Revellers arrive for eco-festival

By Kevin Keane
Fife reporter
BBC Scotland news website

One of the most unusual festivals in Scotland is taking place this weekend.

The Big Tent Festival, in Falkland, Fife, has been billed as the UK's only "eco-festival" and aims to promote low-carbon living.

It is being held on the Falkland estate and is expected to attract a crowd of about 7,000 people.

Live music, poetry readings, lectures and a carbon clinic are being staged in various tents across the site, along with children's zones.

The eco-friendly Big Tent festival is expected to attract 7,000 people

Organisers said their aim was to promote sustainability.

Ninian Stuart, steward of the Falkland estate, told the BBC Scotland news website: "In a way it's an opportunity to invite to join us any number of people from across Scotland who are working on their own crafts and traditions and looking to the future."

Like all festivals, the Big Tent has a musical focus.

But unlike T in the Park, which is held a short distance away, the music does not take centre stage.

Production manager Martin Coull said: "Well, the music is important but it's not the main point of the festival, the message is it's an ecological message which is being promoted.

"There's a fair bit of Celtic and Scottish music but there is all sorts. We have got Grass Roots from Zimbabwe for instance who will be performing, Moishe's Bagel, another Scottish-based act but it's very much a world music-based line up."

Carbon emissions

One of the big events of the weekend will be the launch of Holyrood 350, a campaign targeting the Scottish Government to cut carbon emissions.

Justin Kenwick, who is spearheading Holyrood 350, said: "A really urgent message that comes from Jim Hanson, the top NASA scientist on this matter, is that currently the amount of carbon is 387 parts per million.

Organisers said the programme of music is not the main focus

"What he says is that means we are well over the safe limit which he puts at 350 from his research.

"We are going to try to convince the Scottish Government to take the urgent action needed to get back down to a safe level."

While the event carries many serious environmental messages, festival organiser Mike Small insisted it was also about people enjoying themselves.

He added that the people coming to the eco-festival were becoming more mainstream.

"I suppose we would be considered alternative by some people but society changes quickly," Mr Kenwick said.

"A year or two ago, everybody smoked in pubs and when the idea came in that we could change that everybody thought that would never happen in Scotland. The next day after the law changed, that was the new reality.

"So, we are in the new reality. I don't think we are alternative any more. We are mainstream, we are the people who are looking at ways of changing our society."