Question: how does France (along with many other European countries) manage to have so much more woodland than Scotland and “do” forestry without fencing and planting? Answer: they control grazing by large herbivores, whether livestock or deer, using completely different legal mechanisms than exist in Scotland The fundamental failing with the legislative proposals in the…
Tag: NatureScot
On Thursday the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill (WMMB) (see here for text) was passed by the Scottish Parliament. Judging from the responses of some of the main proponents and opponents of the Bill one could be fooled into thinking will usher in major changes to how grouse moors are managed. On the one hand…
[Ed’s note. This post complements the points David made in the excellent article by Vicky Allan in the Sunday Herald at the weekend: “£1m per mast. So who will benefit from costly new Highland phone lines?” (see here)]. The Shared Rural Network (SRN) was launched in 2020 to improve 4G mobile coverage in rural areas…
Conservation and the welfare of the public: the Wallabies and Fallow Deer on the Loch Lomond islands
In December the Planning Committee of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) unanimously approved the planning application by Mr and Mrs Young to build a luxury holiday lodge on Inchconnachan (see here for committee report). Initially the application had included a proposal, based on advice from NatureScot, to remove the wallabies from…
Following my post on deer fencing and capercaillie on Speyside (see here), a friend and sometime contributor to Parkswatch, Nick Halls, brought to my attention to the latest issue of the Geographer, the magazine of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. It is all about trees. In it there is an interview with Thomas MacDonell who…
On 20th October Highland Council validated a planning application (see here or ref 23/04700/FUL) to erect a 25m high telecommunications mast high on Creag Dubh between Newtonmore and Laggan. Since Creag Dubh is protected as a Site of Scientific Interest the mast requires full planning permission and Highland Council has the power to reject it….
On 18th December two pairs of beavers were released on Speyside, one on the Rothiemurchus Estate and one on land belonging to Wildland Ltd (see here). This followed NatureScot’s identification of Speyside as one of the priority areas for translocation of beavers from the Tay and the decision of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA)…
Restoring Scotland’s natural woodland cover and biodiversity from centuries of over grazing is an urgent and necessary step towards sustainable management and care for our hills and mountains. Woodland regeneration could, within decades, extend throughout the uplands allowing a natural woodland mosaic to develop, increasing biodiversity while protecting and enhancing the terrestrial carbon cycles. The…
Yet another planning application for a telecommunication mast has appeared (see here), this time in the heart of Torridon on land owned by the National Trust for Scotland. This is a National Scenic Area, a Wild Land Area and the walk through from Glen Torridon to Loch Torridon one of the finest in Scotland. One…
While governments across the world fail to implement or row back on actions to reduce our carbon emissions and respond to climate change, CO2 fuelled hot air wreaks increasing havoc. The same heat that is causing more hurricanes in the Caribbean at the end of each summer often drives the tail end of those storms…
Scotland National Parks and the Scottish Government If you want to understand why Scotland’s National Parks have achieved so little in the 20 years since they were created, you need look no further than successive Scottish Governments, both the Ministers responsible and the civil servants that have supported them. Instead of encouraging and empowering our…
After my last post on ABRDN’s disastrous planting proposals for Far Ralia (see here) I was phoned by Renwick Drysdale of AKRE trees (see here) asking to meet so he could explain to me what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, I am out of Scotland for most of the six weeks but agreed to…
Yesterday Raptor Persecution UK published an excellent post calling for greater scrutiny of duck shooting on sporting estates (see here). By coincidence I had had my eyes opened to what is going on the week before when passing through the Ralia Estate to check on how Abrdn’s tree planting proposals at Far Ralia (see here). Anyone…
The consultation on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) 2024-29 has been live since 26th April and closes on Wednesday. There have been few responses so far through the online platform “commonplace” (see here) despite the LLTNPA’s attempts to frame the new plan as having a pivotal…
Background The successful re-introduction of beavers to Scotland owes very little to our public authorities and everything to the people who, whether accidentally or not, allowed beavers to enter the catchment of te River Tay. While the official trial in Knapdale floundered – the river system was too small and the catchment isolated so the…
The damage caused by Scotland’s exceedingly high numbers of red deer and muirburn are the two main issues that need to be tackled if we are to tackle the nature and climate emergencies in the uplands. This post takes a look at the three changes in the law the Scottish Government announced yesterday (see here)…
Silt first started flowing into the Gynack River system, which flows into the River Spey, six and a half weeks ago (see here). I reported and others reported this to both the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA). The CNPA responded that they were not sure whether the silt flowing…
[This post has been updated to clarify the difference between the River Spey SAC and River Spey SSSI] While not nearly as bad as it was (see here), the consequences of the engineering works in the Allt Mhor/River Gynack continue to flow down in the River Spey river system. Silt has now been washed down…
It is almost two years since my last post on the Cononish goldmine (see here) and five since the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) granted it planning permission. Since the mine was first mooted there has been a steady stream of “news” stories from the owners, Australian Company Scotgold Resources Ltd, about…
The results of the local member elections for the Cairngorms National Park Authority, which take place by post vote, were announced on Thursday 23rd March and confirm that the voting system in both our National Parks is in urgent need of reform (see here for the elections to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
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’…
For the last few years the Herald has carried a full page feature about once a week on the climate emergency and nature crises. Every 4-6 weeks this involves NatureScot, the new brand name for what is legally still Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). Sometimes these pieces are written by NatureScot – often under the name…
As we celebrate twenty years since the passing of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, and as someone who was involved in the process that led to the establishment of the statutory access rights contained in that Act, and its subsequent implementation, I would like to contribute my personal thoughts on the current discussion around…
This post provides an update to what I wrote in October on Forest and Land Scotland’s purchase of the Glen Prosen estate (see here). So far, Forest and Land Scotland has issued not a single news release https://forestryandland.gov.scot/news-releases about their purchase or their plans. Nor does it appear to have published any other information which…
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association has long argued ((see here) that muirburn helps prevent devastating wildfires when the truth is that it is muirburn that has devastated nature across large swathes of Scotland. The fact that Fire and Rescue Scotland has chosen to invest resources in teaching gamekeepers how to “safely apply fire” suggests that they…