Category: National Parks

February 28, 2024 Nick Kempe 6 comments

The current position ” Risks associated with reinstatement of the Cairngorm funicular railway were addressed through robust internal and external governance and project management”  (HIE Annual Report 2022-23 as laid before the Scottish Government in October). There was no public news release but last week Highlands and Islands Enterprise let it be known through the…

January 24, 2024 Nick Kempe 4 comments

Gaming the holes in Scotland’s planning system Yesterday I was notified by Highland Council that the planning application (Ref 23/04957/FUL) for a telecommunications mast and 2.4km of track in the Wild Land Area at the eastern end of Loch Mullardoch had been withdrawn.  A small bit of good news. Highland Council has already withdrawn all…

December 16, 2023 Nick Kempe 7 comments

The Scottish Government’s consultation on Tackling the Nature Emergency (see here) closed on Thursday. It is yet another consultation that will have consumed vast amounts of time and energy but is unlikely to change much. This post considers some of the key reasons why the Scottish Government’s proposals for nature restoration won’t work.  A second…

October 17, 2023 Nick Kempe 5 comments

Living as we do on the western edge of Europe, in its windiest country notorious and one that is notorious for its wet weather, I had tended to assume that Scotland bears the brunt of the storms that cross the Atlantic.  After the Met Office had issued warnings for Storm Alex at the end of…

March 3, 2023 Nick Kempe 14 comments

On Wednesday NatureScot, formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage, issued a news release (see here) about how they had entered a partnership with the Hampden & Co, Lombard Odier Investment Managers and  Palladium (the company that in in a partnership with National Parks across the UK called “Revere).  They described this as: “a ‘national first’…

December 15, 2022 Nick Kempe 1 comment

The title of the Scottish Government’s consultation, “Wildlife Management in Scotland” (see here), which closed yesterday, was very revealing.  Despite the nature emergency and the Scottish Government’s commitment to protect 30% of the land by 2030 (see here), there were no questions about how natural processes could be restored or we might reverse the catastrophic…

November 30, 2022 Nick Kempe 5 comments

NatureScot’s consultation on National Parks closes today. In my view the most important section of the online survey (see here) is about the powers and functions of National Parks (questions 13-16).  Get this right and there would be no need to resort to “green” finance as the means to address the undoubted problems in our…

November 25, 2022 Nick Kempe 2 comments

After the first three questions in NatureScot consultation on National Parks, which are about whether to turn them into vehicles for “green finance” (see here), the fourth is about the role of local communities (see here).  The introductory text to the section claims that our National Parks “provide exemplars of community engagement” but contain no…

November 10, 2022 Nick Kempe 4 comments

As I mentioned in my recent post on greenwashing (see here), James Stuart, the soon to depart convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, was in July appointed by UK Government Ministers to the Lakes District National Park Authority.   On the LDNPA website (see here) Board Members are portrayed as “the voice…

November 4, 2022 Nick Kempe 3 comments

  #netzerowithnature is a hashtag now being frequently used by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) but is also “the collective strategy of the National Parks in the fight against climate change and the biodiversity crisis” (see here). The LLTNPA newsletter went on to say: Last year, in the continued fall-out from…

October 24, 2022 Dave Morris 16 comments

Urgent representations need to be made to members of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to stop the sale of Kinloch Castle and its grounds to an England based multimillionaire, Jeremy Hosking. The government body, NatureScot, who own most of Rum and manage it as a National Nature Reserve, aim to sell the castle…