also been <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-am-demands-return-one-6334745">calls for the skeleton to take another journey</a> – back to Wales.</p>
<h2>Repatriation</h2>
<p>Buckland did return some of his finds from Oxford to Wales. The hyena jaw bones are displayed at Swansea Museum, while an ivory staff is stored at St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff. </p>
<p>But the remarkable human remains are still <a href="https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/learn-red-lady-of-paviland-0#listing_536071_0">on display at the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History</a>. Some have called these bones the <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewmcsmith/status/1612126154445529089?s=46&t=LJl0--vgrh7V1GIzfmYXUA">“Welsh Elgin marbles”</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1614659433237299201"}"></div></p>
<p>With the real Elgin marbles now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/arts/design/parthenon-sculptures-elgin-marbles-negotiations.html">poised to make their way back to Greece</a> from the British Museum, is it time for the human remains from Paviland to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64264413">come back to Wales?</a></p>
<p>Repatriation is a complex issue. From the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61082954">Mold Gold Cape</a> to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/20/germany-returns-21-benin-bronzes-to-nigeria-amid-frustration-at-britain">Benin Bronzes</a>, returning materials to nations or regions attracts controversy. </p>
<p>The Paviland remains are well cared for where they are, so there’s a question as to whether they should “come home” at all. A further debate is whether they should be returned as an ancestor or an exhibit.</p>
<p>However, the importance of this individual to European and global histories means their return would certainly enhance the Welsh national collection – and shine a spotlight on the unique archaeology and caves of Wales.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ffion Reynolds is affiliated with Cadw, the historic environment service for the Welsh Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqui Mulville does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s been 200 years since the discovery of one of the oldest human burial sites in western Europe on the Gower peninsula in south Wales.
Ffion Reynolds, Honorary Research Fellow, Cardiff University
Jacqui Mulville, Professor in Bioarchaeology, Head of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195639
2022-12-20T13:37:36Z
2022-12-20T13:37:36Z
How an American magazine helped launch one of Britain’s favorite Christmas carols
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501171/original/file-20221214-15862-si7n43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C12%2C2101%2C1397&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'In the Bleak Midwinter' didn't begin life as a song, but being set to music helped it find fame.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/snowy-mid-winter-field-royalty-free-image/543085094?phrase=in%20the%20bleak%20midwinter&adppopup=true">starryvoyage/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1906, a new carol appeared in “<a href="https://archive.org/details/theenglishhymnal00milfuoft/page/n75/mode/2up">The English Hymnal</a>,” an influential collection of British church music. With words by British poet Christina Rossetti, set to a tune by composer Gustav Holst, it became one of Britain’s most beloved Christmas songs. Now known as “In the Bleak Midwinter,” it was voted the “greatest carol of all time” in a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/3631068/In-the-Bleak-Midwinter-voted-greatest-carol-of-all-time.html">2008 BBC survey</a> of choral experts.</p>
<p>“In the Bleak Midwinter” began life as a poem, which Rossetti simply titled “A Christmas Carol.” When the hymnal paired her words with music, the poem took on a new identity in song – a phenomenon documented by literature researcher <a href="https://biblio.uottawa.ca/omeka2/christinarossettiinmusic/exhibits/show/inthebleakmidwinter-popculture/sacred-spaces-pop-culture">Emily McConkey</a>. But it also became embedded into popular culture in nonmusical forms. “A Christmas Carol,” or parts of it, has appeared on <a href="https://us.benandhannahdunnett.com/shop/greetings-cards/christian-christmas-cards/in-the-bleak-midwinter/">Christmas cards</a>, ornaments, <a href="https://littlethingsstudio.com/product/in-the-bleak-midwinter-christmas-hymn-tea-towel/">tea towels</a>, mugs and other household items. It <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-the-bleak-midwinter-m-r-sellars/1104346556">has inspired</a> <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250006516/inthebleakmidwinter">mystery novels</a> and, more recently, became a recurring motif in the British television series “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b045fz8r">Peaky Blinders</a>.”</p>
<p>As <a href="https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/english/profile/maura-ives/">a scholar of Rossetti</a>, I’ve long been fascinated by the afterlife of her poems in music. The <a href="https://biblio.uottawa.ca/omeka2/christinarossettiinmusic/about">Christina Rossetti in Music project</a>, a database of musical adaptations that incorporates my work, now lists 185 versions of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” </p>
<p>But before it could be set to music, “A Christmas Carol” had to make its way into print as a poem – and that wasn’t so easy. Though written by one of Britain’s mostly highly regarded poets, the poem failed to make its mark on British readers until Holst set it to music. Instead, it found its first, and most enthusiastic, audience in the United States.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SE0aIQp9V4s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Gustav Holst wrote the tune that made Christina Rossetti’s poem a beloved carol.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Victorian music</h2>
<p>“A Christmas Carol” circulated during a carol revival in the United Kingdom. In December 1867, shortly before Rossetti started offering her poem to British magazine publishers, the century’s <a href="https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/e/english-carols">most influential collection of carols</a> <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/bramley/carols/files/carols.html">was published</a>.</p>
<p>Previously considered <a href="https://britishheritage.com/history/history-british-christmas-carols">a folk tradition</a> – and not considered fit for worship, given the revelry they were associated with and the mix of sacred and secular lyrics – carols were coming into vogue. And increasingly, they were finding their way into church.</p>
<p>At a time when women could not be ordained as preachers, writing carols and more formal hymns was a rare opportunity for women to shape the church. Barred from the pulpit themselves, female writers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/mar/30/artsandhumanities.highereducation">spoke from the pews</a>, including Sarah Flower Adams – she wrote “<a href="https://hymnary.org/text/nearer_my_god_to_thee_nearer_to_thee_een">Nearer, my God, to Thee</a>” – and Cecil Frances Alexander, author of the beloved carol “<a href="https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/o/once-in-royal-david%E2%80%99s-city">Once in Royal David’s City</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white sketch of a brunette woman with puffy sleeves and a serious expression." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501172/original/file-20221214-15787-4jpt5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christina Rossetti, drawn by her brother, the pre-Raphelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/english-poet-christina-rossetti-best-known-for-her-news-photo/3368477?phrase=christina%20rossetti&adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/104081/maura-ives/christina-rossetti-a-descriptive-bibliography">Rossetti</a>, a devout Anglican and the author of a number of devotional poems, was among them. Although 21st-century readers may know her primarily through her poem “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OSlDAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=goblin%20market%20and%20other%20poems&pg=PP13#v=onepage&q=goblin%20market%20and%20other%20poems&f=false">Goblin Market</a>,” Rossetti’s religious poetry was well known to her contemporaries. By the 1870s, several of her poems had been reprinted in British religious anthologies and hymnals. </p>
<h2>A bleak beginning</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://poets.org/poem/christmas-carol">A Christmas Carol</a>” opens with a vivid description of the harsh physical and spiritual landscape into which Jesus was born: </p>
<p><em>In the bleak mid-winter,</em></p>
<p><em>Frosty wind made moan;</em></p>
<p><em>Earth stood hard as iron,</em></p>
<p><em>Water like a stone</em></p>
<p>But it failed to impress George Grove, the new editor of Macmillan’s Magazine at the time. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Christina-Rossetti/Humphries/p/book/9780415556132">According to</a> scholar Simon Humphries, in 1868 Rossetti sent “A Christmas Carol” to the British magazine, which had previously published her poetry. In what might now be regarded as one of the worst editorial decisions of the century, Grove rejected her submission.</p>
<p>Rossetti eventually placed “A Christmas Carol” in another British journal, The People’s Magazine, in December 1873. But as luck would have it, that was the very last issue, and the poem was relegated to half a page, sandwiched between an essay on “The Life and Habits of Wild Animals” and a now-forgotten poem titled “The Red Cross Knight.” “A Christmas Carol” was all but ignored in the U.K. for over a decade.</p>
<h2>The American reception</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, a very different scenario was playing out in the U.S. In November 1871, Scribner’s Monthly <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015035822348&view=1up&seq=251&q1=Rossetti">dropped a hint</a> about its Christmas issue, which would include a “little poem … sweet and clear and musical.” “A Christmas Carol” debuted two months later.</p>
<p>Founded in 1870, Scribner’s Monthly <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.425643/page/n527/mode/2up?q=scribner">sought to publish “the best authors</a>,” making their work accessible and attractive to a mass audience through illustrations. The magazine paired Rossetti’s poem with a striking half-page illustration of the nativity by the well-known British <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000010433476&view=1up&seq=291&q1=bleak%20mid-winter">illustrator John Leighton</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white page of a magazine shows a poem below an illustration of the Nativity." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501794/original/file-20221219-18-jsen55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A Christmas Carol’ by Christina Rossetti, as first published in Scribner’s Monthly
in January 1872.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:In_the_bleak_midwinter_1872.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scribner’s dramatic presentation of Rossetti’s poem ensured that it would be noticed. It was reprinted in anthologies and newspapers, ultimately making The New York Times <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/12/25/issue.html">on Dec. 25, 1892</a>.</p>
<p>The first mass merchandising of Rossetti’s poem also occurred in America. In 1880, an artist named Anne Morse incorporated its first and last stanzas into her prize-winning design for a <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/winning-design">Christmas card contest</a> held by publisher Louis Prang, <a href="https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/prang">who popularized</a> the tradition of sending Christmas cards in the U.S. The company published Morse’s card, distributing Rossetti’s words to homes across the country.</p>
<h2>A mystery solved</h2>
<p>By the mid-1880s, however, “A Christmas Carol” was finally gaining traction in Britain. In 1885, it was included in a holiday-themed anthology titled “<a href="https://archive.org/details/christmasgarland00bulluoft/page/n9/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater">A Christmas Garland</a>.” The Illustrated London News <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_illustrated-london-news_1885-01-03_86_2385/page/11/mode/1up">named Rosetti’s poem</a> the best modern carol in the collection. Even more visibility came when “A Christmas Carol” was chosen for <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T509AAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=palgrave%20%22treasury%20of%20sacred%20song%22&pg=PA272#v=onepage&q=Rossetti&f=false">a collection of religious poetry</a> compiled by <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781509888764">influential editor</a> Francis Palgrave in 1889.</p>
<p>In 2006, I discovered <a href="http://jprs.apps01.yorku.ca/journal/volume-15-spring-2006/">a letter in which Rossetti</a> claimed not to have known about Scribner’s publication of “A Christmas Carol”: “I do not know how it happened,” she wrote, remembering only that the poem had come out in The People’s Magazine. At the time, I was unable to locate “A Christmas Carol” in The People’s Magazine, and assumed Rossetti’s memory was faulty. It wasn’t, as the long-sought copy of the 1873 issue now perched on my desk proves. </p>
<p>But Rossetti’s forgetting about Scribner’s Monthly – unaware of the role it played in bringing her work to American readers, and ultimately British ones too – is perhaps the strangest twist in the story of the “little poem” that, unbeknownst to her, would become her most popular work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maura Ives does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is now a treasured Christmas classic, but it didn’t start life that way – not in the UK, at least.
Maura Ives, Professor of English, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195830
2022-12-05T14:01:27Z
2022-12-05T14:01:27Z
Why Britain should immediately withdraw from Mauritius’ Chagos Islands
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498697/original/file-20221202-12-ij0794.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators from the Chagos Islands protest for Britain to end its "illegal occupation".
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by JEAN MARC POCHE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain is on the cusp of decolonising Mauritius – again. The first attempt at decolonisation took place in 1968 but went unfulfilled when London kept hold of an island group that had long been regarded as Mauritian territory: the Chagos Archipelago.</p>
<p>In recent years, the international community has handed down a clear and consistent view that Britain’s occupation of the Chagos Islands is <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-ownership-of-the-chagos-islands-has-no-basis-mauritius-is-right-to-claim-them-177461">illegal</a>. Now, London and Port Louis are engaged in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/uk-agrees-to-negotiate-with-mauritius-over-handover-of-chagos-islands">talks</a> over the future of the islands – the final act, perhaps, in the decolonisation of Mauritius.</p>
<p>Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2022-11-03/hcws354">has suggested</a> that an agreement on the status of the Chagos Archipelago will come “by early next year”. </p>
<p>But what might a settlement look like?</p>
<p>The answer depends almost entirely on what can be agreed about the future of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos group. It’s the site of a critical US military base that Britain has dutifully hosted for the past 50 years.</p>
<h2>The American elephant</h2>
<p>It is hard to overstate the legal and political pressure that Britain faces to withdraw from the Chagos Islands. No fewer than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/uk-suffers-crushing-defeat-un-vote-chagos-islands">116 national governments</a>, the <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2019/ga12146.doc.htm">UN General Assembly</a>, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-mauritius/african-union-urges-britain-to-cede-chagos-islands-end-colonial-rule-idUSKBN1XW1GG">African Union</a> and the <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/icj-delivers-chagos-advisory-opinion-uk-loses-badly/">International Court of Justice</a> have called upon Britain to cease its occupation of the islands. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/un-court-rejects-uk-claim-to-chagos-islands-in-favour-of-mauritius">settled opinion</a> of the international community is that Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago belong to Mauritius, not the United Kingdom. This is not much of a grey area.</p>
<p>But complying with international law is a voluntary act. </p>
<p>For a long time, Britain’s policy was that the Chagos Islands would be returned to Mauritius when they were <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/questions-on-the-british-indian-ocean-territory-have-long-been-a-bilateral-matter-between-the-uk-and-mauritius#:%7E:text=When%20we%20no%20longer%20need,needed%20them%20for%20defence%20purposes.">no longer needed</a> “for defence purposes”. In his written statement to announce talks with Port Louis, Cleverly appeared to reaffirm this commitment by insisting that “any agreement between our two countries will ensure the continued effective operation” of the base on Diego Garcia.</p>
<p>The elephant in the room is that Britain does not now need – and, in fact, has never truly depended upon – the Chagos Archipelago for military purposes. Only a handful of British military personnel cycle through Diego Garcia. What, then, is London waiting for?</p>
<p>In reality, it is US forces that use the island of Diego Garcia as a logistics hub and staging post for military actions across the Indo-Pacific. As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are therefore mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis. </p>
<p>This is what will shape negotiations over the territory’s future.</p>
<h2>Difficult talks ahead</h2>
<p>Four scenarios stand out as realistic.</p>
<p>First, Britain could relinquish its claim to the Chagos Archipelago without delay, and with few or no strings attached. This would be the “cleanest” way to uphold London’s obligations to Mauritius under international law. It would then be up to Port Louis and Washington to decide upon the future of the base on Diego Garcia.</p>
<p>Second, London could suggest a <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/finding-compromise-chagos-islands-saga">staged approach</a> to decolonisation. The opening phase would see Britain return the so-called “Outer” Chagos Islands to Mauritius – that is, the 57 islands of the archipelago that have never been used for military purposes, which are scattered around 100 miles north and west of Diego Garcia. But in exchange, Port Louis would grant London temporary sovereignty over Diego Garcia (a rump British Indian Ocean Territory) so that the base there could continue its operations uninterrupted for a specified amount of time.</p>
<p>Another variant of this option would be for Britain to acknowledge Mauritian sovereignty over the entire Chagos Archipelago – including Diego Garcia – but negotiate to access rights for itself and the United States.</p>
<p>Finally, talks could break down altogether. This is a real possibility. Decision-makers in London are unlikely to agree to anything that Washington cannot support.</p>
<h2>The case for full decolonisation</h2>
<p>Strictly bilateral talks might not be the best way to resolve the Chagos dispute. The United States must be engaged in the process, too.</p>
<p>Indeed, finding a long-term agreement between Washington and Port Louis is complicated by Britain’s persistent attempts to serve as an intermediary. Colonialism and illegality are hard to accommodate in diplomatic accords, after all.</p>
<p>Britain ought to announce the full and unconditional decolonisation of the territory as a backdrop to Mauritius and the United States discussing the issues that concern the two of them: basing rights, a status of forces agreement, and support for a resettled Chagossian community, to name three.</p>
<p>America’s military is hosted by a diverse cast of national governments on every continent. Dealing with Mauritius should be no more difficult than negotiating with Australia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, or South Korea.</p>
<p>Either way, London has no constructive role to play in these discussions, which concern the territory’s future rather than its past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis.
Peter Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.