Drones Over Brodgar….From ‘Emergence’ Magazine…..
by Bernie Bell - 09:07 on 15 January 2025
Drones Over Brodgar….
Two connected things happened, co-incidentally.
On a Facebook site called ‘Ancient Stone Bothering’ I saw an aerial view of the Ring of Brodgar, taken using a Drone. I commented, saying that flying Drones over Brodgar is inconsiderate. Over on the FB page of the bloke who had posted the image, I came in for quite a bit of abuse for stating that opinion – the abuse has subsequently been deleted.
I no longer engage with the ASB site. I used to post information about good places to visit – but now I feel that it’s best not to do so.
One of the things which concerns me about this is that the man who posted the aerial view of Brodgar (on his own site and in response to my comment) was emphatic about how the Historic Environment Scotland sign asking folk not to fly Drones has no legal standing. Many responded that they hadn’t known that, had respected the request by HES, but would now fly their Drones where they choose.
It’s not about whether the air-space is free or not, it’s about consideration for people and respect for the place.
Around the same time, we went for a walk to the Stenness/Brodgar stones …
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=17162
….and there was a Drone flying low over Brodgar and buzzing intrusively.
I have no argument with Drones when used for a specific purpose when needed….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/12/22/drones/
….but, in these times, it’s particularly important for people to be able to find some peace and quiet – to walk, clear their heads, connect with the life around them. Is this going to become more and more difficult as ‘Droners’ take over the wild places and open spaces?
To paraphrase William Wordsworth…
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high
O’er vale and hill
When all at once
I heard the sound
Of Drone o’er head - so shrill
Beside a lake, or ‘neath some trees
Those buzzing Drones
Give folk no ease.
The Droners say air-space is free
It is - and so’s the right
To peace and quiet
BB Jan ’25.
I’m also wondering what the Brodgar Skylarks make of the Drones?
And finally ….because I can’t resist it…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOnjlyZf6LE
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From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
by Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko
“Aral, when my children will ask me about you, what should I tell them?”
Since 1960, the Aral Sea—a lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and once the Earth’s fourth largest body of inland water—has been drastically depleted after its tributaries were systemically diverted for agricultural irrigation by the Soviet Union. With ninety percent of the lake drained, this landscape is now known as the Aralkum, and is the youngest desert in the world.
Making its online premiere, this short film, directed by Mila Zhluktenko and Daniel Asadi Faezi, plants us where the Aral Sea once lay—an eerie and disorienting place where a coastal wind blows through a coast-less terrain; and a seabed is home only to swells of sand and the rusted hulls of beached ships. There, a sole species of tree lives in the absence of a once-rich marine ecosystem; and the last human inhabitants of the former shoreline, who have lost their way of life over the course of a single generation, try to navigate survival in a desolate landscape. A warning of what happens when we exploit the Earth’s abundance, the growing presence of the Aralkum asks us: What does it mean to live in a place haunted by the loss of water; can we hold the stories, memories, and pain of those who’ve known it; and how do we learn to embrace what emerges in its wake?”
https://emergencemagazine.org/film/aralkum/
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