Spotlight on Harper, Highland Adapts
Climate change is here and it’s effects are being felt across the Highlands; adaption is as key as prevention. Progress can only be made if we are ready for our future, and Highland Adapts is ensuring exactly this. So, we are delighted to share our first Spotlight of Women’s History Month - Harper, Climate Resilience Manager for Highland Adapts.
Read on to find what inspires Harper, and how she harnesses her inspiration to accelerate progress towards a green future.
How did you get involved in Highland Adapts?
I joined Highland Adapts in 2021 after completing a master’s in environmental sustainability at the University of Edinburgh. My master’s dissertation focused on species translocation as a means of climate change adaptation in Scotland and I was keen to continue working on climate resilience.
What makes you feel inspired?
To answer this question, I first want to highlight the times when I most need inspiration: namely, when I think about the continued unnecessary deprivation of people (including women) within our communities and globally. Statistics only scratch the surface of the lived experiences of people worldwide, but I still think they are important. According to UN Women (press release 8 March 2024):
1 in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.
The number of women and girls living in conflict-affected areas doubled since 2017, now, more than 614 million women and girls live in conflict-affected areas. In conflict areas, women are 7.7 times more likely to live in extreme poverty.
Climate change is set to leave 236 million more women and girls hungry by 2030, twice as many as men (131 million).
At prime working age, only 61 per cent of women are in the labour force versus 90 per cent of men.
In the face of these unbearable problems, I feel inspired whenever I spend time laughing, chatting, and working alongside others. It doesn’t actually matter what we are working on. At the High Life Highland gym last night, weightlifting with my friends was a form of doing work together. We were not addressing any social issues, but we were laughing together while accomplishing common goals. That made me feel both happy and inspired. The same is true if I am brainstorming ideas with a colleague or commiserating while walking up Raining’s stairs with someone I never met. I am inspired when I can reach common goals with others and laugh along the way. And there are a lot of goals that need tackling.
How does your organization work to #InspireInclusion?
Highland Adapts is a partnership that aims to bring together communities, businesses, land managers and the public sector to facilitate transformational action towards a prosperous, climate-ready Highland. Climate change is a threat multiplier, meaning that it exacerbates existing vulnerabilities. Without transformational action, our existing political, social, and structural inequalities will only be worsened by climate change impacts which will put stress on all individuals, communities, and organisations. This is a difficult and upsetting thing to think about. However, it also means that there are significant co-benefits between actions that improve our climate resilience and social structure.
To this end, I see every piece of work that Highland Adapts does as a small part of the wider work going on to improve access to equal opportunities in the future. For example, I hope that our upcoming Highland Climate Risk and Opportunity Assessment will democratise access to valuable information about the future of our region so that more people are equipped with the information that they need to plan for their future and so that our regional institutions are motivated to address the full extent of the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Still, we are just getting started. There is a lot more that we can do to make sure that everyone in Highland is supported and included equally in our regional climate resilience.
How can we get more women and gender-diverse people involved in local climate action?
There are many things that we can do to make climate action more accessible, but to name just one: I am passionate about paying people for their time and work. This is particularly relevant for women and gender-diverse people who are still paid less than their male equivalents for their full-time work. According to the Office for National Statistics, median hourly pay for full-time employees was 7.7% less for women than for men in April 2023.
While I appreciate people who have free time to spend on issues that are important to them, this is not possible for many individuals. For as long as we are operating within a capitalist system, I think we will only be able to provide equal access to local climate action by compensating people for their labour.
Harper’s work to encourage climate adaption is underlined with a vision for an inclusive & prosperous Highlands. The climate cause is one affecting all of society, so all of society should be represented in the solution and at the decision making table, #InspireInclusion.
Join us throughout the rest of March as we celebrate more inspirational women trail blazing climate action across the Highlands in many different ways.