Rob Edwards

RSPB accused of acting ‘like Donald Trump’

from The Herald, 01 May 2012 

One of Scotland’s biggest environment organisations, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), has been accused of acting “like Donald Trump” by trying to dictate the route of a popular footpath around a loch.

Local residents and the recreation group, Ramblers Scotland, are angry that RSPB Scotland wants the 200,000 walkers, runners and cyclists who use the Loch Leven Heritage Trail near Kinross every year to take a detour around its nature reserve in order to protect birds.

But, in a fierce counter-attack, the RSPB has insisted that the route through the reserve proposed by Ramblers Scotland would cause “considerable damage” to one of the UK’s most important areas for wintering geese and ducks. It was under a legal obligation to protect the wildlife, the conservation group said.

Following prolonged negotiations, a planning application to complete the footpath around Loch Leven has been submitted to Perth and Kinross Council. But at the insistence of the RSPB it follows a road skirting around the outside of its reserve at Vane Farm on the southern shore of the loch. 

But this route also takes it around the homes of two local residents, who have attacked the RSPB for being a bad neighbour. “The RSPB is operating like a commercial company not like a charity,” said John Haynes (51), a joiner who lives in West Newhall Cottage.

The Donald unzipped

from Sunday Herald, 22 April 2012

“Woah”, said Donald Trump, as he stared at Miss Scotland at a reception to launch his golf course in Aberdeenshire. “She’s beautiful. She may want to work with sales and stuff.”

The apparent willingness to offer a woman a job on the basis of her looks is one of the most revealing moments in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the controversial US billionaire and reality TV star. For seasoned Trump-watchers, it will come as no surprise.

The 65-year-old man with the world’s most famous toupee surrounds himself with attractive young women. He is co-owner of the organisation that runs Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA beauty contests.

Dubbed “The Donald”, Trump has been married three times, and has five children and four grandchildren. His latest wife, Melania Knauss, to whom he was hitched in 2005, is a former swimwear model from Slovenia. She is 24 years younger than him.

His chosen representative in Scotland, Sarah Malone, is the former “Face of Aberdeen” as a result of a competition in the local evening paper. “I called her,” Trump told a golf magazine. “I said: ‘Do you know anything about golf?’ She said: ‘No.’ So, I said: ‘Good, you’re hired.’”

National Trust for Scotland under fire from environmentalists over red deer

from Sunday Herald, 08 April 2012

The bitter and twisted arguments over how to manage the monarch of the glen have taken a dramatic new turn, with Scotland’s most august environmental organisation accused of betraying the environment.

The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) has come under fierce fire from fellow conservationists for bowing to pressure from landowners, including the Queen’s estate at Balmoral, to reverse plans to cull thousands of red deer in the Cairngorms.

Populations of the deer in parts of the Highlands have trebled since the 1950s (see table below). This is partly because they have been encouraged and fed by sporting estates to ensure that there are plenty of stags to be shot by paying visitors. 

But burgeoning numbers of the beasts have ravaged the natural environment, eating saplings and heather, degrading the landscape and stunting the growth of native forests.

As a result the future of red deer has become the most heated - and paradoxical - of Highland disputes. Environmentalists want to cull large numbers of them so that ancient woodlands can recover, while landowners want to protect them so they can be easily killed for sport.

Scotland failing to protect precious wildlife, warns government agency

from Caledonian Mercury, 08 March 2012

Scottish ministers are facing “reputational damage” for failing to keep their promise to protect the nation’s precious countryside, animals and plants, the government’s nature conservation agency has warned.

In a new assessment, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) says that crises with otters in Shetland and natterjack toads on the Solway coast have contributed to the stagnation of efforts to improve the state of Scotland’s 1,800 designated conservation areas since July last year.

Many sites are getting worse because of pollution, poor management, neglect and other threats. As a result, the Scottish government’s target to “improve the condition of protected nature sites” is being missed.

The target is a watered-down replacement of an earlier government aim to “increase to 95% the proportion of protected nature sites in favourable condition” by 2010. That was also missed, as less than 77% of sites are currently judged to be in a favourable condition.

SNH’s latest assessment comes in a report to a recent board meeting in Inverness on “business performance” over the last three months of 2011. The report highlighted the lack of progress on designated conservation areas.

“A key risk to the programme is a failure to deliver improvement in the favourable condition indicator resulting in reputational damage for SNH and Scottish government,” it said.

Scotland's spectacular scenery 'being wrecked by windfarm vultures'

from The Guardian, 28 February 2012

Scotland's spectacular mountain scenery is being wrecked by "windfarm vultures" making millions on the back of government subsidies, an environmental group says.

The warning follows a decision by the Scottish government to approve a 59-turbine windfarm on the Glenfiddich estate on Speyside, south of Dufftown. The estate is owned by Christopher Moran, a multi-millionaire London financier whose insurance and property business is said to be worth more than £200m.

Critics allege that he is now set to make more than £20m over 25 years for leasing his land for the windfarm, which is 1.4 miles from the boundary of the Cairngorms national park. They blame the "massive financial incentives" offered by Westminster.

"Christopher Moran is just one of many windfarm vultures circling around the Cairngorms national park," said Dave Morris, director of Ramblers Scotland. "Scotland's reputation as a beautiful, unspoilt country is being destroyed as massive industrial-scale wind turbines sprout from the hillsides. Never in the history of public subsidy has so much been given to so few, for so little public benefit."

"He's going to make another shedload out of this," said Robert McHugh, who runs a holiday cottage business near the proposed windfarm, known as Dorenell, and was involved in a local opposition group. "People like us care, and think this is a bad thing, but no politician actually cares."

Are wild beavers harbouring a health time bomb?

from Scottish Daily Mail, 17 February 2012

A parasitic tapeworm deadly to humans has been found in a beaver in Britain for the first time, increasing pressure on Scottish ministers to get rid of the beavers living wild in Tayside.

The tapeworm, Echinococcus multilocularis, was discovered in the liver of a beaver which died in captivity on a country estate in England. According to scientists, it is one of the most dangerous of animal parasites because it can kill people who come in contact with it.

Government inspectors are now checking the Tayside area, where around 100 beavers are thought to be living in the wild, for signs of the tapeworm. They are monitoring the corpses of foxes, which can pick up the parasite from scavenging dead beavers.

The fear is that the tapeworm could be passed to humans who come into contact with infected foxes or dogs. Since 1980 more than 550 people are reported to have become ill or died from the tapeworm in central Europe, where it is prevalent.

The Scottish environment minister, Stewart Stevenson, is currently considering what to do about the Tayside beavers, which have colonised rivers in a 50-square kilometre area between Aberfeldy, Forfar, Dundee and Perth. They either escaped from captivity or were deliberately released, and arguments are raging about whether to trap them, or leave them.

New snake discovered in Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 05 February 2012

Scotland has a new snake. The first firm evidence that the grass snake is now living in the wild north of the border has been uncovered by a naturalist, upsetting decades of conventional wisdom.

It has long been assumed that the grass snake, a non-poisonous native of England, had not colonised Scotland. A few kept as pets had escaped, but there was no proof that any lived here, or had spread north naturally.

But now Chris Cathrine, a member of the Clyde Amphibian and Reptile Group and director of the Caledonian Conservation company, has discovered grass snakes in Dumfries and Galloway. There have been three verified sightings of the animals since 2009 and three more possible sightings in the area, according to a study he has completed.

“This is very exciting because it’s the first incontrovertible proof that grass snakes are present in the wild in Scotland,” he said. Along with the adder, the common lizard and the slow worm, it brings the number of native Caledonian reptiles to four.

Grass snakes could have spread north from England, encouraged by the warmer temperatures triggered by climate change in recent years. Or they could have lived here undetected for a while.

Cathrine’s investigation started in 2010 after he saw a grass snake in a pond in Upper Nithsdale. “I was balanced on a raft of vegetation searching for great crested newt eggs when I flushed out the grass snake,” he recalled.

Pesticides are killing bees, say US scientists

from Sunday Herald, 15 January 2012

Nicotine-based pesticides in widespread use by farmers are implicated in the mass deaths of bees, according to a new study by US scientists.

The authoritative, peer-reviewed research undermines the pesticide industry’s long-repeated arguments that bees are not being harmed, and piles pressure on UK and US authorities to follow other countries by introducing bans.

Pesticide companies have been trying to protect their multi-billion pound businesses by lobbying internationally against bans on neonicotinoids, a group of toxic chemicals designed to paralyse insects by attacking their nervous systems.

Agricultural crops in Scotland, England and around the world are dosed with the chemicals to prevent insects from damaging them. But evidence has been mounting that they could be to blame for the “colony collapse disorder” that has been decimating bee populations.

The US has been losing a third of its honeybee hives every year, while beekeepers in Europe say that more than a million bee colonies have been wiped out in France, Germany, Italy and the UK since 1994.

Although neonicotinoids have faced bans or restrictions in Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia, regulators in the UK and the US have so far accepted the industry’s contention that the toxins were not poisoning bees.

Scotland is neglecting its parks and woods, survey reveals

from Sunday Herald, 11 December 2011

They are vital for our health, our life and our sanity, but they are now in sharp decline because of government cutbacks.

The parks, gardens, allotments, woodlands and sports fields that make up urban Scotland’s vital green spaces are deteriorating fast, according to dramatic new evidence to be unveiled tomorrow.

A survey conducted for the independent social enterprise, Greenspace Scotland, reveals a steep drop in the number of people using their local green spaces over the last two years. This is because they are seen as more stressful, less attractive and more dangerous places now than they were in 2009.

This means that Scotland is putting public health and economic prosperity at risk, experts warn. The survey should act as a “wake-up call” for policy-makers to protect and enhance the quality of green spaces rather than allow them to suffer from funding restrictions, they say.

“We’ve been hearing about reductions in green space staffing and management which inevitably were going to make a difference on the ground, but we hadn’t expected this to impact so soon on people’s use and attitudes,” said Julie Procter, the chief executive of Greenspace Scotland.

Police slip-up on Trump protest

from Sunday Herald, 30 October 2011

Police strategy at the Aberdeenshire golf resort being build by US property tycoon, Donald Trump, was targeted against protestors – but that was a mistake, according to an internal police report obtained by the Sunday Herald.

Grampian Police confessed to an “admin error” in recording that its aim was to “deter, detect, detain and report those responsible for unlawful protest” against the controversial development. It should have said “unlawful behaviour”.

A hand-written note in a senior police management file released under freedom of information legislation warned that this could lead to accusations that the police were biased in favour of Trump.

"Emphasis on ‘protest’ could be seen as an imbalance in terms of neutrality,” it said. “‘Behaviour’ is more appropriate and was original strategy.”

The revelation has resurrected claims that Grampian Police have acted as Trump’s private security force in protecting the billionaire’s £750 million golf course and hotel complex on the Menie Estate. Last year, two documentary filmmakers were arrested and imprisoned after interviewing a member of Trump’s staff on the estate, but then had charges dropped.

Plan for massive new coal plant ‘riddled with errors’

from Sunday Herald, 23 October 2011

A planning application for a new £3 billion coal-fired power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire is “riddled with errors” about pollution, carbon capture and wildlife, according to environmental groups.

The application - submitted by Ayrshire Power, a company formed by Clydeport’s owners, the Peel Group - makes a series of mistakes that undermine its credibility, they say. It manages to mix up the majestic white-tailed sea eagle, which has a wingspan of 2.5 metres, with the humble wheatear, whose wings stretch less than a third of a metre.

Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland, described the application as the worst he had seen during his 18 years working in the environmental movement. “It has contradictory figures, sloppy mistakes and uncertainty about the most basic parameters of the plant,” he told the Sunday Herald.

“Ayrshire Power can’t tell the difference between the UK’s largest eagle and a small moorland bird, they don’t know what our climate targets are, they can’t divide one number by another and they get their scientific units wrong by a factor of thousand. I wouldn’t buy a used car off them, let alone let them build a power station.”

The application for a plant to generate enough electricity for up to three million homes by burning coal and other fuels is due to be considered at a hearing convened by North Ayrshire Council tomorrow. The council will meet on 9 November to decide whether or not to back the plant, which will then have to be considered by Scottish ministers.

Inquiry call over quarry firm’s conflict of interest

from Sunday Herald, 09 October 2011

Environmentalists have demanded an inquiry into a conflict of interest that they say has compromised a bitterly disputed plan for a massive new quarry on the banks of the Clyde in South Lanarkshire.

Patersons, the company behind an application for a three-million-tonne sand and gravel quarry near Biggar, helps run an environmental consultancy which has given a green light to the plan.

Two of Patersons’ directors, William Paterson and James Richardson, are also listed as directors of Envirocentre, a Glasgow-based firm that provided an “independent check” on the safe management of flood risks from the quarry.

The Clyde River Action Group (CRAG), which is campaigning against the quarry, has questioned the impartiality of the consultant’s advice. “This report is meant to be independent by law, yet it's about as independent as Palestine,” said CRAG spokesman, Arthur Bell.

“If an audit were to be carried out on a company by auditors who included the company's own directors, without any declaration of conflict of interest, then Companies House would prosecute.”

Inside story: Trump’s “difficult” relationship with Grampian police

from Sunday Herald, 02 October 2011

The US property tycoon, Donald Trump, has come under attack from Grampian Police for repeatedly demanding tougher security at his controversial golf resort being built at the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire, according to internal police reports seen by the Sunday Herald.

The billionaire has piled pressure on the police to increase protection of the estate by making more patrols and responding more rapidly when called. Over the last two years Trump and his aides have held numerous meetings and discussions with senior police officers, urging them to do more.

A series of memos marked “restricted” show that the police have struggled to resist this pressure, and have become worried that their impartiality would be damaged. Trump had “unrealistic expectations” that Grampian police would behave like the New York Police Department (NYPD), police officers said.

The revelations come against a background of growing disillusionment about the police’s relationship with the Trump Organisation. Two documentary filmmakers were arrested and imprisoned after interviewing one of Trump’s staff, but then had charges dropped.

And local residents opposed to the Trump development say they no longer bother calling the police if there’s an incident because of “the perception that they are working as a private security force for Trump.”

Doubts over promises to Trump on wind farms

from Sunday Herald, 02 October 2011

The Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council have denied that they made any promises about wind farms to the US property tycoon, Donald Trump, casting doubt on his claims.

Trump is vigorously opposing plans for an 11-turbine wind farm in the sea off Aberdeen Bay, a mile from the golf resort he is building on the coast near Balmedie. He has written twice in the last month to the First Minister, Alex Salmond, complaining that the wind farm would look “ugly” and be “environmentally irresponsible”.

The wind farm, proposed by a consortium including the Swedish energy company, Vattenfall, would deter visitors and damage his development, Trump argued. He would not have gone ahead if he hadn’t been “repeatedly promised, as an incentive for us to proceed with my project, that wind turbines would not be destroying and distorting Aberdeen’s magnificent coastline,” he told Salmond.

But both the Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council insisted that they had no record of making any such promises. The Sunday Herald asked them under freedom of information legislation to provide details of any statements made to Trump on wind farms.

Britain’s loneliest rock reveals its secrets

from Sunday Herald, 25 September 2011

It’s one of the most desolate and disputed pinnacles of rock in the world. Lashed by huge waves, besieged by seabirds and dirty white with guano, Rockall pokes its tiny head above the Atlantic, 228 miles west of North Uist. 

Now, 200 years after the first recorded landing on the rocky islet, it is starting to reveal its hidden depths. For the first time, Scottish government scientists have mapped the sweeping underwater mountain ranges of which Rockall forms the visible peak.

They have discovered a series of “spectacular” ridges, reefs and crevasses fanning out across the seabed. And they have found huge conger eels lurking in the rocks, along with ling and tusk fish.

It was back on September 8^th 1811, that Royal Navy officer Basil Hall set precarious foot on Rockall and climbed its 19-metre summit. Since then it has been at the centre of a series of international arguments over which country it actually belongs to. 

Ireland, Iceland and Denmark (on behalf of the Faroes) have all staked their claims. Its ownership, and the valuable fishing and mineral rights that could go with it, is currently under investigation by the United Nations.

Scotland’s wildlife: neglected, damaged and declining

from Sunday Herald, 14 August 2011

They are meant to be the pride of the nation, but they are suffering. The iconic mountains, beloved animals and precious plants that define Scotland’s spectacular natural heritage are in decline.

A new official assessment has revealed that more than a thousand of the country’s most important natural features are in poor condition – and the problem’s getting worse.

Flowers, birds, fish, lochs, woodlands and hillsides across the country are being neglected or damaged because of the failure of successive governments to meet targets to protect them from pollution, development, farmers, landowners and other threats.

The areas that have been harmed include Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis and the Cuillins, as well as the Spey and Tweed rivers. Amongst the wildlife at risk are seabirds like puffins and terns, hen harriers, salmon, and the Scottish primrose.

The loss of wildlife and nature conservation areas is a “ticking time bomb” that will undermine the multi-million pound tourism industry and jeopardise the ecological health of the nation environmentalists warn.

The new assessment, which was carried out by the government’s wildlife conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), reveals that 22.8% of over 5,000 natural features are in “unfavourable condition” this year. This compares to 22% in 2010 and 21.6% in 2009.

Fury over plans that will destroy nature site

from Sunday Herald, 12 June 2011

A coastal nature reserve that’s home to seabirds, otters and a rare pink plant is going to be covered in concrete by a huge new industrial development being backed by North Ayrshire Council.

Wildlife groups are furious that the council is promoting a plan for two power stations, a container terminal, a construction yard and renewable energy facilities that will destroy a legally protected conservation area.

Campaigns are being launched this week to try and persuade the council to change its mind, and protect the government-designated site of special scientific interest (SSSI) at Hunterson, near Fairlie.

“This plan could lead to the almost complete destruction of a place that is very special for wildlife and local people, effectively concreting over most of a nationally important wildlife site,” said Aedán Smith, head of planning with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland.

“We urge everyone who cares about the protection of this site to make their views known to the council before it is too late.” Public consultations on the plan are due to end on 24 June.

A local development plan drawn up by North Ayrshire Council endorses the controversial proposal for a new coal-fired power plant at Hunterston, though it says all its carbon emissions should be captured and stored. But the council also backs a raft of other developments on the site, including a biomass plant, a container transhipment hub, a maritime construction and dismantling yard and a marine renewables centre.

Stunning stretch of Scotland under new management

from Sunday Herald, 05 June 2011

It’s one of the most stunningly beautiful stretches of sea, mountain and moorland in Scotland, and now it’s going to be under new management.

A vast area of the north west highlands, including the Summer Isles, the famed peaks of Suilven and Quinag and beaches to die for, is to become the largest conservation and restoration project in the country.

Environmental organisations, landowners and community groups are coming together to protect wildlife, expand woodlands and help local businesses in what they say is a “unique” and “aspirational” 50-year plan.

The Coigach and Assynt Living Landscape (CALL) partnership is going to be launched this week at a ceremony in Lochinver, Sutherland. It aims to cover over 70,000 hectares of land north of Ullapool.

Among its first moves could be schemes for tree nurseries, planting trees in remote areas and reseeding native woodlands with ground plants. There are also plans for local venison processing, new walking routes and environmental awards in local schools.

U-turn over A9 crossing after blockade threat

from Caledonian Mercury, 23 May 2011

Walkers, cyclists and horse-riders who threatened to blockade the A9 in the Cairngorms have forced a government U-turn after the personal intervention of the First Minister, Alex Salmond.

Transport Scotland has previously refused to provide access for a historic route across the newly dualled carriageway at Crubenmore, just south of Newtonmore. But now it is planning to construct an underpass.

The government agency’s change of heart follows an intervention by Salmond during the election. He told campaigners he shared their concerns and, if re-elected, would instruct officials to go-ahead with a crossing.

Transport Scotland said it was now determining the feasibility of building an underpass with a view to bringing forward the necessary road orders. “It is expected this work could be completed by mid-August,” said a spokeswoman for the agency.

It may take another two years, though, until the crossing is actually built. Officials met with representatives of walking and horse-riding groups on Friday to discuss what was required.

Trump accused of a campaign of intimidation against local residents

comment, 17 May 2011

The US property tycoon, Donald Trump, has been accused of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against local residents to try and bulldoze through plans for a £750 million golf resort at Menie on the Aberdeenshire coast.

A new report by the land reform campaigner and author, Andy Wightman, details a series of alleged incidents in which Trump has moved against residents, including land grabs, threats of court action and damage to private property. Trump's staff have “sneered and laughed” at local people, says Wightman.

“The effect of this upon the affected families has been traumatic and their right to live in peace has been violated by constant threats and intimidation,” he concludes. “The fact that the local council and the Scottish government did nothing to stop this happening is to their eternal shame.”

Wightman also accuses Trump of having a “hot line” to Grampian police, who have been called out to the Menie estate 30 times since planning permission was granted in December 2008. He criticises Aberdeen newspapers, the Press and Journal and the Evening Express, for acting as a “propaganda organ” for Trump.

Andy Wightman's report and background documents are available on his website. There is also a revealing video of Trump in action here.