North Atlantic Native Sheep & Wool Conference 1

Friday evening was the start of the North Atlantic Native Sheep and Wool Conference, which this year is being held in Shetland.  You can keep up with the events at the conference on facebook and there is more background information in this blog post from Jamieson & Smith

First we all took the opportunity to look at the wonderful exhibits in the touring exhibition 'Sheep and Wool Around the North Atlantic Region' which can be seen in the Shetland Museum and Archives.

I shall let the photos speak for themselves - if you can get to the Museum then I can highly recommend seeing it.

Faroe

 Greenland

 Iceland

 Norway

 Norway

 Orkney - the beautiful Orkney Gansey on the left was designed and knitted by Elizabeth Lovick

 Outer Hebrides

 Shetland

 Shetland

Then we moved into the lecture theatre.  Robert Hunter, Shetland Lord-Lieutenant set the tone in just the right way with his welcoming Opening address.  The introduction by Karin Flatøy Svarstad, the founder of the conference was really interesting and a lovely reminder of how one very determined person can make a real difference.

Eric Wilson, past-master of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen and Director for Campaign for Wool spoke about the Campaign for Wool and its origins and reminded us how the international aspect of wool trading and production cannot be neglected.

We then listened to a fascinating lecture by Ronnie Eunson and Lyall Halcrow titled 'Carbon Kind Lamb' about the benefits pure Shetland hill sheep can have on the biodiversity and carbon sequestration of Shetland peat bogs to such an extent that their meat becomes 'carbon neutral'.  The research will be published in full next year and I'll be very keen to read it.