Nature KwenTour: Exploring Island-Urban Dialogues from Siargao to London

Mapping local ecology, memories, and shared knowledge to reimagine our relationship with land and community.

Nature KwenTour is a partnership between ESEA Green Lions (a London-based climate justice collective for ESEA communities) and Lokal Lab (an NGO focused on sustainable community development in Siargao), aiming to draw on the skills, knowledge, network and reach of both partners to address the challenges of exclusion and disconnection from ecosystems, and disintegration of local knowledge.

Tourist arrivals in Siargao have increased by over 400% in the last decade - there were 19,681 tourists in Siargao in 2014, and 529,822 in 2023 according to the DOT (The Department of Tourism, Philippines). As tourism grows, more land is being sold and privatised, meaning islanders face increasing exclusion from the land, their environment, local knowledge, and economic opportunities that align with their ecosystem. Similarly, ESEA and other marginalised communities in the UK are disconnected from nature, ecosystems, and knowledge of their local ecosystems, amidst rapid privatisation, gentrification, and an ever increasing rural-urban divide.

We must advocate for land justice and connection to nature to build global citizenship and investment in holistic regenerative approaches. We aim to facilitate cross-cultural knowledge exchange in engaging and public-facing contexts, to tackle the systemic, intersecting issues facing us around the climate crisis, cultural erosion, social justice and equity.

Nature KwenTour was developed to address these challenges - a collaborative and creative storytelling program to map local ecologies, memories and shared knowledge across ecologies in Siargao, Philippines and London, UK. The project includes localised workshops, nature walks, and discussions, a co-created digital archive, a film, and exhibitions in both London (led by Green Lions) and Siargao (led by Lokal Lab). With ‘'KwenTour’' meaning story and narratives in Siargaonon (kwento), the Nature KwenTour program brings Siargaonan youth and London’s pan-Asian diaspora together to explore how creativity and technology can reconnect us to embodied, ancestral and local knowledge.

Nature KwenTour is supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture grant programme.

Aims of the Project:

Ecosystem Connection and Engagement:
Empower local communities in the Philippines & the UK to access and engage with the land, ecosystem and biodiversity, expanding on and bolstering local knowledge.

Preservation and Awareness:
Use technology to preserve local and indigenous ecological knowledge and spotlight climate change impacts in both the UK and Siargao.Artistic

Development & Innovation:
Enhance participants’ creative practices, particularly in Siargao, focusing on speculative storytelling, world-building and creative technology to envision regenerative, sustainable futures.

Cross-Cultural Exchange:
Promote knowledge exchange and environmental awareness between the UK and the Philippines, through comparative studies of island and urban ecosystems.

Empowerment through Digital Tools:
Equip local island communities and young people in Siargao with digital skills to document biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and the effects of climate change.

Platforming ESEA Communities:
Increase ESEA community participation and visibility in climate change discourse showcasing the project's outputs on a global stage.


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Nature KwenTour Digital Archive

The Nature KwenTour Digital Archive brings together learnings, stories and data from the London and Siargao partnership, to provoke communal imagination about alternate ecological futures through creative technology. Synthesised by Rifke Sadleir, a London-based creative technologist and digital designer, the archive facilitates cross-cultural exchange and environmental awareness through the comparative study of island and urban ecosystems, and showcases the artistic development and creative outcomes of both workshops.

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Siargao Camp

This 3-day immersive camp took place in Siargao with Lokal Lab’s PASALO Youth Journalism Group. The camp curriculum was designed to deepen participants’ connection to the local ecosystem through an active exploration of human and non-human ecosystems, local knowledge-sharing, and storytelling through creative technology. Rooted in learning methodologies that foreground co-created learning, participants engaged with community stories about how Siargao locals relate to the local land, people, and stories of place.

Participants explored native and non-native plant life, and learnt from the wisdom of Siargaonon locals who have experienced and cared for the land over the years. In doing so, participants traced changes on the island which reflect the impacts of climate change, tourism and development on biodiversity. Exploring practices of hands-on observation, interviewing, creative media-making, and journaling, participants captured ecological stories that are often overlooked or underdocumented, or simply forgotten from collective memory.

London Walk

Guided by Maymana Arefin (Fungi Futures) and Sami Kimberley (Green Lions), this day-long nature walk and workshop connected participants from the London pan-Asian community to the ecologies and histories of Walthamstow Wetlands. Using a combination of guided discussions, botanical observations, and artistic documentation, the walk explored how ecological (dis)connection, access, climate change, and development are impacting local and global ecosystems.

Participants were encouraged to observe and document local plants and living organisms, sharing culturally specific responses, uses, and embodied reflections. Through this process, the walk foregrounded the body as an archive of migration and ancestral memory, and emphasised practices of claiming space in relation to land, embodied knowledge, and ecological futures.

Nature KwenTour Roundtable Film

Filmed between Siargao and London, this film gathers voices across island and city to reflect on what care means in local landscapes and the communities they hold. Through tales of land, memory, and belonging, we trace how ecology shapes identity, and vice versa, and how dialogue can begin to forge new futures and connections.

Nature KwenTour Showcase

This joint showcase took place simultaneously in Siargao and London, collating collective works from the Nature KwenTour programme. Mapping local ecologies, memories and shared knowledge across Siargao, Philippines, and London, UK, both showcases explored how creativity and technology can reconnect us to embodied, ancestral local knowledge, and share knowledge in and Island-Urban dialogue between the two regions.

By mapping out the transnational dialogues and knowledges exchanged, the showcases invited audiences to explore their own personal and ancestral ecosystems, reflect on local-global challenges and our individual stories of the land, and explore how creative storytelling and technology can inspire more grounded, collective responses to ecological and cultural (dis)connection.

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