Our Team
We bring different perspectives, united by a deep love and respect for the River Shannon, and the waters of the world.
Martina Finn
Project Lead & Great Weaver
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Martina Finn is the Project Coordinator for CELT (Centre for Environmental Living & Training) who initiated this project as part of their national programme, working towards co-creating transformative, rights based, regenerative cultural and creative responses to biodiversity loss, climate change, community resilience, and mindful and sustainable living pathways. She has over 30 years working in a variety of environmental, educational and cultural sectors, working both in Senior Administrative and Cultural Management roles within the Local Authority sector, alongside community development, education and ecosocial arts with the Community, Voluntary, Arts and ENGO sectors. Qualifications include: BA in Social Science; Post Graduate Diploma in Media & Communications; Higher Diploma in Public Policy & Arts Management; MA in Curatorial Contemporary Art Practices; OI Mindfulness Trainings, Plum Village; Train the Trainer; Permaculture Teaching & Design.
Zofia Page
Project Manager & Pilgrimage Consultant
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Zofia Page is a co-founder and Executive Director of Friends of the River Medway, a UK-based organisation dedicated to restoring the River Medway to good health and renewing people’s relationship with the river. In July 2025, Zofia helped lead and organise a pioneering source-to-sea pilgrimage along the River Medway, weaving together practical, legal, and sacred forms of action. The first initiative of its kind on the Medway, the pilgrimage catalysed a catchment-wide citizen science network, supported litter removal efforts, and hosted ongoing gatherings with farmers that have grown into a collaborative cluster promoting river-friendly practices. It also convened councillors from across the catchment to explore a rights of rivers approach and to discuss long-term river stewardship beyond political cycles, while reconnecting communities to the river in meaningful and lasting ways. She is also Project Manager at The Nest UK, a creative agency that provides sliding-scale services to regenerative growers and farmers, with a mission to amplify their voices and work. Qualifications include: BA in History and MSc in Sustainable Food Systems and Natural Resources.
Sofia Tapaninen
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Sofia Tapaninen is an anthropologist, dance teacher, and emerging academic. She is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Amsterdam, conducting research in collaboration with the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and Queen’s University Belfast. Her work examines how the global Rights of Nature movement is developing in Ireland and the UK. Drawing on anthropology and international development, Sofia has conducted extensive qualitative research into the legal, political, cultural, and mythopoetic dimensions of the Rights of Nature on the island of Ireland. Her work is grounded in sustained engagement with legal practitioners, academics, activists, and community members across the island, bridging academic inquiry and activist practice in support of the holistic health of ecosystems and communities. With a background in the performing arts, Sofia worked with the multicultural theatre company Zirikli (Finland) and is part of the team behind a citizens’ initiative launched in November 2025 to enshrine the Rights of Nature in the Finnish Constitution, supported by funding from Koneen Säätiö, a leading independent Finnish foundation. Qualifications include: BSc in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, and MRes (ongoing) in International Development Studies.
Rights of Nature Lead
Aoife Desmond
Creative Lead & Events Lead
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Aoife Desmond is an interdisciplinary artist working across film, performance and visual art. She frequently co-creates place-based work with communities and eco-systems. RIVER GUARDIANS 2025 is a community based project with Bandon River (Bandon Flood Defence Scheme Residency and Public Art Commission funded by OPW and managed by Cork County Council). This collaborative work includes a series of symbolic actions documented for 16mm film WE HONOUR WE LAMENT and an exhibition including 35mm B&W photography and eco-prints. Bury Our Hearts At The Bend Of The River 2023 is a feature-length 16mm split screen dance film documenting a source to sea journey on the River Lee funded by an Arts Council Film Project Award. Recent exhibitions/screenings include Reclaiming Nature offsite event Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Lima Alterna Peru, Marienbad Film Festival Czech Republic, RAI Film Festival Bristol, ICA London, IMMA Earth Rising, Cork International Film Festival, Sirius Arts Centre, aemi Dissolutions Film Festival.
Shannon Michaela Smith
Sacred Lead & Community Weaver
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Shannon Michaela Smith - EcoSomatic Researcher, Ancestral Recovery Practitioner
Shannon is a ritualist, dancer, facilitator, traveler, administrator, and lifelong student. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Research in EcoSomatics:Hydrosocial Relations at University College Cork. She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Dance (NY) and has taught contemporary dance techniques, authentic movement, and contact improvisation. Her passions have evolved to include consciousness studies from around the world, deeply influenced by her Godmother in Brazil, and other wise women whose traditions and maps have informed her perspective of the sacred body and the sacred body of the Earth. Shannon found a calling working for the water in 2010. She has participated in Global Water Dances since 2013 and contributed as an artist and presenter to Passionate Waters events. For eight years, Shannon was a member of the Center for Earth Ethics (CEE) team at Union Theological Seminary in NYC. She served programming reflecting on the moral dimensions of climate work supporting the UN Decade on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration, the UN Water Conference and the UN Food Systems Summit; Indigenous Water Ethics programming led by Grandmother Mona Polacca; Sacred Rivers event with Hudson River Keeper and EcoPeace Middle East (Jordan River Keepers); Earth Stanzas with Wick Poetry Center for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and subsequent Vote the Earth geo-poetic mapping project. A registered Officiant (celebrant) since 2006, she was a panelist on Sacred Water in a Climate Changed Era at the Parliament of the World's Religions (2023). She is the Founder and Vision Keeper of Women of the Water | EcoSoma since 2020, dedicated to supporting those rising up to work for the water giving special attention to women finding their voices in leadership and healing ruptures in the transmission of intergenerational wisdom for future generations. She has dedicated much of the last four years to the River Boyne and is delighted to have been a 2025 SDG Advocate with Drogheda based Development Perspectives.
Lead Organization - Center for Environmental Learning and Training (CELT) -
Member of the Irish Environmental Network
Funded by the River Basin Management Service (formerly LAWPRO) through the Community Water Development Fund 2026
With Support from Our Partners
