Public Talk: 'Amphibians & Reptiles of the Cairngorms'
- Details
- Written by Tessa Jones
- Category: Meetings
- Published: 03 July 2019
Tuesday 9th July at 7:30 pm, Carrbridge Village Hall: 'Amphibians & Reptiles of the Cairngorms' by David O'Brien.
An entertaining and knowledgeable speaker who has supervised projects on various amphibians including great crested newts in the Highlands, David is an active member of the Highland Biological Recording Group and a true enthusiast on amphibians and reptiles.
Public Meeting The Cairngorms National Park 15 Years On
- Details
- Written by Tessa Jones
- Category: Cairngorms National Park
- Published: 20 November 2018
Public Meeting The Cairngorms National Park 15 Years On. Illustrated talk by Nick Kempe of Parkwatch Scotland. Thur 22 November, 7.30pm at The Badenoch Centre, Spey Street, Kingussie. All welcome. Free admission. Refreshments.
Welcome refusal of artificial ski slopes plan on Cairn Gorm
- Details
- Written by Gus Jones
- Category: Campaigns
- Published: 15 October 2018
At their public planning meeting on the 12 October the Cairngorms National Park Board resoundingly rejected the application for artificial ski slopes at Cairn Gorm.
In arriving at their welcome decision, the National Park Board took time to quiz the applicant and listen to concerns of BSCG and Aviemore Business Association, all of whom gave presentations at the meeting.
The Press & Journal report indicates that the applicant, Natural Retreats, is considering its options.
P & J article 13 October 2018
Visualisation of artificial ski slopes
View from proposed artificial ski slope site
View from proposed artificial ski slope site
Plastic ski slopes on Cairn Gorm need to be refused
- Details
- Written by Gus Jones
- Category: Campaigns
- Published: 11 October 2018
Questions are being asked about how Cairngorms National Park Planners have recently recommended approval for a costly proposal for artificial ski slopes on the hill. It is shocking (but convenient for the developer) that the public screening opinion claims this project would not have any “significant effects on the environment”. Envisaged in the high altitude development over a footprint of 2.1 ha is the stripping of thousands of cubic metres of peat. No mitigation is possible for the habitats to be destroyed. These support valued wildlife including mountain hare, mountain bumblebee, plants like interrupted clubmoss, heathland with natural bearberry, juniper and lichens that with the natural landform has developed since the end of the last Ice Age. The compensation proposed (of some tree and shrub planting) is arguably what should already be happening on responsibly managed land in public ownership in such a special area in the heart of a National Park.
Apparently requiring £1.5M of public money, this climate-unfriendly project is plainly highly unsustainable in financial, social and environmental terms . If in the teeth of considerable community opposition this project is consented it has enduring reputational implications and would illustrate subservience to a speculative unreasonably optimistic and disastrously ill-informed vision.
If the CNPA Board approve this project it opens the way to a new wave of major environmental and landscape damage on the hill.
Today ( 11 Oct 2018) the Strathspey & Badenoch Herald reported the planners recommendation for approval of the controversial project "is despite growing protests that it will damage the environment and become a white elephant".
Strathspey & Badenoch Herald ( October 11 2018, extract from page 4 )
The exposed high altitude site has an extensive footprint in a sensitive location with multiple potential significant environmental effects
Letter on golf development at Coul Links in East Sutherland
- Details
- Written by Roy Turnbull
- Category: Debates
- Published: 24 December 2017
Dear Sir,
17/04601/FUL - Development of 18 hole golf course, erection of clubhouse etc.
Land 1700M NW of Embo Community Centre School Street, Embo.
I write to add my strong objection to the above proposed development.
I have studied the detailed objections you have already received from numerous informed and knowledgeable sources concerning the damaging impacts this proposed development would have upon the exceptional and valued flora and fauna and landscape of this important designated site. Whilst there is little point in my repeating all this information, which I trust you will study and absorb, I would like to draw your particular attention to just two issues:
1. From the Scottish Wildlife Trust objection, dated 27th October 2017:
“assessing the impact of the development is not simply a case of totalling up the areas of the various habitats which the footprint of the development will cover. The creation of a golf course, and aspects of its management such as drainage, irrigation, seeding, cutting, fertilising, application of pesticides, water abstraction from boreholes and resultant impacts such as changes to grazing, and disturbance, will fundamentally affect the operation of these natural processes which have created the sand dune features which are a notified feature of the Ramsar site.
The development will freeze this dynamism over time and steadily impoverish the biodiversity to make it a very ordinary place, like most of Scotland’s links golf courses (lawns and scrub). Construction and management will fundamentally affect these processes of seasonal and longer term changes”
This, it seems to me, gets to the crux of the matter. It is simply not possible to make large scale alterations to the functioning of a complex, dynamic, living system of sand, water, plants, animals and fungi without fundamentally degrading and unravelling the whole system. A similar warning was sounded during consultations over the Menie golf course development near Aberdeen, and the recent announcement by Scottish Natural Heritage that de-designation of the SSSI there is under consideration because of the damage to its special features following development emphasises the validity of such warnings. I submit that the developers should heed the advice contained in both the SNH and SEPA objections: to consider an alternative site on agricultural land.
2. Please assess this proposal beyond just the confines of local concerns. There is widespread and increasing global concern about the continuing incremental loss of biodiversity and of natural and semi-natural habitats. For example, a very recent global study by the University of Queensland, Australia
[ https://www.uq.edu.au/news/
“Despite their importance, wilderness areas are being destroyed at an alarming rate and need urgent protection with almost 10 per cent being lost since the early 1990s. Their conservation is a global priority.”
Approving this application would damage Scotland's reputation for looking after its own natural and semi-natural areas, and weaken its voice on the global stage at a time when stopping the loss of such areas is an urgent necessity. As one of the wealthier and better educated countries on Earth, Scotland should be leading by example.
