Precious Persistence Project
Precious Persistence: The Ecological Legacy of Shetland Botanical Writing for our Modern Understanding and Experience of Rare Plants in the Face of Climate Change
Our project seeks to understand how historical writings about Shetland wild plants are shaping our modern understanding of rare plant ecology and how we experience rare plants today.
We are collecting information on Shetland wild plants from a variety of sources including books, archives, botanical databases, herbaria, and the words of stakeholders and community members to explore the changing relationships between people and nature. We are interested in how this informs conservation activities and affects how we feel about rare and vulnerable plant species especially in the face of climate change.
We would like to collect your stories about your experience of Shetland wild plants, especially rare plants, and ask some questions about you and nature. We plan to collect stories in a variety of ways. The easiest way to send us your story is to submit it online.
If you are under 18, you can ask a parent or guardian to submit a story on your behalf.
Participant Information Sheet
Participant Information Sheet
Please read the full Participant Information Sheet
Submit your story online
Submit your story online
This link also includes an online consent form and questionnaire.
Submit your story by email
Submit your story by email
What story about your experience of Shetland wild plants, especially rare plants, would you like to share with us? Which Shetland wild plants do you know? (Please use the plant names that are familiar to you - common names, local names and/or botanical names).
Send your replies, along with your completed consent form and questionnaire, by email to Rebecca Cornwell: 23018253@uhi.ac.uk
You can download the consent form and questionnaires here:
Participant Consent Form (email version)
Participant Questionnaire (email version)
You can either download the forms and type in your answers or print out the forms and complete by hand and then return a scan or photograph of the completed forms.
Submit your story by post
Submit your story by post
What story about your experience of Shetland wild plants, especially rare plants, would you like to share with us? Which Shetland wild plants do you know? (Please use the plant names that are familiar to you - common names, local names and/or botanical names).
Send your replies, along with your completed consent form and questionnaire, by post to:
Rebecca Cornwell
c/o The Centre for Mountain Studies
Webster Building
UHI Perth
Crieff Road
Perth, PH1 2NX
You can download the consent form and questionnaire here:
Participant Consent Form (print version)
Participant Questionnaire (print version)
If you encounter any difficulties submitting your story or wish to receive a printed version of the forms by post, please contact Rebecca who will be happy to help.
Printed versions can be obtained in Shetland through Shetland Library (including the Mobile Library and Community Libraries in Unst, Yell and Brae).
If you would like to participate but need to send your story in a different way, please contact us to talk about the format that would work best for you.
This research forms part of a postgraduate project being carried out with the Institute for Northern Studies and the Centre for Mountain Studies at UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands) in partnership with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and funded by SGSAH.