The Geographer: Navigation (Winter 2012)

The

Geographer Winter 2012 -13

The newsletter of the

Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Navigation

In This Edition...

from astrolabes to astronauts, and sextants to satnavs

•E xpert Views: Navigation at Sea and in Space

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

J R R Tolkien

•J ohn Blashford-Snell Explores in Nicaragua •S mell Maps and Smartphones •T ony Juniper on Ecosystem Services •E xpert View: Scottish Local Planning •R eader Offer: Travels in Scotland 1788 - 1881 plus other news, comments, books...

RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet

The

Geographer

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t is my custom to check second-hand and charity bookshops and buy, sometimes for myself, but increasingly for the Society,

books that will be suitable for browsing in the Explorers’ Room in the Fair Maid’s House.

My latest find was South by Northwest, by Granville Allen Mawer, which is about the early explorations of Antarctica in search of the Magnetic South Pole.

It was originally published in Australia in 2006, then published the same year by Birlinn in Edinburgh at £25 – I got it for £2 and it is in pristine condition.

But there is more. I have seen in the Society’s collections a sketch map of Antarctica showing Douglas Mawson’s route in search of the Magnetic South Pole and signed by the man himself. Our collections just keep on producing gems that have lain hidden for too long.

Interestingly, it was only in 1986 that Australian scientists finally ‘pinned down’ the location of the Magnetic South, but by that time the satellites had rendered its precise position almost superfluous.

Many of you will have seen the news reports of the recent flooding to affect Britain, and in particular, North Wales. I was struck by the distress of one young couple who had been assured that, even though their house was on a flood plain, there was no danger of it flooding. Such an incident brings home very clearly just why many members of the Society feel so strongly about geography and its part as essential learning for our future generations.

In conclusion, I must just pass on a comment made to me by a fellow trustee and professional geographer.

I commend it to you because it puts the work of the Society in a nutshell.“I regard the RSGS as the custodian of geography.”

On behalf of my fellow trustees, I wish all readers a healthy, happy and prosperous 2013.

Best regards, Barrie Brown, Chairman RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org

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avigation is one of those facets of daily life we tend to take for granted until we can’t do it any more. We all do it every day to some degree. Some better than others. But how?

Until recently, I thought a hippocampus was a university for large mammals, but of course it is the reason we can navigate, the part of the brain responsible for locational and short-term spatial memory. There is evidence that taxi drivers have larger hippocampi, and certainly the more you navigate the more expert you become, but is that simple learning?

To navigate – from the Latin navis (ship) and agere (to drive) – has come to define how we find our way round by any means of transport. It is about knowing where we are and how to get somewhere, and now it is also about how to control an increasing amount of traffic within a given space.

Our methods of navigation have changed as technology has changed, but how much is innate? How do some animals perform such remarkable feats of navigation without assistance, and what can we do naturally, using the clues in our environment? Once, a tribal leader on a visit to Scotland asked me which direction the moon rose, so he could get his bearings – I couldn’t tell him.

Our ancestors used the sun and stars to find their way about – even the word ‘Arctic’ derives from the Greek (arktos, bear), referring to the constellation containing the Pole Star. Then people developed astrolabes to help… then maps, sextants, chronometers, compasses, GPS… and now SatNavs and phone apps. How do they affect how we navigate?

And what happens when there is no north, no up or down? How do you find your way when sailing through the stars?

Navigation, natural or unnatural, innate or learned, is an invaluable tool of daily life. I hope you enjoy navigating your way through this edition of The Geographer.

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive

New Education Officer After a year on secondment from Perth & Kinross Council, we are delighted to report that the RSGS has been able to take on the employment of Dr Joyce Gilbert as our full-time Education Officer for the next three years, thanks to generous grants from The Gannochy Trust and The Robertson Trust, and continuing support from the Council.

Since joining us in October 2011, Joyce has been very busy developing resources, offering a range of professional development opportunities, hosting visits to the Fair Maid’s House, and running outreach programmes for both primary and secondary schools. Despite its infancy, our schools educational work is being recognised as dynamic and innovative, and as a result has been featured twice in the Times Educational Supplement Scotland (TESS), the latest making the front cover and stretching to four pages!

Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: © www.iStockphoto.com Masthead image: © Mike Robinson

RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet

The

Geographer

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NEWS People • Places • Planet Many more ‘Inspiring People’ to come As the first half of this season’s Inspiring People talks programme comes to a close, there are still plenty more fantastic speakers to come.

John Pilkington returns with the tale of his journey through Georgia to Afghanistan. Photographer Timothy Allen shares his stunning photos and stories from his time as the official photographer on the BBC’s Human Planet. Hilary Bradt, of Bradt Travel Guides, tells of her 1,000km horse ride around West Ireland, while Tessa Dunlop reveals the heart of another European country as she explores ‘Europe’s Wild Child’, Romania.

Sara Wheeler and Lewis Gordon Pugh will take audiences to colder climes.

Sara spent seven months in Antarctica as the writer-in-residence of the US National Science Foundation and has also spent time in the Arctic. Lewis took outdoor swimming to the extremes by pulling on his Speedos and becoming the first man to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean, including the Arctic.

We would like to remind all members to keep their membership cards to hand when attending talks. And please encourage friends and family to join the Society so that they too can enjoy these talks for free.

There are all these, plus many more, to look forward to in the New Year.

Lewis Gordon Pugh

Geddes Environment Medal In December, Mike and Karen Small, the couple who instigated the highly influential Fife Diet, were presented with the RSGS’s Geddes Environment Medal after their talk to an RSGS audience in Perth. The Fife Diet originated in 2007 when the couple, from Burntisland, decided to take their young family on a year-long experiment to see if they could live on food sourced from close to where they live. It has now grown to a network of over 4,000 people dedicated to eating more locally.

The Geddes Environment Medal is named after Patrick Geddes, a committee member of RSGS in the 1890s, and a radical thinker who coined many popular phrases, including “Think global, act local”.

Mike Small said, “Karen and I are delighted and honoured to be given this award. Patrick Geddes’s work continues to be an inspiration to many people because an approach which draws on the Scottish generalist tradition, that tries to see the world as a whole rather than in parts, will always have more impact. As we’re increasingly faced with more separation between land and people, this approach is needed more than ever.”

Fair Maid’s House – A

Volunteer’s Story

Being retired for a few years and not really hav ing a focus, when I saw volunteers for the Fai the request for r Maid’s House, I tho ugh t that might be an idea useful to do for the sum of something mer.

I didn’t know much abo ut RSGS, so went ont o the web to find out me even more intereste a bit more. That got d. I have always been interested in geograph the National Geograph y and maps, since ic magazine came in the post when I was qu the 1950s, and when ite a small child in it was a map month tha t was even more excitin was of the UK and you g, especially if it knew the places on it.

I cer tainly would not geographer, just an int cla ss myself as a erested person.

Travel has been a big par t of my life after bei ng widowed in my for I had to see a bit of the ties. I decided that world before I was too old to really enjoy the have been trips to the travel. Highlights west coast of America and Hawaii, the Canad recent visit to Singap ian Rockies, a ore and, with my work, a year on secondment to Oman.

So – a visit to speak to Fiona, and a voluntee rs information session, ready to go! and I was When we opened in Ap ril, it was still quite col d and sometimes sno Easter holidays and we wy, but it was the had a steady stream of visitors. Some visito look around on their rs want to just own. Others are quite happy for you to tell the displays. In the beginn m stories about the ing I don’t think my sto ries were very accura on with some more exp te, but after being erienced volunteers the y improved over time. out more all the time.

You keep finding There were times when it would have been nic visitors, but unless you e to have had more move the Concert Ha ll so as we can be see that can be changed. n, I am not sure how The photographic dis pla y during the summer busier and let people months made us experience the house as well. Lots of visito rs say they will be bac The highlights of volun k. teering are the people – the staff of RSGS, and of course the vis the other volunteers, itors. People really lov e to share their experi they live, where they ences with you – where have visited, and lots of times the fact that House in the past. Vis they knew the Fair Ma itors have come from id’s all over the world. On the group of young loc e amusing story was als who put their hea ds rou nd the door and asked come in. They went rou if they could nd and were asked to sign the visitors book. in amongst the “very The result was that, interesting” and the “ex cellent”, there is now which apparently me the comment “BEAST”, ans “very good” in you ng speak.

Will I do it again? Of course I will. Roll on April 2013. Will you join us?

Margaret

The Fair Maid’s House has been closed to the public over the winter to reopen it from ear ; the RSGS plans ly April – details of dat es and times will be poste org in March. If you are d on www.rsgs. interested in voluntee ring during 2013, ple Parker on 01738 4550 ase contact Fiona 50 or email fiona.parke r@rsgs.org.

NEWS People • Places • Planet Burn-Murdoch Globe Update Following receipt of a report from the globe restorer, Sylvia Sumira, which contained a detailed analysis of the globe’s physical state, the complex issues involved in restoring it, and the recommendations for undertaking this, the RSGS Collections Committee discussed the issues at their November meeting.

Another Award for Fair Maid’s House Page\Park, the architects behind the renovation of the RSGS’s visitor centre, have been awarded a Commendation for the project in the Glasgow Institute of Architects Design Awards.

Dr Livingstone, I presume?

A fascinating new exhibition celebrating the bicentenary of David Livingstone’s birth opened at the National Museum of Scotland in November. Dr Livingstone, I presume? brings a new focus to the man, the myth and his legacy. New research, the museum’s spectacular African collections, and a collection of Livingstone’s personal possessions, all help tell the story of the epic adventures and achievements that led to the rise of his celebrity in Victorian Britain.

The highlight of the exhibition is the chance to see some of the tools Livingstone used as an explorer, plus maps, sketches, photography and paintings from his travels.

The exhibition runs until Sunday 7th April 2013, and entry is free.

To celebrate Livingstone’s bicentenary, the RSGS is planning to run a special event with John BlashfordSnell in June 2013.

In November, we were notified of the death of Miss Mary Mackenzie of Peebles, who had been a Life Member of the RSGS since 1959. A seemingly tireless campaigner to the end, Miss Mackenzie was actively involved in a broad range of issues, including those of public interest and common good, and her contribution to the betterment of society will be missed.

Her legacy to the RSGS lies not just in her work. She kindly named the Society in her Will, with an unrestricted legacy of £4,000. This generous and open support will help us in our continuing endeavour to revitalise the RSGS as a vibrant, effective and professional organisation, delivering an imaginative programme of education and public engagement activities, and providing increased public access to a superb archive of geographical resources. We are most grateful to her.

If you would like to receive a copy of the RSGS’s leaflet about legacy giving, Continuing Geography, please contact us on 01738 455050 or enquiries@rsgs.org.

Mungo Park Medal Awarded to Jock Wishart Adventurer Jock Wishart was presented with the RSGS’s Mungo Park Medal at a ceremony in Glasgow in November, in recognition of his involvement in the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole.

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Given the state of the globe (longingrained dirt, three possible layers of varnish to be removed, and the inked-in initials or signatures of such celebrated explorers as Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and William Speirs Bruce to be protected), restoration work will be attempted in stages, with only the first stage – a surface clean – given the goahead initially. Depending on the results of this, the Committee will consider a further stage of repairing the wooden frame and associated metal fittings. A final stage – involving an in-depth clean – will only be undertaken if it is considered to be possible and worthwhile.

Miss Mackenzie’s Legacy

In 2011, Jock led a sixman crew on a journey of over 450 miles over Arctic waters to the site of the 1996 Magnetic North Pole. Jock’s team were true trailblazers, taking a route across waters that may never have been crossed by a vessel before. They also used the journey to highlight climate change, as rowing this route was only now possible due to the lowering levels of Arctic sea ice.

SNP and BBC in FMH The 2012 SNP Conference was held in Perth Concert Hall in October, making the Fair Maid’s House an ideal filming location for the week. Both First Minister Alex Salmond and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon were taken away from the hustle and bustle of the Concert Hall to be interviewed for BBC and Sky News by the fireside in the Explorers’ Room.

Alex Salmond was delighted to visit the Fair Maid’s House. He said “As well as giving me the chance to mention the Society during the interviews, it was also great to get a chance to look around the beautiful building, view the exhibits, and discuss both the current work of the Society and its fascinating history with Chief Executive Mike Robinson.”

Please join our email list We are building up our list of members’ email addresses, so that we can communicate

quickly and easily if, for example, we are organising a new event that we think you might find of interest. Thank you to those members who have provided us with email addresses. If you’d be happy for us to contact you by email, and you think we might not have your current email address, please just email us at enquiries@rsgs.org with your name and membership number. Thank you.

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NEWS People • Places • Planet Salt, Sun and Shivering

26thApril

The Scottish Local History Forum is organising a spring conference and local history mini-fair, at the Bay Hotel in Kinghorn on Friday 26th April. Entitled Salt, Sun and Shivering: Scots at the Seaside 1750-2000, the conference will look at how and why seaside resorts developed and declined, when they became a place for fun and holidays, and what the seaside experience was like for our ancestors. See www.slhf.org for details.

Bonnie map proves a hit A Jacobite map from the Society’s collection made a big stir when it was put on show in Perth for Doors Open Day in September.

The large 9-sheet printed map was drawn by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Captain of Artillery, James A Grante, and was published in French in Paris in 1748. Covering the British Isles and Northern France, the map shows all the stages in the Jacobite campaign.

Perth MSP Roseanna Cunningham viewed the map on 14th September, just a day before the anniversary of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arrival in Perth in 1745. She wrote about her visit in her column in the Strathspey Herald. The map also got some great coverage in The Scotsman and this, plus local press, encouraged a record 300 people to come out to see both the map and the Fair Maid’s House on Doors Open Day. Visitors included two ‘real-life’ Jacobites – on their way back from a re-enactment of the Battle of Prestonpans.

Good New Map Chests In October, Perth Common Good Fund generously helped fund the purchase of four new steel map chests. These have allowed the Society’s Collections Team to re-locate and redistribute a considerable portion of our foreign sheet maps into good, conservation-friendly storage.

John McCrone FRSGS John McCrone, Regeneration Manager at Perth & Kinross Council, has been awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Society. Mike Robinson, RSGS Chief Executive, said “There were many people in Perth who were instrumental in backing the RSGS move to what I hope is our home for at least the next 80 years. But speaking professionally and personally, I believe we owe a particular debt of thanks to John McCrone, who has been a real friend to the Society, by remaining supportive and helping problem-solve throughout.”

Life Under The Ice The Lake Ellsworth Project, described by Dr Neil Ross in his recent RSGS talks, has now begun.

In one of the most exciting and ambitious explorations of our time, a team of scientists and engineers is drilling through 3km of solid ice into one of over 360 subglacial Antarctic lakes, to search for life forms in the water and clues to past climate in the lake-bed sediments.

This Antarctic project began as another reported its findings. In early December, a pioneering study, co-authored by Dr Alison Murray and Dr Christian Fritsen of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute, revealed a viable community of bacteria surviving in a dark, salty and subfreezing environment beneath nearly 20m of ice in Lake Vida, one of Antarctica’s most isolated lakes.

Scottish Geodiversity Forum Conference Scotland’s geodiversity is interesting, exciting and relevant to everyone. This was the message at the Scottish Geodiversity Forum’s (SGF) inspirational conference held at SNH’s Battleby Centre in November 2012. SGF is rapidly establishing itself as a dynamic network which brings together people drawn from the arts and science to influence policy and practice.

The conference celebrated SGF’s considerable achievements in 2012, with some excellent presentations and a good range of workshops looking at practical examples of how we can work together to take Scotland’s Geodiversity Charter forward.

It concluded with a thought-provoking discussion on Earth Science education in schools.

See www.scottishgeodiversityforum.org for further information.

Voluntary Voices In addition to the many talks given to a host of external organisations by our Chief Executive, we are grateful to those volunteers who have taken talks about the history, collections and work of the RSGS out into their local areas. If anyone else would like to assist by offering to give talks to local groups, RSGS will provide a slide presentation. If you are interested in helping, please contact Fiona at HQ on 01738 455050.

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The Carbon Trust has taken the most detailed look yet into the most suitable locations to develop wave energy for the UK. The 4 findings, released in October, 14 show a ‘hot spotting’ of 3 13 locations with the best balance 2 of wave resource versus cost of exploitation. Sites on the 1 edge of the UK’s continental shelf, such as the edge of the Rockall Trough, some 100km from shore will be the most economically attractive to exploit in the coming years, and could 4 generate power some 50% cheaper than sites currently being developed.

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Based upon the Ordnance Survey Map with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. © Crown Copyright. 100001776

Change in ice sheet thickness per year in Greenland (upper) and Antarctica (lower). Dark red depicts a thinning of c50cm per year; purple depicts a thickening of c20cm per year. © Planetary Visions, DTU (Greenland), UCL (Antarctica)

Polar ice losses After two decades of satellite observations, an international team of experts brought together by ESA and NASA has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Greenland and Antarctica to date.

This study finds that the combined rate of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melting is increasing, and that it has added 11.1mm to global sea levels since 1992, amounting to c20% of all sea-level rise over the survey period. About two-thirds of the ice loss was from Greenland.

Saltire Society Award On St Andrew’s Night, Scotland: Mapping the Nation,

by Chris Fleet, Margaret Wilkes and Charles Withers, was announced as the Saltire Society’s Scottish Research Book of the Year, 2012. Our congratulations to the authors, all Fellows of the RSGS.

Professor Iain Stewart (broadcaster), in Edinburgh in March, in conjunction with the Open University; Piers Sellers (astronaut), in Perth on 25th April; Lord Norman Foster (architect), in Dundee on 30th May; John Blashford Snell (explorer), in June, to mark the bicentenary of African explorer David Livingstone.

We are also planning to mark Polar explorer John Rae’s bicentenary with a series of smaller events during 2013.

Please look out for notices on the website and in the media, or send us your email address and we will email you closer to the time.

Shackleton Epic In January, a crew of five British and Australian adventurers is joining expedition leader Tim Jarvis in an attempt to become the first to authentically re-enact Sir Ernest Shackleton’s perilous journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia, and the dangerous crossing of its mountainous interior.

Shackleton Epic Expedition Crew on the Alexandra Shackleton, with Tim Jarvis at front right.

In honour of Shackleton’s remarkable 800 nautical mile voyage across the Southern Ocean, widely regarded as one of the greatest feats of navigation ever, the Shackleton Epic expedition will sail Alexandra Shackleton (named for Sir Ernest’s granddaughter), a purpose-built exact replica of Shackleton’s James Caird, using only 1916 equipment.

During the expedition, crew on board the support vessel Australis will work with Shackleton Epic’s conservation partner, Fauna & Flora International, to collect data on ocean pH, sea surface temperature, air temperature, wind speed, wave height and iceberg incidence. “The irony is that Shackleton tried to save his men from Antarctica and we are now trying to save Antarctica from man,” said Jarvis.

See shackletonepic2013.com for more information.

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A new film, Chasing Ice, is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of climate change. Using time-lapse cameras, his videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.

The film, which has just been shortlisted for an Oscar, is on general release in the UK. See www.chasingice.com for more information.

We are in the process of organising a number of special events for 2013. At the time of going to print, details are to be confirmed, but provisionally we expect to have talks from:

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NEWS People • Places • Planet Love Cycling – Go Dutch Neil Mackinnon, RSGS Member In November 2012, Cycling Scotland and the Dutch Embassy presented the Love Cycling – Go Dutch conference in Edinburgh.

Looking to capitalise on the Bradley Wiggins effect, the conference’s focus was how cycling’s increase in the national conscience can be leveraged to create a step change in the perception of the bike as a mode of transport.

Holland is a leader in promoting the bicycle as a means of transport: 26% of all travelled kilometres are by bike. In Britain, the bike only accounted for 1% of vehicle kilometres travelled in 2009. In 1949, Britons travelled 24 billion kilometres by bike (33% of all vehicle travel). Weather is often cited as the reason Britons don’t travel by bike, but Holland has similar weather patterns and the low topography means head winds are common.

The Dutch started to curtail private

car use in the late 1970s, closing urban centres to cars in favour of cyclists and pedestrians. Retailers, initially against proposals, are now calling for further restrictions. It has been shown that travelling at ‘human-scale’ speed is good for local business: 12 cycles can park in one car space; cyclists shop more often and locally; and they see more.

While cycling in London has increased 110% since 2010, it has done so in spite of the road infrastructure: cyclists by and large share road space with vehicular traffic. The Dutch evidence shows that cycling levels increase more when cyclists and motorised traffic are segregated. The resulting benefits are significant: a healthier population, a stronger local economy, less traffic congestion, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

See www.cyclingscotland.org or www.dutchembassyuk.org for more information, or search for #ScotsGoDutch on Twitter.

Doha skyline. © Eljudie Cortez Photography

Doha Climate Talks End The latest round of UN climate change negotiations ended, in Doha, in early December, to little enthusiasm.

Most reporters reported disappointment, and a strong sense that they lacked any real collective leadership or ambition.

Responding to the conclusion of the talks, Tom Ballantine, Chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, said, “The outcome of these talks emphasises the importance of individual countries taking action to cut their emissions. During the conference in Doha, Paul Wheelhouse made a commitment to host a 2013 conference on climate justice in Scotland.

For this conference to be meaningful it must be set against a clear plan that will increase cuts in emissions from our roads and homes and ensure, having missed our first annual target, no future targets are missed. We still have a long way to go before we can say we are on track to fulfil the promise set down in our world leading legislation.”

Interested in an RSGS tour? We are planning two possible trips...

Sicily m P r ic e f r o

£760

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or

Fully guided tour including a camel ride into the Sahara Desert Guided walking tour of Marrakech Souk October 2013 Scottish Departure Airport Excludes UK Transfers Pr i ce from

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Morocco Organised by Rayburn Tours in association with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Please get in touch; ring 01738 455050 or email enquiries@rsgs.org and indicate the trip you would be most interested in.

RSGS Advert.indd 1

04/12/2012 14:00:13

Expert View: Natural Navigation

I visited Leptis Magna the other day. I didn’t really know how many Roman sites there are in Libya! Apparently it is the largest Roman site outside of Italy. Anyway we had it to ourselves basically.....the potential for tourism in this country is massive.

Nature’s Map and Compass James L Gould and Carol Grant Gould

“The birds infer latitude from the elevation of the North Star or… from the magnetic dip angle.

Humans, of course, can do none of this....”

James L Gould is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Carol Grant Gould is a science writer who has published widely. Together, the Goulds have written ten books, including the most recent, Nature’s Compass: The Mystery of Animal Navigation.

We may like to think of humans as navigational geniuses: our satellite-based GPS systems are accurate to about 3m, and provide a declination-corrected compass as well. Depending on one’s perspective, however, we are actually bumbling incompetents with no inborn sense of location or direction, condemned to walk in endless circles until we die of exhaustion. What is clear is that animals that must navigate accurately do so without any need for digital electronics, mechanical gadgets, or tables of solar movement.

Researchers in this field often divide navigational strategies into four categories.

The first, vector navigation, is common in migrating birds, which usually fly alone and at night. One population of garden warblers from northern Europe, for instance, flies southwest to the latitude of Spain and then turns southeast to subSaharan Africa. They judge direction from polarized-light patterns near dawn and dusk, from their imprinted memory of the constellations in the sky, and from an onboard magnetic compass. (Diurnal fliers use the sun’s azimuth instead of the stars, necessarily corrected for latitude and the time of year.) The birds infer latitude from the elevation of the North Star or, under overcast, from the magnetic dip angle.

Humans, of course, can do none of this without equipment and training.

The second strategy is inertial navigation (‘dead reckoning’). It too

requires a compass to judge the direction of each leg of the journey, but also a way of measuring the distance travelled along each vector (‘speed times interval’ in the case of human sailors), and an ability to perform the necessary trigonometry. Honey-bees show us how well this can be done. When they return to the hive, foragers draw miniature maps showing the location of outstanding food sources. Bees led 85m roughly WSW, then 75m south, then 85m approximately ESE (around a 12-story building) indicate the true trigonometric angle to within 5°, and actually underestimate the direct geometric distance by 5% (a few meters) despite having flown an indirect route more than twice as long. Tests of unaided humans regularly turn up errors of 45° and 35%. Our inability to judge time, speed, and direction accurately combine to create this sorry performance.

The third strategy, ‘true’ navigation, depends on a map sense. This animal GPS is inborn. A homing pigeon equipped with lenses that eliminate form vision, and taken 1,000km from home in sensory isolation to a novel location, can return to within 2km of home.

Adult sparrows intercepted in the midst of their 3,000km southerly autumn migration and flown (again in sensory isolation) 5,000km east will, when released, set course for their winter range 6,000km to the southwest. (Juveniles, undertaking their first trip, continue their southerly vector; as with homing pigeons, the map sense must

mature with experience.) The maps of sea turtles and lobsters (and, presumably, migrating birds as well) are based on the Earth’s magnetic field: probably the total intensity and dip angle.

Researchers can take animals, put them inside a coil system, dial in a set of magnetic values for a plausible location in any direction, and the creatures will adopt a heading to get back to their point of capture, unaware that they have never left.

The fourth strategy, piloting, is the one we are really good at.

This local-area system depends on mapping landmarks relative to one another in order to create a mental grid – a ‘cognitive map’.

We do this at many scales – home, grocery store, campus, town, and so on. Most of us have dozens of these navigational sketches in our minds. For a species with no built-in compass or map, this is an essential tool for finding our way around our group’s foraging area, getting home from trips out of the village to forage or hunt game.

A few species may be better at this than ours (Clark’s nutcracker can remember 10,000 locations), but not many. Again, however, the secret is in innate wiring.

Our remarkable piloting ability is the result of intense selection rather than general intelligence.

Whether we are talking of humans or hyenas, the maps are built and used in a special module in the hippocampus. What our cognitive prowess does permit, however, is the elaborate set of mechanical and digital ‘work-arounds’ that have allowed us to conquer darkness and distance despite our manifest deficiencies.

The

Geographer

Opinion: Natural Navigation

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Mapping the Brain Simon Garfield

In 2000, a young woman called Eleanor Maguire and a group of colleagues at University College London published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that got its readers thinking about an obscure and vaguely mythical qualification called The Knowledge. London cabbies knew it only too well as the fiendishly frustrating series of routes of ‘runs’ they needed to learn before they could earn their licence.

There used to be 400 runs to learn, and even though there are now only 320 (Run 4: Pages Walk SW4 to St Martin’s Theatre WC2, perhaps), it takes an average of two to three years to learn them.

Indeed, only about half of those who start on The Knowledge will stay the distance and get their badge (for as well as having to navigate some 25,000 streets, there are also about 20,000 ‘points of interest’ to memorise.)

Maguire is a cognitive neuroscientist, and thus concerned with how learned behaviour affects the structure, function and passageways of the brain. But there was also a personal reason for her interest in cab drivers and mental maps.

“I am absolutely appalling at finding my way around,” she explained. “I wondered, how are some people so good and I am so terrible? I still get lost in the Centre for Neuroimaging and I have been working here for 15 years.”

Her breakthrough paper – Navigation-Related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers – produced headlines around the world for its key finding: that London cabbies who had the A-Z in their brains had a significantly larger right posterior hippocampus (the part responsible for spatial awareness and memory) than those who hadn’t taken The Knowledge. This news was so handy, and perhaps surprising, for the Public Carriage Office, that they started using it in their recruitment ads, the best boost since the cab driver Fred Housego

won Mastermind in 1980. But the findings also provided hope to people unable to read a map or find their way around. Or, rather, to those who say they are unable to find their way around, like Eleanor Maguire. Her work suggested that the opposite was true: spatial awareness and erudition is not an inherited trait, but a learnt one. Anyone with regular brain capacity and without brain disease can follow a compass, read a map, remember a route, and find their way back to their car. Learning a lot of maps showed that the brain was malleable plastic.

In 2001, a year after Maguire’s research was published, a new study of two slides of Einstein’s brain showed something equally intriguing. Einstein had significantly larger neurons on the left side of his hippocampus than on the right – that is, the opposite side to cab drivers.

This suggested stronger nerve cell connections between the hippocampus and the neocortex, the part of the brain associated with analytical and innovative thinking, but no marked increase in cell growth on the part linked to the reinforcement of memory.

against that of London bus drivers. Again, only the cab drivers showed a significant enlargement in the right posterior hippocampus. The cab drivers also fared better than the bus drivers on memory tests on London landmarks (learned information), but less well on short-term recollection. This was reflected in the larger anterior hippocampus of bus drivers.

The implications of this work are great, and represent a potentially exciting advance in our understanding of spatial skills and memory. It opens doors to other areas, including the possibility of repairing memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s, dementia and brain injury through accident. That is to say, the new mapping gives us structural knowledge of the brain and also functional knowledge, the possibility of clinical treatment.

“It opens doors to other areas, including the possibility of repairing memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s.”

The methodology of the ‘plastic brain’ research did leave a few unanswered questions, however.

Only 16 cab drivers were used in the research – all male, right-handed, with a mean age of 44 and a mean cab-driving during of 14.3 years – and there was no way of being sure that they didn’t become cab drivers because they already had a larger hippocampus before they began driving, and thus a propensity to retain vast amounts of mapping information and a vocational urge to exploit it.

And so, buoyed by the initial enthusiasm towards her work, Maguire and her colleagues at UCL designed further studies.

In 2006, many of the doubts surrounding her initial survey were dispelled when she plotted the grey matter in the hippocampus of cab drivers

This article is extracted from Simon Garfield’s new book, On The Map – Why the World Looks the Way it Does.

Expert Views: Navigation at Sea

Early Navigation Instruments in Scotland Dr A D Morrison-Low, National Museums of Scotland

“...compasses and sandglasses were imported from Flanders to Leith as early as 1512.”

Replica of a mariner’s astrolabe, 1588, an instrument used to measure the sun’s altitude at noon to obtain the observer’s latitude.

All images © National Museums Scotland

and then in Mariners have Scotland’s university always depended upon knowledge towns rather than and skills to guide her ports – most their vessels safely, of the navigation and from ancient instruments must times this meant an have been acquired understanding of by mariners in weather patterns, foreign ports. the changing nature The invention of the of the sky at night, magnetic compass, the force and nature Mariner with mariner’s astrolabe and its introduction and cross staff from a painting in of the tides, and Burntisland Parish Church, Fife, c1600. to Mediterranean such natural hazards and Atlantic coast as rocks or shifting sandbanks. shipping, is obscure, but it seems From an early date, instruments to have been in use by the 12th evolved to assist the safe passage century. The earliest survival in the of boats between harbours. With British Isles was that found on the the frequency of cloudy nights wreck of the English Mary Rose, obscuring northern skies, which sank in the Solent in 1545. to say nothing of the Apparently, London instrumentsea-fog (‘haar’), the makers were producing small first navigation compasses for sundial compendia instruments to be and other land-based instruments used in waters off at this time. Pocket sundials with Scotland could coloured compass cards were not look often found during marine archaeological to the heavens work on the wrecks of the Dutch for reliable East Indiamen Lastdrager and guidance.

Kennemerland, lost in Shetland The instruments waters in 1652 and 1664. It has needed for making been conjectured that as these and using a rutter – would only work at the latitude for the earliest form of which they were designed (central sea-chart, complete Europe), they were probably a with coastal profiles and speculative and illegal venture directional instructions, as undertaken by a crew member for first compiled for Scottish waters by sale to Batavian natives. The earliest the 16th century mariner Alexander known mariner’s compass to survive Lindsay – would have been a is a Lisbon-made instrument dated magnetic compass (for directions), 1711: most Scottish examples date a sand-glass (for timings), a from the late 18th century. lead-and-line (for soundings), and Other instrumentation found on possibly a traverse board (to record wrecks in Scottish waters appears the ship’s distance and direction). to be almost entirely post-medieval, Unfortunately, early examples of including sounding leads, singlethese fairly basic instruments with handed chart dividers, and the a Scottish provenance have not altitude instruments developed survived, although later patterns of from the late 16th century: the rather more sophisticated devices cross-staff, the back-staff and the have been recorded. However, David quadrant (which evolved carvings on Scottish gravestones into the more widely-used octant). and other pictorial images go Even the astrolabe, or at any rate some way to demonstrate that its maritime derivative, does not such instruments were known to appear to have been developed until Scottish mariners at this time, 1480, with the earliest survivor presumably acquired on voyages dated 1540. The only example to the continent. The purchase known with a Scottish history may of marine instruments has been date from the mid 16th century, noted in early 16th century official but it was made in either Spain or records: for instance, compasses Portugal, and its use in Scottish and sand-glasses were imported waters can be dated only from the from Flanders to Leith as early 1680s. as 1512. Nevertheless, with no indigenous tradition of continuous instrument-making until the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment –

The sand-glass, which would measure time elapsed on board ship, was probably developed in

the western Mediterranean in the 13th century, and was mentioned for maritime use in Scottish official records as early as 1506, but once again there seem to be no early surviving Scottish examples, probably because of the item’s fragility. Examples found today in museum collections are usually later relics used in church to time the sermon.

The ship’s master could also use a traverse-board, on which he would peg or mark the distance and direction made in successive courses of each half-hour watch, thus keeping a rough estimate of the vessel’s journey. A late example of this device, probably of European origin, was found on Barra in 1844. Even so, these items are notoriously difficult to date, and most examples in public collections, lacking provenance, have been tentatively ascribed to the 19th century and continental origin. Perhaps the most interesting and attractive early maritime instrument in the collections at the National Museum of Scotland is a brass nocturnal, a device used in navigation to give a rough indication of the time, using the Pole Star and the Great Bear.

Dating from around 1620, this unsigned example has been ascribed to the workshop of the Flanders instrumentmaker Michiel Coignet (15491623), and is beautifully engraved with tide tables for harbours along the Flemish seabord – places then familiar to the Scottish mariner.

Brass nocturnal, Flemish, unsigned, but probably made by the workshop of Michiel Coignet, c1620.

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All at Sea Dr Andrew Cook

Navigation – literally navis + agere, to drive a ship – developed as a practical science from our early ventures into a medium in which we are instinctively uncertain.

Successful navigation meant setting out from land to find one’s way to other specified land, or home again, safely and reliably, and being able to repeat that voyage at will or to instruct others.

The most hazardous part of any voyage is approaching land, finding the safe route to chosen harbour or anchorage. Take away all the benefits of the modern mariner – GPS, radar, charts, chronometers, and above all the power of steam to force a vessel against wind and current to avoid danger – and the problems of safe sailing are plain.

In open ocean, mariners found their latitude daily by the observed altitude of the Pole Star, or of the sun at noon. Estimating longitude was a different matter. The ship’s compass gave the courses followed, and the hourly log could indicate speed. In the calculation of the ship’s new noon position (the ‘day’s work’), the estimated longitude resulted from the master’s deduced reckoning (‘dead reckoning’) of distances logged and courses steered, allowing for current and leeway.

Closer to shore, the lead-and-line gave soundings, and an indication of bottom quality (sand, mud, ooze, etc) from the specimens adhering to the tallow at the base of the lead when it struck the sea bottom.

Mariners in open ocean habitually sailed to the latitude of their destination, then ‘ran the latitude’ east or west until decreasing soundings brought them close to shore.

Early charts had limited value as an information source: they gave a sequence of known latitudes on a north-south coastline, and could indicate the latitude of a turning

point where a landmass ended (eg, the Cape of Good Hope). Without longitudes, they could serve only as one of the parameters of dead reckoning. East India Company requirements for regular repeatable trading voyages to India and China brought about many refinements in navigational practice: traversing the Atlantic north-south, turning the Cape of Good Hope, running latitudes in the ‘Roaring Forties’, turning direction, crossing or running with currents, deadreckoning daily positions.

Early Dutch attempts to set eastern and western limits on the optimum zone for sailing ships in the Atlantic to cross the Equator were hampered by mariners’ uncertainty over longitudes. Alexander Dalrymple, later Admiralty Hydrographer, proposed in the 1770s to use the newly-invented marine chronometer to record longitudes during north-south Atlantic passages, overcoming the obvious unreliability of a pendulum clock on board a moving ship. Fifteen degrees of longitude between two points equates to one hour’s difference in solar time: to carry departure-point solar time by chronometer on board ship allowed more accurate daily calculation of longitude at the noon observation for latitude. This shortened ocean transit times, and reduced the need for latitude sailing to approach coasts.

The capacity for increased accuracy in ships’ positions demanded commensurate accuracy in longitudes on charts. The Grosvenor East Indiaman, returning from India in 1781, wrecked on the south-east coast of Africa when the captain, reading his chart which placed the coast some degrees west of its true location, misinterpreted his night-time sighting of distant hilltop settlement fires as coastal fires. Dalrymple planned to publish a series of charts from southern Africa to China, fixing the longitude of each prominent point or island either by astronomical observation ashore or by reciprocal chronometer longitudes (carrying time from known points at east and west), and charting dangers as they

were identified.

Mariners, particularly under commercial time constraints, were averse to seeking out dangers at sea simply for the kudos of recording them. James Horsburgh, a mariner from Elie who was stranded on Diego Garcia after a shipwreck in 1786, and who was later a captain in the India-to-China trade, compiled in 1809 the India Directory, the standard navigation manual for the Indian Ocean and China Seas for much of the 19th century, which emphasised known safe routes for commercial traffic.

Francis Beaufort, later Admiralty Hydrographer, was a midshipman on The Vansittart, one of few East Indiamen sent out to investigate reported dangers en route to China, which wrecked in 1789, despite carrying chronometers, on the Indonesian shoal which it had been sent to survey.

The Dalrymple practice of recording all unfrequented areas as potentially hazardous until proved safe, resulted in countless vigias (supposed navigational dangers unverified by survey) appearing on charts before the hydrographic surveys instituted by Beaufort in the 19th century discounted many of them. The process is not complete: even today many unfrequented parts of the oceans are recorded as ‘unexamined’ or ‘incompletely surveyed’, with the existence of some dangers ‘doubtful’.

The Australian scientists who, in November 2012, proudly used GPS to sail over the co-ordinates of supposed ‘Sandy Island’ northwest of New Caledonia, much to the trepidation of their vessel’s captain, and to report 1,300m depth at that point, were continuing in a long tradition of oceanic navigators.

“In open ocean, mariners found their latitude daily by the observed altitude of the Pole Star, or of the sun at noon.

Estimating longitude was a different matter.”

Traverse board, used to plot a ship’s direction and distance, probably German, early 19th century.

Andrew Cook’s areas of bibliographic research include early Admiralty Charts and Pilot Books for all parts of world.

His PhD was on Scottish hydrographer, Alexander Dalrymple.

Off The Beaten Track

A Route Between the Seas Colonel John Blashford-Snell

“...exploring the lost Scots colony, I learned a transisthmian canal had almost been made elsewhere.”

El Castillo, San Juan River, Nicaragua

In 1698, five ships carrying 1,200 Scotsmen sailed from Leith for a little known natural harbour on Panama’s Atlantic Coast. Here an erratically brilliant Scot, William Paterson, aimed to set up a colony and eventually build a road across the Darien Isthmus to carry goods twixt the Atlantic and the Pacific. Sadly the scheme was a disaster.

The weather, disease, English opposition and the Spaniards defeated the colonists, and very few survived.

However, the idea of linking the oceans persisted and in 1972, when leading the first vehicle crossing of the complete Darien Gap from Panama to Colombia and exploring the lost Scots colony, I learned a transisthmian canal had almost been made elsewhere. Indeed, were it not for prevalent earthquakes and volcanoes, it would probably have been built in Nicaragua rather than Panama.

Some 400 miles northwest of the Panama Canal lies Lake Nicaragua, an enormous lake 45 miles wide and over 100 long.

This is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the Americas, and when the wind is blowing it can rise or fall several feet along its shores.

Stamp sent to Congress

Together with its smaller neighbour Lake Managua, this great body of water is drained eastward into the Caribbean and the Atlantic by the San Juan River, which flows for almost 120 miles through jungle covered banks along the border

with Costa Rica. However, Lake Nicaragua is actually much closer to the Pacific, at one point only 12 miles to the west.

As a result, Nicaragua suffered centuries of conflict with colonial powers, mercenaries and pirates struggling to dominate this potentially profitable path between the oceans.

The Spanish had colonised the land in 1523, using Rio San Juan as a trade route. Unfortunately for the people of the prosperous city of Granada on the western shore of the lake, the pirate Henry Morgan navigated the river and its rapids in canoes, and in 1665 crossed the lake to sack their city.

In the 17th century, the Spanish built an impressive fortress to guard the river. In 1780, El Castillo was captured by a British expedition that included the young Captain Horatio Nelson but, driven out by malaria, the invaders eventually abandoned the unhealthy site.

In the 18th century and possibly before, engineers realised that this vast lake, only cut off from the Pacific by a narrow strip of land, and joined to the Atlantic by a river navigable over much of its length, offered a possible interocean route.

Thus a canal across Nicaragua was proposed. Engineer studies were made and most favoured Nicaragua as the best route.

Meanwhile Ferdinand de Lesseps, famous for his success at Suez, had started work in Panama.

Experienced engineers advised this determined man against his plan for a sea-level canal, but regardless he pressed on with obsessive vigour. However, yellow fever and malaria killed thousands of workers, there were insurmountable construction problems, and financial mismanagement finally forced his French company into bankruptcy in 1889.

The Nicaraguan alternative had influential support in the United States but de Lesseps and his colleagues, eager to dispose of their land holdings in Panama, lobbied the US Congress to take on the unfinished job. Then in

1902 Mont Pelée erupted in Martinique. The death of 30,000 shook the Americans, and an enterprising member of the French marketing team sent every member of Congress a Nicaraguan stamp bearing the picture of an erupting volcano.

Reminded of the danger of a geological catastrophe, Congress voted for the canal in Panama and bought out the failed company.

Nevertheless the Nicaraguans still pray that one day they will have a waterway to shorten the seaway between the east and west coast of America and able to carry huge vessels that cannot navigate the Panama Canal today.

But was there a way through long before?

The famous globe and wall chart made by the foremost German cosmographer Waldseemüller in 1507 shows a gap between North and South America. The Pacific coast of America is strikingly drawn on his chart, which was published before the Spanish explorer Núñez de Balboa discovered the Pacific in 1513.

Clearly a navigator had been there.

Maps and globes by astronomer and geographer Johannes Schöner published in 1515 and 1520, and maps by 18th century British hydrographers, erroneously show a channel that would enable boats to pass between the oceans.

Furthermore, Chinese DNA and artefacts have been found in Central America, and local history tells of a Chinese presence and Chinese wrecks have been identified.

Author Gavin Menzies, the retired Royal Navy submarine commander, whose bestsellers 1421 and 1434 tell of 15th century Chinese global exploration, believes there was a much earlier link between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Thus, with Gavin’s support and the backing of the Scientific Exploration Society, I set up a recce expedition to look into the possibilities.

Our five-strong team of explorers and archaeologists, equipped

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with GPS, altimeters and magnetic anomaly surveying rods (other words for dowsing), set off in January 2010. Moving by vehicle and on foot through the hills and jungle filled riverbeds, we checked the possible routes for a link. Several areas were found where rivers flowing east to Lake Nicaragua and west to the Pacific rose within a few hundred yards of each other.

One headwater site between two rivers which we dowsed, indicated possible walls of an infilled canal. At another site in the almost dry river bed of the upper reaches of the Rio Ochomogo, a strange artefact (60 x 90cm) carved from volcanic rock was discovered, and this has yet to be identified. We also learned that Caribbean bull sharks come up the Rio San Juan, jumping like salmon up the rapids, and adapt to the freshwater, but this does not seem to have affected the local tourist trade. Our altimeters showed the lake is 32 metres above sea level, and the lowest point between the lake and the Pacific some 44-47 metres above sea level.

Thus a canal would have needed locks, but the Chinese were brilliant engineers.

We moved freely around the country where the Civil War of 1972-79 is still fresh in local memory. Well armed security guards at several haciendas turned us away, and in one village a demented old woman waving a long machete, accompanied by a group of angry people, came for us, striking our vehicle.

Apparently she thought we were Americans seeking to seize her land. Fortunately we had a Union Jack with which to calm down the old lady. Apart from a few dents to our Toyota, there were no casualties.

However, the great breakthrough came when we met 35-year-old Mariano Hernandez who, between 2005 and 2009, had made three journeys by water from the centre of the isthmus to Lake Nicaragua for fishing. He and his brother used a ten-foot homemade canoe in which they had at least one capsize. On reaching the lake, they were badly frightened by a six-foot bull shark, but returned home with their catch. Later, Mariano canoed westward for much of the way to the Pacific. He and other villagers pointed out that this was possible during the MayOctober wet season, when a large area of flat land is inundated, becoming a shallow lake joining up the rivers and streams.

There was clear evidence of the flooding.

There were numerous artefacts that had an oriental appearance in the Granada Museum, and on our return Cedric Bell, an engineer surveyor who has become an authority on ancient canals, found indications in our photographs of what may prove to be early locks and canalisation.

Much more exploration must be done to confirm this. However, I believe the cartographers of

the 15th to 17th centuries, who showed a channel at around 12°N, were acting on information from the indigenous people who told them of a way through in the wet season, and thus they put it on their maps. But who was there in the 15th century to talk to the Indians? If Gavin Menzies is right, it could have been the Chinese.

Perhaps it was not surprising that on my last day in Granada I was invited to address a party of Chinese entrepreneurs! Perhaps William Paterson should have founded his colony in Nicaragua.

We also learned that a local farmer had once shipped his cattle by bamboo raft down the Rio Brito into the Pacific then along the coast to sell them for a good price in an ocean port.

WET SEASON

DRY SEASON

“Our altimeters showed the lake is 32 metres above sea level, and the lowest point between the lake and the Pacific some 4447 metres above sea level. Thus a canal would have needed locks, but the Chinese were brilliant engineers.”

On The Map

Smell Maps of Scottish Cities Kate McLean

“My ultimate aim is to resensitise us to our sense of smell as a means of experiencing new urban environments.”

Since 2010, I have created and exhibited ‘smell maps’ of cities worldwide. Two of these cities are Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This is an ongoing research project into smell mapping as an alternative way of experiencing our urban environments. The resulting maps are portraits of the city in question, revealing as much about the history, the culture and meteorology as about the urban architecture and businesses.

Approach to mapping Maps have the capacity to recreate a sense of place – a little like reading the guide book when you have returned home, or opening a bottle of wine bought in a foreign market. I found that maps as a visual device have the capacity to recreate a threedimensional physical landscape in memory. Just as the Ordnance Survey is a two-dimensional representation of landscape, so smell maps can become twodimensional representations of our multi-dimensional smellscape.

Concept Smell and memory are directly linked. The first time that you smell a scent you will recall it forever. I wondered what it

Perfume Fast food outlets Wet moss Building dust Diesel fumes Carbolic soap Lorne (square) sausage Hot bovril at the footy River Clyde at low tide Subway

would be like to use individual perception of smell as a marketing tool for tourism in cities, by inducting the visitor into sniffing possible smells they may encounter during their visit, thereby encouraging them to be sensitised to smell as they experience the city.

As I investigated smell, I discovered that smells have stories. If I can encourage people to use their nose when in a new environment, there is every possibility that they will recall that place by the new smells they detect. Smell memory is strong – we have 100% recall of smells after one year, whereas we have 30% visual memory after three months.

Glasgow’s scents reflect the pride of its citizens, their ability to renew, regenerate and reinvent themselves and their buildings. Some scents illustrate the culture and geography of the city. The large dots represent the source of the smell and the smaller dots show their range and intensity. Glasgow’s prevailing south-westerly wind causes the smells to mingle and drift across the city.

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Smells of Auld Reekie on a very breezy day in 2011

Sea, sand, beach Brewery malt fumes Vaults & underground streets Boys toilets in primary schools Fish & chip shops Penguins at the zoo Cherry blossom Newly-cut grass Auld Reekie emits a plethora of scents and smells; some particular

From theory into practice The smell map creation involves several stages, and is a constantly evolving methodology: 1 initial questioning of local population as to which smells make up their city’s smellscape; 2 collation of smells into a ‘long list’; 3 survey of popular opinion as to which smells best represent the city; 4 artist selection of nine or ten smells to include, based on data responses and also which smells have good stories/narratives; 5 creation of visuals representing a) the source of

the smell, b) the range, c) how the smells are likely to drift based on prevailing winds;

to Edinburgh, some ubiquitous city aromas. It is the smell combination and how they are distributed by the

6 recreation of the smells into individual bottles;

prevailing south-westerly winds that

7 exhibition of map and smells.

dots indicate the point of origin of

My ultimate aim is to re-sensitise us to our sense of smell as a means of experiencing new urban environments. If you would like to participate in future projects, or want to suggest cites you think would create great smell maps, then please contact me by e-mail on mcleankate@mac.com or via Twitter on @katemclean – see www.sensorymaps.com for more information.

the scents, the contour lines show

make them city-specific. Coloured

where they blow in the wind.

Coffee

Opinions: Navigational Equipment

Satellite of Love?

Mike Parker

“An insurance company estimated that satnav errors are causing an annual £200 million of damage to vehicles alone.”

There’s little to make my heart sink faster than, on getting into someone else’s car, spying a satnav system on their dashboard. I know then that the forthcoming journey will be punctuated by monotonous electronic nagging, against the backdrop of a residual, lowlevel stress that occasionally flares up into a pathetic tussle between man and machine.

I have tried to like satnavs. As a fully paid-up cartophile, I was quietly intrigued by the idea of moving maps in the car, and even looking forward Mike Parker, who to having one. Then I met one for spoke to RSGS real, and the appeal evaporated audiences in October, in seconds. I soon realised, is the author of Map however, that I was firmly in the Addict and The Wild minority. Until very recently, the Rover; see www. satnav was the fastest-adopted mikeparker.org.uk for piece of new gadgetry in British more information. history (smartphones, complete with their own GPS devices, have just outstripped them). Paper maps and road atlases were jettisoned with gusto, as millions took to their TomToms and headed for the hills. Which is great, unless they only wanted to go to Tesco.

For that was the first problem (and for refuseniks like me, a delicious source of drip-drip schadenfreude).

Cars, lorries and especially delivery trucks were getting wedged in medieval gatehouses, plunged into rivers, stuck in muddy farmyards and

left teetering on cliff edges as drivers preferred to trust a fifty quid gizmo from Halfords over the evidence of their own two eyes. An insurance company estimated that satnav errors are causing an annual £200 million of damage to vehicles alone.

Darker suspicions lurked too.

What were these machines doing to any sense of our own topography?

You could, after all, drive from Aberdeen to Aberdare and barely notice where you’d passed through, for a satnav boils down the infinite variety of our landscape into a grey nothing: the next mile of traffic lights, speed cameras, gyratorys and petrol stations. And worse, as an employee of Google Maps put it to me, “Power fails. Technology fails. And it’s all in the hands of the US military.”

And so it is; for now, at least.

The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is not a generic term, as many suppose; it is the name of the American-built, military-run system through which almost all of our digital mapping currently comes. It was fully operational by 1994, but only allowed into the civilian sphere in 2000. This gave birth to the commercial satnav, but the tight leash on which the Pentagon keeps GPS has meant that other satellite systems, from Russia, China and the EU, are in development. The EU version, named Galileo, has seen costs spiral and European harmony tested to its limits; it will not be fully functional until at least 2019. In stark contrast to the American GPS however, Galileo is

an avowedly civilian project, open to all, a fact that already has the US government grumbling.

None of this makes me warm much to the satnav, though I’m pleased to say that perhaps one of my fears was somewhat exaggerated. The explosion in digital cartography has meant that few people get through a day now without looking at a map or two. They might not be the lavish atlases or lovely Ordnance Surveys that you or I would generally choose to look at, but this upsurge in easy familiarity with cartography has to be a good thing. Perhaps thanks to this, our sense of topographic context has not suffered as much as I feared; indeed, for the majority of people, it may well have improved.

A couple of years ago, I did a series for Radio 4 called On the Map, and wanted to test my cold (and, if I’m honest, snobbish) certainty that satnav devotees drive through a limbo landscape, knowing little of where they were en route, and caring even less.

The series producer and I spent a chilly winter’s afternoon at a service station on the M40 in Oxfordshire, pouncing on new arrivals and asking them to mark, on a blank outline map of Britain, where we were. The punters had come from all over the country (a disproportionate number were heading south from Scotland), but almost everyone was able to do it to a remarkable degree of accuracy. I was surprised and extremely impressed – though obviously not enough to go and buy a satnav myself. That will take a conversion to rival St Paul’s.

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GPS, Smartphones & Traditional Navigation Chris Townsend

Handheld GPS units have been around since the late 1990s, which means there is a whole generation of young people who have always had these available for navigation and so for whom they are not ‘new’ or ‘different’. Much more recently mobile phones and now tablets have become available with GPS capability exactly the same as standalone GPS units. These too will rapidly become the norm for upcoming generations.

Ever since its introduction GPS has been controversial, with traditionalists blaming it for people getting lost and emphasising its drawbacks.

Handheld GPS units having become fairly standard with many people, the same criticisms are now directed at smartphones. In both cases I think the criticisms are unfounded. GPS is a tool and like any tool it has to be used correctly. If you don’t know what to do with it, GPS can get you lost. But then so can a compass.

The key is education, not blaming the tools.

The first GPS units simply gave a grid reference that you could plot on a map to see where you were.

Routes could also be recorded and followed, though they consisted of nothing more than a series of grid references, called waypoints, linked by a single line. GPS, then, had to be used with a paper map. Now, however, many GPS units have colour maps that show your position so there’s no need to refer to a separate map. Apps are available for downloading maps to smartphones too. For hillwalking and outdoor use it’s important that these are the right maps.

Road maps, often supplied with smartphones, are useless and the main cause of people getting

lost in the hills when trying to navigate with a phone. This is not the fault of the smartphone. It’s the equivalent of taking an AA Road Map into the hills. You’d get lost with that too. Whether it’s a paper map or a digital one, it needs to be a proper topographic map from the Ordnance Survey or Harveys.

a replacement for a map and compass though, but rather an additional option. And as I said at the outset, you do need to know how to use it. Just having it is not enough.

Even with the correct mapping, GPS units and smartphones do have disadvantages that need taking into account. These are screen size and battery life. Small screens mean you can only see a small portion of the map at any one time. This is fine for finding your location but not so useful in planning a route or identifying features more than a short distance away. For this reason I always carry a paper map.

Battery life varies from 5-6 hours to 20+ hours depending on the unit. That’s with it switched on all the time of course. One way to save batteries is to only switch the device on when you need to see your location. Used that way, a set of batteries can last many days. It is always wise to carry spare batteries though, or some means of charging the unit.

As well as showing your location on a map, which means you can quickly see where you are whenever you’re unsure, a big advantage of GPS is for navigating in poor visibility. If you set a destination, the GPS will always point to it while you are moving regardless of where you are. Unlike a compass, you don’t have to reset it if you’ve moved off your course to avoid an obstacle. In fact, a GPS will show both the direction you are headed and the direction to your destination, along with the estimated time of arrival, and will constantly update these.

This applies to both standalone GPS units and smartphones and tablets, as long as the latter two have the right software.

I find that using GPS makes navigation much easier in difficult conditions, so it’s now something I always have with me. It’s not

“If you don’t know what to do with it, GPS can get you lost. But then so can a compass.”

Chris Townsend is an outdoor writer and photographer with a passion for wilderness and mountains.

See www.christownsendoutdoors.com for his blog and more information.

Opinions: Recreational Navigation

Geocaching Graham Ellis, Edinburgh Walker

Did you know there’s an aqueduct in the Pentland Hills Regional Park near Edinburgh?

Or a karst cave on Scotland’s northernmost coastline?

“Geocaching could be described as a hightech treasure hunt.”

If you’re a Geocacher, you can easily find such unexpected places.

Geocaching could be described as a high-tech treasure hunt. It started in 2000 almost by accident when the US Government significantly improved the Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) accuracy for public (rather than military) use. The first cache was placed in some woods in Oregon, and its longitude and latitude posted on the Internet. As this generated quite a bit of interest, and other caches started being hidden, a small group got together to create the Geocaching.com website. I was able to visit the location of the first Geocache a couple of years ago, as it has now become a Geocachers’ ‘must visit’ place if in the vicinity.

Scotland’s first cache was placed halfway up Ben More in December 2000.

A Geocache is usually a container which varies in size from a ‘nano’ (smaller than a 5p coin) to a ‘large’, which can be a five gallon (25l) drum or larger!

The container is concealed by a registered Geocacher in a location somewhere out of view.

Once hidden, the exact latitude and longitude of the Geocache, together with a description, are recorded on the website, so it can be located by Geocachers using their GPS receiver. The finder then signs the logbook in the cache to prove they have been there, and they log the find on the website when they return home.

The only essential equipment you need to find a Geocache is a GPS receiver. Many smart phones also have the GPS receiver capabilities built in and, combined with the Geocaching website, it’s easy to use the Geocaching app to locate the cache (as long as there’s 3G in the area). Sometimes outdoor gear is required, and occasionally special equipment (like a torch, or a boat).

There are now more than five million Geocachers around the world, who have placed nearly two million Geocaches. If you place a Geocache, you need to live near enough to be able to maintain it, for example if the logbook needs replacing or if water leaks in, so no placing one when abroad! I have found caches with the logbook frozen solid due to water leaks, and it is not unusual to find snails and slugs in residence.

There are special variants of Geocaches too. One type is an ‘Earthcache’. These have no container, but rather have a specific scientific or geological feature to discover, along with some questions to answer to qualify for the cache to be logged as found. The karst cave (Smoo Cave) is one of these, of which there are over 100 in Scotland.

Another is a mimetolith on the A9 at Slochd Summit.

Some Geocachers like the challenge of being first to find a cache, or to find as many as possible, but for me it is about getting out and discovering new places, or getting some fresh air!

Whenever I go on holiday, one of the first things I do is to see what Geocaches are in the area.

As people with local knowledge place them, they often take you to some interesting places. My wife and I were staying with friends near Dingwall, and

we decided to introduce them to Geocaching. We took them to a Geocache at Black Rock Gorge near Evanton, which is an incredible deep and narrow gorge that has been featured in of one of the Harry Potter films.

It was only a few miles away from where they lived, but they never knew of its existence before!

Now some tourist organisations have embraced the technology by placing caches along a trail for you to follow places of interest.

Although Geocaching can sound like a solitary pastime, there are often events organised where we get together. Sometimes it can be a walk in the country, or a clean up of a beach or river (referred to as cache in, trash out), or perhaps just meeting up in a pub. In 2010, a MEGA event (an event with more than 500 participants) was organised in Perth. Over 1,300 people from around the world came together for several days of Geocaching activities as a part of the city’s 800th year celebrations – a fantastic opportunity to meet other Geocachers and to get to know Perth better.

Geocachers can be any age from small children who enjoy the hidden treasure element, to those of more advanced years who enjoy the incentive to get out and about and to learn about new things. It is a very family-friendly activity, and there has been at least one Geocaching marriage in Scotland.

Come and join us!

The

Geographer

16-17

Winter 2012 -13

I’ve Been Everywhere... Man! Bill Taylor

The words of the Johnny Cash song were not exactly ringing in my ears when, in 1989, a conversation sowed the seeds of what is possibly a unique claim.

I’ve been everywhere... well in Scotland at least.

A friend had just finished the Munroes and Corbetts but he had never been to Orkney or Shetland. This got me thinking.

How would you work out if you had been everywhere in Scotland? Time to get out the old blue ¼ inch maps which were clearly overlain by the network of 10km grid squares. Was this the answer? Divide the country into a grid! Done already! Check how many had been visited so far (as of 1989)... c75%, this needed a conscious memory of a visit to count. Why not visit the rest?

First rule – no uninhabited rocks like Sula Sgeir and Rockall. Second rule – each square inhabited or attached to inhabited land (at MHWS) had to be visited. No flying over or sailing through, but some kind of contact with the ground... car, bus, train or on foot. My game, my rules! And how many are there... well, using my criteria there are 1,080.

Pre-idea trips had knocked off some difficult ones: early family holidays to Colonsay took in the north end at Balnahard; an Aberdeen Geography Department field trip visited the Clo Mhor cliffs at Cape Wrath; helping Alastair Dawson survey the raised beaches knocked off much of west Jura; and a summer warden job on Rum for NCC got the

seriously remote west end of the island. Through the 90s, when work and family allowed, visits were made down obscure B and C class roads. Walks to remote headlands were undertaken, and detours made when I should have been taking a more direct route.

By the early 00s I had just over 100 left.

By Christmas 2011, I thought I had 36 left, and my sister suggested I should finish them before my 60th at the end of July. For three months, I had some great visits to obscure and remote bits of this fine country. Six days in Shetland in the April gales brought a haul of 16, including Fair Isle (four) and Foula (two)... one of the highlights of the whole adventure.

I had deliberately left one near to home in Easter Ross to be my last square but, as with all longrunning sagas, there had to be a sting in the tail!

The OS helped with a query about a square off the south end of Islay. Was there any land in NR33 that fitted my rules... yes, 40m x 10m, so this had to be visited!

A friend caught the bug and diligently challenged me about many an obscure square. This revealed one on the west of Lewis which I had missed, so this became my second last... but it wasn’t over yet... a final check

found a wee bit of Ayrshire coast near Irvine and, two days before the last one, a 460 mile round trip was necessary to complete the real second last. A bunch of friends and family came from all over to be with me and to celebrate at the Last Square Party (NH97!).

Was it worth it? Absolutely! Do it again? Probably not! What it did do was make me realise what an incredibly diverse country Scotland is for its size, and how accessible it is. Could this be done in England, Wales or Ireland with different access legislation... who knows, but it would sure need lots of permission. Have I been everywhere? No, but how else would you decide… 1km squares… mmmmm! Now that would be crazy.

“What it did do was make me realise what an incredibly diverse country Scotland is for its size, and how accessible it is.“

Images, from top to bottom: Ethie Haven, south end of Lunan Bay. Rhins of Galloway.

Sanday, Orkney.

Bill Taylor on his second last square.

Expert View: Navigation in Space

Longitude Challenges of the Apollo Moon Landings Pat Norris

The space age came face to face with the longitude challenge under dramatic circumstances 44 years ago.

Pat Norris was manager of Apollo navigation at TRW Systems in Houston from 1967 to 1970.

He received the Apollo Individual Achievement Award from Neil Armstrong in August 1969 for his work on the geodetic co-ordinates of the NASA stations.

When Apollo 8 lifted off from Cape Kennedy on 21st December 1968, it was set to carry men outside the influence of the Earth’s gravitational field for the first time.

Tracking stations around the world sent measurements to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, to be used in navigating the craft to its target 400,000km away. Most of the measurements were in the form of the Doppler shift induced into a precise radio signal by Apollo 8’s speed away from the Earth. A few stations also recorded the line-of-sight range to the craft, using modulated radio signals.

It became clear that data from the stations in Hawaii, Guam and the Canary Islands were anomalous. These stations were all on isolated islands and, by implication, the only other such station, on Ascension Island, was also suspect, even though its data appeared nominal.

“With one fell swoop, therefore, nearly half of NASA’s tracking resources were eliminated.”

Earthrise – another Apollo 8 first. © NASA Langley Research Center (NASALaRC)

Measuring the geodetic coordinates of the isolated island stations was not easy. There was no GPS system in 1968, so determination of geodetic coordinates was based on classical astronomical techniques and on the US Navy’s Transit system.

This latter provided co-ordinates accurate to about 15 metres anywhere in the world, but there was some evidence that its values of longitude were inconsistent with longitude obtained by other methods.

The other NASA tracking stations were essentially tied to geodetic co-ordinates used by the three Deep Space Network stations operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, Spain and Australia. These in turn had been determined by tracking the Mariner probes to Venus and Mars, the Pioneer heliosphere explorers, and the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter unmanned moon flights, and so, unlike Transit, the co-ordinates were based on astronomical references.

The anomalous measurements from Canary, Hawaii and Guam

were consistent with geodetic errors of up to 300 metres, which would translate into a 20km error in the position of a spacecraft near the moon. Apollo 8 was due to enter a 110km altitude orbit above the moon, so the possibility of errors of this magnitude caused considerable concern.

The decision was taken to exclude data from the island stations from all further Apollo 8 trajectory calculations. With one fell swoop, therefore, nearly half of NASA’s tracking resources were eliminated. The remaining stations were considered adequate, but contained virtually no contingency capability in the event of further problems at the stations.

The loss of the Ascension Island station was particularly severe, as it was the only southern hemisphere station in the network outside Australia. A wide spread of stations, both north-south and east-west, was needed to provide the best determination of Apollo 8’s position.

stations.

The ‘quick fix’ approach of sending a US Navy Transit station to the sites was initiated by the team officially responsible for such matters – at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Surveys at Guam and Hawaii using a portable Transit station were completed just after the Apollo 8 mission, reducing the large Guam error considerably but still leaving a 120m anomaly, while actually increasing the error at Hawaii to 100m.

While the US Navy Transit values were related to ‘the line on the ground’ at Greenwich, in contrast the values produced by my team in Houston were related to a JPL co-ordinate system in which the longitude reference was derived from the first point of Aries in the JPL solar system ephemeris.

As a result of this exercise, a new set of results accurate to about 15m were available for the second lunar flight, Apollo 10, in May 1969 – the last chance to test the results in a realistic way before the historic first landing mission in July.

The approach to getting accurate longitude values that we took in Houston was to process data from the two unmanned lunar missions for which tracking data from the full NASA network had been collected, Lunar Orbiters 4 and 5, and from Apollo 8 itself (both outbound and inbound) explicitly computing not only the spacecraft trajectory, but also ground station latitude and longitude for all but the JPL master stations (California, Apollo 8 hoisted onto the recovery ship USS Yorktown following Spain, Australia).

splashdown on 27 December 1968. © NASA Marshall Space Flight

Hawaii, Ascension Center (NASA-MSFC) and Guam were found to be 80m, 90m and 310m in error, respectively. For Canary it was impossible with the available data to decide whether its co-ordinates were in error by about 130m or whether it suffered from a frequency synchronisation problem – it had been possible to distinguish between these two error sources for the other

FURTHER READING Norris P: Flight Mechanics Issues Encountered on the First Apollo Lunar Landing Mission: a 25th Anniversary Retrospective, presented at the AAS/ AIAA Spaceflight Mechanics Meeting, Cocoa Beach, FL, February 1994

The

Geographer

Inside the RSGS

18-19

Winter 2012 -13

Putting Scotland on the Map: The World of John Bartholomew and Son Karla Baker, Bartholomew Archive Curator, National Library of Scotland draughting to copperplate engraving to printing. They knew their subject inside-out, which not only gave the firm a competitive edge, but resulted in the family becoming influential in the wider world too.

Bartholomew’s connection to the RSGS is perhaps the best example of this.

The histories of these two great institutions interweave all the way back to the very beginnings of the RSGS. John George Bartholomew was one of the Society’s key founder members and, somewhat astonishingly, he was only 24 at the time. Copies of some of John George’s RSGS papers are on display in the exhibition, including the very striking ticket he designed for the Society’s inaugural speech, in 1884.

Alex Williamson, one of Bartholomew’s draughtsmen, mid to late 1950s.

The National Library of Scotland’s winter exhibition celebrates one of Scotland’s most influential cartographic firms, John Bartholomew and Son Limited.

Told through unique manuscript maps, rare antiquarian maps and atlases, oral history recordings, photographs and some of the handmade tools from the Bartholomew Archive, this exhibition brings Bartholomew’s Duncan Street premises back to life as it explores how Bartholomew produced their world-famous maps.

John Bartholomew and Son was an Edinburgh-based map-making firm with a prestigious heritage. From 1826 until 1995, their maps and atlases were a prominent feature in the map-user’s landscape. From major cartographic tours de force such as The Times Survey Atlas of the World (1922) to scores of school atlases, road maps, touring and wall maps, Bartholomew embraced and promoted accessible cartography that was at once both user-friendly and also rigorous.

As was noted in an article in The Scotsman in 1956, “in the Geographical Institute… 150 men and women produce maps of the world for the world”.

The firm’s ethos was heavily influenced by the Bartholomew family. There were six generations associated with the business: George Bartholomew (1784-1871); John Senior (1805-61); John Junior (1831-93); John George (18601920); John ‘Ian’ (1890-1962); and John Christopher (1923-2008), Peter (1924-87) and Robert (born 1927). These men were skilled cartographers in their own right, with specialisms ranging from

Yet this exhibition is not only concerned with the extraordinary lives of the Bartholomew family.

Behind the scenes, hundreds of loyal and skilled craftsmen and women devoted their lives to the intricate processes involved in bringing Bartholomew’s maps to life. The skill of this work can sometimes be hidden by the throwaway nature of maps and atlases.

always occupied a prominent role in the firm. The colourist department was staffed exclusively by women, and other departments, including editorial and printing, had female staff too. The firm also employed many children, typically as draughting or engraving apprentices, who took up their posts at 13 or 14 years old.

Scotland until 7th

May 2013. National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge,

Bartholomew’s maps passed through various stages before the finished product was ready for dispatch. The stages can be boiled down to the essentials of draughting, engraving, lithographic writing and colouring, and finally printing. For the majority of the firm’s history, Bartholomew’s maps were compiled, drawn and engraved by hand. The maps could include up to eight separate colours – and many more shades – and at one time, they were printed one colour at a time. As a result, the length of apprenticeships at Bartholomew could match the time taken to train as a doctor.

Although map-making was an industrial process, Bartholomew’s workforce was more varied than we might imagine. Women had

John George Bartholomew (1860-1920), co-founder of

John Bartholomew and Son the RSGS, c1900. produced well-loved maps for every occasion.

Bartholomew’s printed output was extremely varied, but it was united by an underlying ethos that promoted quality, beauty and, above all, integrity. For these reasons, Bartholomew focused the eyes of the world on Women hanging and varnishing maps, c1960. Bartholomew Scotland as performed all elements of map production in-house. a centre of Putting Scotland on map-making excellence. The firm the Map: The World pushed the boundaries of what of John Bartholomew was possible and, in so doing, they and Son is on at the have left a legacy that endures to National Library of this day.

Edinburgh, EH1 1EW, Tel 0131 623 3700, Website www.nls.uk

An original watercolour painting of Bartholomew advertising, c1930s. The artist, J G Rennie, was prominent in one of the external studios Bartholomew commissioned to produce these posters, and was favoured by Bartholomew.

A manuscript members ticket to the (R)SGS’s inaugural address, 1884.

Designed and drawn by John George, it indicates the extent of his role in setting up the Society.

All images © permission of Collins Bartholomew

Expert View: Planning

The Rhetoric and Reality of Public Participation in Scottish Local Planning

Professor Michael Pacione MA PhD DSc FRSGS The countryside around many of Scotland’s towns is under increasing pressure for development as a result of a centrifugal movement of population from urban core areas. The resulting search for housing land is a major source of conflict between the opposing forces of private profit, in the form of developers, and public interest, represented by local communities. The role of the planning system is to mediate this conflict.

It is important to acknowledge, however, that the local planning system operates under constraints set by a national planning framework, national planning policy, planning circulars issued by central government, and regional strategic plans.

“Scottish planning policy emphasises the importance of public participation.”

This article is based on a research project on public participation and planning in the metropolitan fringe undertaken by the author. Professor Pacione is currently Chair of Geography at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Scottish planning policy emphasises the importance of public participation. In practice, there are varying degrees of ‘participation’, ranging from manipulation (in effect nonparticipation), to informing and consultation (that can represent degrees of tokenism), to partnership, delegated power and citizen control (degrees of real citizen power). Public participation under the current Scottish planning system is most akin to consultation and, as evidence from my own research indicates, participating in a consultation process is not the same as having influence. There is in effect a major dichotomy between the rhetoric of public participation in local planning and the reality of local plan making in many urban fringe areas of Scotland.

The main problem undermining the effectiveness of current public participation strategies in promoting the goals of local democracy arises from the centralisation of the power of decision making over local development matters. Prior to the reorganisation of Scottish planning in 2006, the balance of power in decisions over release of

land for development lay with the local authorities who were able to decide whether or not to adhere to the recommendations of the Reporter. Under the post-2006 system, this power to determine local land use issues has shifted from elected local councils to a non-elected government-appointed Reporter whose decisions are binding on the local authority and against which local residents, in contrast to developers, have no right of appeal.

The current imbalance of power between local communities and central government reflects divergent views on the role and value of public participation in planning. If one believes that local politics is essentially about service delivery, then public participation is primarily an information input to a managerial concept of politics. If, on the other hand, one believes that local politics incorporates opportunities for local communities to seek improvements in local conditions through a process that often involves an element of conflict, then this managerial interpretation of public participation becomes problematic.

With the political concern for efficiency, and the government’s belief that the cost of delay in decision making is a brake on the economy, some planning professionals and most developers regard public participation as an additional element in planning decision making rather than a key priority. Such attitudes are revealed in the ascription of dismissive labels to opponents of development, as ‘NIMBYs’ or ‘the usual suspects’, as a means of de-legitimising the views being espoused and defusing opposition. As my research indicates, this can lead to feelings of powerlessness, anger and frustration among local residents.

A further problem with existing

mechanisms for public participation in Scottish planning concerns the inequality of resources among stakeholders.

Community councils, the statutory bodies able to voice local views to planners, enjoy limited funding particularly in comparison with the resources available to developers. There is often also a disparity in expertise. The planning system is a complex process involving legal, bureaucratic, technical and political elements. Developers with a financial interest in having a development proposal approved can afford to employ experts to work on their behalf, whereas local communities tend to rely on any expertise available from within their ranks.

In addition, there may be unequal access to information and lack of transparency in the planning consultation process.

Developers and public authorities often engage in detailed negotiations and discussions (for example, on housing land supply) that are not open to or shared with the wider public.

The principle of natural justice (a duty to act fairly and without bias) requires that no party has privileged access to a decision maker. Perceived inequality of the relationship between planners and developers and planning officials and local residents can give rise to a degree of cynicism about the planning process and people’s power to influence it.

Finally, a major source of dissatisfaction for local communities is that, having expended considerable time and energy in a battle against unwanted development, under the current planning system the developer is able to submit repeated applications for the same land, to the effect that for local people the process can seem endless.

The

Geographer

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Notwithstanding the Scottish Government’s stated commitment to public participation in planning, my research suggests that current processes are not working sufficiently to enhance local democracy. If the goal is to enhance public influence in local planning, serious consideration needs to be afforded to different strategies, including revitalised community councils; introduction of third party rights of appeal to level the playing field for developers and local residents; extension of the principle of community land ownership, allied in some cases with use of compulsory purchase to transfer land to local ownership; and reappraisal of the current right of developers to submit almost continuous planning applications to develop land in contravention of an adopted local plan and the expressed interests of local politicians and communities.

The ‘modernisation’ of planning in Scotland and centralisation of the power of decision making under the post-2006 system means that a decision viewed as economically and socially acceptable and sustainable at a national level may produce an opposite evaluation on the ground at the local scale.

My research identified major dissatisfaction with the way in which the planning consultation process played out and, in particular, with the overarching conditioning power of central government to set the rules of engagement and, in so doing, to exert a dominant influence on outcomes that impact most heavily on local communities.

It is clear that while the structure of the planning system may encourage oppositional participation, planning policy and government support for particular interests may make successful opposition increasingly difficult. In the specific context of residential development in the green belt it may be observed that, given the Scottish Government’s support for national economic growth and their view of the house-building industry as a key mechanism for

growth, this tips the balance of power in favour of pro-growth interests over local community interests. If so, this violates the principles of citizenship, local democracy and subsidiarity that underlie effective public participation in planning.

To date, progress towards a more participatory form of local planning has been thwarted by a variety of factors. Some of these relate to genuine concerns over the ability of local communities to accept and manage the responsibility that accompanies the political rights of citizenship; over whether departures from centrally determined performance standards can be accommodated; and the need for a higher authority to adjudicate between conflicts at the lower level. However, it may also be argued that the major obstacles have been institutionalised resistance from professionals, bureaucrats, planners, and politicians. Furthermore, as the evidence of failed attempts to introduce third party rights of appeal in Scotland have indicated, there appears to be a favoured bi-partisan relationship between state and capital that has served to marginalise local citizens from decisions regarding the development of their communities.

There is no single model for the restructuring of local decision making in pursuit of local democracy. Such a re-ordering of the power relationships in society and empowerment of local communities through devolution of decision making in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity can only be approached by a fundamental re-examination of the current emphasis on procedural efficiency in Scottish planning, and implementation of more radical approaches that provide meaningful local community engagement with decision making that advances beyond ‘degrees of tokenism’ towards ‘degrees of citizen power’. That the case for more radical strategies will not be advanced without lengthy

“...there appears to be a favoured bi-partisan relationship between state and capital that has served to marginalise local citizens from decisions regarding the development of their communities.”

political debate underlines the political nature of local planning and the fundamental importance of the balance of power in local plan decision making. In theory, the current processes of consultation on a new National Planning Framework and a proposed Community Engagement and Renewal Bill affords the government an opportunity to close the gap between the rhetoric and reality of public participation in Scottish local planning – whether this particular thistle is grasped remains to be seen. It is paradoxical, however, that at a time when the Scottish Government is seeking the greater powers of decision making over future development that come with independence, there appears to be a reluctance to afford the same rights to local communities within Scotland.

RSGS Education

Great Barrier Reef – Live!

Huge resident Maori Wrasse on Agincourt 2 Reef. © Lynton Burger / Catlin Seaview Survey Diver at Cod Hole, on Ribbon Reef 10, with resident Potato Cods. © Jayne Jenkins / Catlin Seaview Survey

On a wet and windy November morning, the Higher Managing Environmental Resources and Advanced Higher Biology classes of Perth High School were transported to warmer climes, as they took part in a live Skype chat with researchers on the Great Barrier Reef off the north-east coast of Australia. Pupils spoke with a marine biologist and a geographer who were aboard their research vessel some 15,000km

Stories in the Land While much of the educational programme in 2012 has focused on Perth & Kinross, Joyce Gilbert aims to expand the reach of RSGS in 2013 by working with schools and communities in Speyside, Lochaber and Orkney. Her first big project, Stories in the Land, will explore part of Scotland’s cultural heritage that is based in the landscape, helping pupils, teachers and communities in the Highlands to become collectors, creators and tellers of old and new stories inspired by the epic journeys of the Scottish drovers, and providing excellent opportunities to develop principles that foster strong connections with natural and cultural heritage, and play an important role in local and global citizenship.

Stories in the Land has been made possible thanks to additional funding provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Ernest Cook Trust. We are very grateful to all the funders for their commitment to our educational work.

Dr Joyce Gilbert, RSGS Education Officer, is currently developing an exciting programme of educational projects and activities for schools.

away; they learned about some adventurous dives, some cuttingedge research, and the findings so far. Amongst other observations, the researchers reported evidence of coral bleaching on the reef and a close encounter with tiger sharks earlier that day! Pupils also got a virtual tour of the boat, a great insight into life aboard a research ship.

The internet link-up was organised

by the company Digital Explorer through RSGS Education Officer Joyce Gilbert. Perth High Geography/Geology teacher Rachel Hay said, “It was really exciting (and quite surreal) to be able to bring a scientific expedition on the other side of the world into the classroom, and help pupils to understand how the material they study in class relates to the ‘realworld’.”

Days of Danger Clandestine individuals spotted at various venues in Perth, and mysteriously digging by torchlight on the North Inch, were in fact a group of teachers taking part in an unusual CPD session. The ‘Mini Day of Danger’ training session was run one late October evening by the RSGS with the Creative Learning Network and Visible Fictions Theatre Company.

Participants, given very little information beforehand, found themselves taking part in an elaborate role play as local historians and geographers tasked with protecting a valuable antique map from treasure hunters who wanted to steal it from the RSGS’s archive in the Fair Maid’s House. Many of the participants will meet regularly over the next few months to plan a similar but extended ‘Day of Danger’ for pupils.

RSGS Education Officer Joyce Gilbert said “We were delighted to use our recently ‘rediscovered’ Jacobite map as an exciting stimulus for this event. While everyone had great fun and thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of the evening, they also recognised opportunities for working in different, open-ended and more creative ways with pupils to enhance their learning experiences.”

The Jacobite map is just one example of many resources available to educators and pupils from the RSGS’s extensive collection of maps and artefacts.

The

Erica Caldwell The option choice sheet, a feature of the secondary school year, has always presented interesting issues for pupils and parents.

Who really makes the choice? The pupil? Their friends? Parents or guardians? Teachers? But here is a new factor... the school’s or region’s interpretation of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).

The traditional time for choosing subjects has been S2, but with CfE some schools will be running three years of general education, with subjects for further study not chosen till S3, as Standard Grade and Intermediate exams are replaced by National 4 and 5. Furthermore, pupils may have a more restricted choice of five or six subjects, instead of the current seven or eight. However, again this picture varies across Scotland!

Pupils may also have experienced an integrated social subjects course where the discrete subjects of Geography, History and Modern Studies are interwoven, making the choice even more confusing. They may, therefore, need even more help.

So this is certainly the time to think – why choose Geography?

For those of us who love the subject, the answer is easy.

Geography opens your eyes to all aspects of our landscape and environment. It provides the skills to knowledgeably discuss and provide reasoned views on issues which affect our daily lives and our planet. It is dynamic and keeps pace with constantly changing local and global issues.

Geography is a natural focus for fieldwork and addresses the importance of Outdoor Learning as highlighted in CfE. It is increasingly important in the digital world where GIS links maps with data in many different layers.

There are many good reasons why young people should be encouraged to navigate their way towards Geography. We all have a responsibility to ensure we help them realise what a valuable, interesting, worthwhile and up-todate subject it is… a genuine skill for life.

University of Aberdeen Rhind Lecturer and European Academician Professor Kevin Edwards has become the second geographer to deliver the prestigious Rhind Lectures at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with On the windy edge of nothing: Vikings in the North Atlantic world – ecological and social journeys. ‘The Rhinds’, a series of six lectures delivered annually on a subject pertaining to history or archaeology, have been running since 1874 under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Professor Edwards has also been elected to membership of the Academia Europaea, an international, non-governmental association of scientists and scholars from all disciplines, who are experts and leaders in their own subject areas as recognised by their peers.

These honours have been bestowed in recognition of Professor Edwards’ interdisciplinary contributions to Geography, Palaeoecology, Quaternary Science and Archaeology. Asked to comment, he said that he was “delighted to see recognition for Geography from other disciplines – after all, we have great contributions to make and great stories to tell!”

Open University Geography Sponsors Hugging the Coast The OU’s Department of Geography has contributed funds towards the Hugging the Coast project, a research expedition that was awarded the 2012 RGS-IBG Neville Shulman Challenge Award. Led

by OpenSpace affiliate member Dr Johanna Wadsley and Dr Duika Burges Watson of Durham University, the team is formed of six women who are paddling the 320km-length volcanic Sangihe Archipelago, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The team is visiting island communities at the centre of the Coral Triangle to meet women who farm seaweed, a vital source of income and an increasingly

important ‘climate smart’ agricultural product across the Coral Triangle: most of the seaweed currently ends up as an invisible ingredient in Western processed food. Its potential role in carbon sequestration, in tree-less paper production, and as a biofuel, makes it a globally significant product in climate change adaptation.

Material generated through Hugging the Coast will contribute to the OU’s ten-year environmental change diary project Creative Climate, and a new environment module currently in production.

University of St Andrews The Big Society, Localism and Housing Policy The Centre for Housing Research at the University of St Andrews has launched the website for its new seminar series, The Big Society, Localism and Housing Policy. Funded by the Economic & Social Research Council, events will explore the impact of the coalition government’s localist ‘Big Society’ agenda on housing policy across the UK. Localism aims to shift decision-making downwards and empower local people to solve their own problems. However, in an era of restrained public spending, questions can be raised as to whether this may widen existing housing inequalities. Drawing on expertise from the Universities of St Andrews, Sheffield, Cardiff, and Queens University Belfast, the twoday interdisciplinary workshops will bring together perspectives from academia, policy and practice.

22-23

Winter 2012 -13

University News

Navigating the Option Choice Sheet – Why Choose Geography?

Geographer

See www.bigsocietylocalismhousing. co.uk for details, follow @ housingseminars on Twitter, or or email Dr Kim McKee (km410@ st-andrews.ac.uk), the Principal Investigator, for more information.

Scottish Geographical Journal

The RSGS’s academic journal is available from Taylor & Francis on-line at www.tandf.co.uk/ journals/RSGJ or in hard copy. All RSGS members are entitled to receive the Scottish Geographical Journal for free. If you are not currently receiving the SGJ but would like to, please contact us by emailing enquiries@rsgs.org or phoning 01738 455050.

Making Connections

RSGS Medals 2013 – Call for Nominations The RSGS’s prestigious Medals and Awards allow us to recognise outstanding contributions to geographical exploration and learning.

We are now inviting nominations for the RSGS Medals 2013. The categories are: Scottish Geographical Medal, the highest accolade, for conspicuous merit and a performance of world-wide repute.

Coppock Research Medal, the highest research-specific award, for an outstanding contribution to geographical knowledge through research and publication.

Livingstone Medal, for outstanding service of a humanitarian nature with a clear geographical dimension.

Mungo Park Medal, for an outstanding contribution to geographical knowledge through exploration or adventure in potentially hazardous physical or social environments.

Shackleton Medal, for leadership and citizenship in a geographical field.

Geddes Environment Medal, for an outstanding contribution to conservation of the built or natural environment and the development of sustainability.

Tivy Education Medal, for exemplary, outstanding and inspirational teaching, educational policy or work in formal and informal educational arenas.

Bartholomew Globe, for excellence in the assembly, delivery or application of geographical information through cartography, GIS and related techniques.

President’s Medal, to recognise achievement and celebrate the impact of geographers’ work on wider society.

Newbigin Prize, for an outstanding contribution to the Society’s Journal or other publication.

To nominate someone for an award, please send details, including a brief explanation (up to 250 words) of why your nominee(s) should be considered, by email to enquiries@rsgs.org, or by post to RSGS HQ in Perth. Nominations should be marked for the attention of the Chief Executive, and should arrive by the end of February 2013.

Nominations by the end of February 2013.

What Geography Means To Me

An insight into the life of a working geographer

Wendy Campbell

GIS Data Manager Natural Power

S

ince life is short and the world is wide, the sooner you start exploring the better.” (Simon Raven, The Spectator, 1968).

This is my belief and how I justify having more holidays than anyone else I know - it’s hard work being a geographer, but someone’s got to do it!

I’ve always had a burning desire to explore the world, I have had a lifelong obsession with maps, and geography was the only subject I really liked at school.

It’s therefore not surprising that I graduated with a BA Honours in Geography from Strathclyde University, before completing an MSc in GIS at Edinburgh University, preparing me for a career in digital mapping.

Geography is an allencompassing subject and can mean different things to different people, but to me geography is all about maps.

The distinct advantage of studying geography is you’re not pigeon-holed into a set career path or specific industry sector, although there are opportunities to specialise, like I have in GIS. I have worked for a wide range of employers, including a local authority, a water company, a fire and rescue service, and both a developer and now a consultant in the renewable energy sector, helping to develop onshore and offshore windfarms as well as wave and tidal projects.

What all these companies require is the need to simplify often complex analysis and landscapes into a clear graphic representation, in the form of

a map. In my current role, I use GIS to enable the company to make well-informed decisions about the suitability of developments and potential constraints, allowing our clients to effectively target resources.

GIS also allows us to analyse and answer ‘what if’ scenarios, and provides an efficient way to manage the large amounts of data we have, creating a robust evidence base for decisions being made.

It became clear to me some time ago that being a geographer isn’t a nine-tofive job. I continually assess the world from a spatial point of view, which allows me to indulge my passion and love for maps, personally as well as professionally. I say it’s ‘hard’ work but I wouldn’t change it for the world!

The

Geographer

Opinion: Ecosystem Services

24-25

Winter 2012 -13

What has Nature ever done for us?

Tony Juniper

For millennia, the natural world has inspired music, art and literature and been the deepest well of scientific discovery. More recently, the natural world has also been appreciated for the role it plays in development. A stark and simple reality has become more and more evident: without ecology there can be no economy.

The range of economic benefits that flow from natural systems includes the replenishment of soil fertility, the recharge of freshwater supplies, flood protection, pest control, the productivity of fish stocks, disease prevention, the production of food, fuel and fibre, carbon capture and storage, pollination, and the promotion of public health.

While all this is at one level all rather self-evident, it is remarkable how economic decisions often reflect a different view of the world, with ecology and economics seen as choices, rather than two sides of the same coin. This is all the more surprising considering how different attempts to quantify the economic value of natural systems have generated some big numbers.

One study estimated that natural ‘services’ are worth each year about double global gross domestic product. Most of the ecosystems that supply these services continue to be degraded and destroyed, however. This is in large part caused by a fundamental flaw in how the value of nature is seen in mainstream economics, especially because of the confusion that has emerged between stocks and flows.

When making an investment in stocks, a periodic flow of dividends is expected as the stake in a profit-making company earns investors returns. The stock remains intact and is expected to supply dividends indefinitely.

When it comes to nature, however, we liquidate stock, seen for example in deforestation, species extinction, collapsing fish stocks and soil erosion, and then count the depletion of stock as a flow of profit and growth.

The scale of this error is underlined by the reaction when a similar approach is applied in mainstream finance. A recent famous case arose with the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. This multi-billion dollar fraud rested on Madoff convincing investors to place money in funds that he ran. But instead of paying out dividends derived from profits gained through judicious investment decisions, he paid them from the stock of capital.

The only way this could continue beyond the very short term was through misleading new investors to place more funds in the scheme, which they did.

The whole thing was doomed, however, as the payout of dividends couldn’t keep pace with the rate at which stock was being liquidated. In 2009, Madoff’s scheme collapsed, and when it did his investors lost billions of dollars. Madoff was tried, convicted and sentenced to 150 years in prison. The business leaders, finance ministers and economists who work to liquidate the stock of nature so as to provide a temporary flow of ‘dividends’ that sustain ‘growth’,

are, by contrast, celebrated and lauded.

The planet-scale Ponzi that temporarily underpins the global economy is doomed to ultimate collapse as well, if we fail to take the steps necessary to conserve and sustain the stock of natural systems that provide the flow of services that enable development. How best to do this is not without controversy.

For example, some argue that if economic values are assigned to different natural assets this might enable different interest groups (such as companies in natural resource sectors) to capture those values for their own gain through what is described as a ‘privatization of nature’.

The economic value of nature, and how to protect it, is the subject matter of my new book, What has Nature ever done for us?, in which I take readers on journeys that I hope will better explain why nature is so vital from an economic and development point of view. I look at some of the examples of where natural systems are being valued in an economic sense and how this can transform outcomes for the better.

For me it is not a question of whether we value nature in an economic sense, or in moral, aesthetic and spiritual terms.

We need to value nature in all these ways. If we did that, then we might increase our chance of building a truly sustainable economy.

“For me it is not a question of whether we value nature in an economic sense, or in moral, aesthetic and spiritual terms. We need to value nature in all these ways.”

Book Club

Dramatic Images of Our Changing Planet Various contributors (Collins, September 2012) Immense forces of nature and the side-effects of human progress are changing the face of the planet at a staggering rate. Documenting these changes is Collins Fragile Earth, an eye-opening anthology which shows just how dramatically, and how fast, the planet is changing. This second edition, published in September 2012, has two-thirds new content compared to the 2006 first edition.

The events depicted highlight how human impact and natural disasters have disturbed the lives of individuals and whole communities, as well as vital ecosystems. Pictures show landscapes changing over decades, months or just days. Dramatic photography is complemented by satellite images, maps, graphs, statistics, and contributions from world-leading authorities on the environmental issues discussed.

Scottish Sea Kayaking Fifty Great Sea Kayak Voyages Doug Cooper & George Reid (Pesda Press, January 2005) This guidebook for sea kayakers wishing to explore Scotland’s amazing coastline and magical islands brings together a selection of fifty great sea voyages, around mainland Scotland from the Mull of Galloway to St Abb’s Head, and in the Western Isles, ranging from day trips to three day journeys.

Illustrated throughout with superb colour photographs and useful maps, it is a practical guide to planning trips, with essential information on where to start and finish, distances, times and tides. The book does much to stimulate and inform our interest in the environment we are passing through, with facts and anecdotes about local history, geology, scenery, seabirds and sea mammals, providing inspiration for future voyages and a souvenir of journeys undertaken.

Echoes of a Vanished World A Traveller’s Lifetime in Pictures Robin Hanbury-Tenison (Garage Press, 2012) In the summer of 1957, Robin HanburyTenison, one of our greatest explorers, set out on an adventure to make the first overland drive from London to Ceylon in a battered WWII Jeep, which gave up in Colombo. During the journey he wandered through Persia, Afghanistan and India. Thereafter he travelled by cargo boat, through Indo-China to Borneo, and worked his passage across the Pacific.

He has returned to Borneo many times since.

A founder of Survival International, Robin has been a tireless champion of tribal peoples’ rights. In the early years of his travels, he was a reluctant photographer of their homelands as they were eroded by the modern world; he preferred to look, listen and try to understand. This book (see www.robinsbooks.co.uk) arose from an exploration of Robin’s personal archive of photographs and diaries, collected over some 50 years. An associated photographic exhibition includes artefacts from Robin’s collection, to be sold in aid of Survival International.

R eader Offer - save 25% Offer ends 31st March 2013

Travels in Scotland, 1788-1881 A Selection from Contemporary Tourist Journals edited by Alastair J Durie (Scottish History Society, Boydell and Brewer, May 2012) These journals from early ‘tourists’ in Scotland provide a vivid record of the joys (and otherwise) of travel. Tourist travelling changed remarkably between 1780 and 1880, and the six accounts collected here help us to see how and why. Whether by a well-off and intrepid lady, a self-important youth, a young man and his parents, or an overweight middle-aged lawyer, what they have in common is a relish for the pleasures of discovery, of holiday-making, of finding a Scotland for themselves.

A general preface by the editor sets these pieces in their historical and social context, and a selection of photographs and sketches drawn from two of the accounts complements these hitherto unpublished visitors’ narratives.

Readers of The Geographer can purchase Travels in Scotland, 1788-1881 for only £18.75 (RRP £25.00); p&p per book is £3.00 (UK), £6.50 (mainland Europe), £10.00 (outside Europe). To order, phone 01394 610600, fax 01394 610316, email trading@boydell.co.uk, or visit www. boydellandbrewer.com. Please quote the reference ‘12291’.

You can help us to make connections between people, places & the planet by joining the RSGS. Please contact us at Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU, or visit www.rsgs.org Charity no SC015599

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Fragile Earth