Nature

Votes needed to help secure the future of Scotland’s red squirrels

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Helen Webster

An innovative Highlands project offering hope for the long-term survival of Scotland’s red squirrels will be stepped up if conservation charity Trees for Life wins an online vote for a major European funding award. With the UK’s red squirrels at risk of extinction, the charity’s pioneering Reds Return project has been shortlisted to receive more than £25,000 in the European Outdoor Conservation Association’s funding scheme. The winner will be determined by online voting between 8-19 October, and anyone can vote for Trees for Life at www.treesforlife.org.uk/voteTFL. Winning would allow Trees for Life to reintroduce red squirrels to four carefully chosen…

Posted in Magazine, Nature

Report finds Scotland failing to protect against damaging hill tracks

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Helen Webster

A new report has found that current Scottish law is failing to protect Scotland’s landscape from damage caused by the building of vehicle tracks in the countryside. A coalition of nine leading Scottish environmental organisations is now calling for stronger laws to protect the country’s most iconic landscapes from these tracks. Scottish Environment LINK Hilltracks sub-group has today (Tues 18 Sept) published its Changing Tracks report – following three years of gathering evidence into whether planning legislation is effectively managing the development of the highly-visible tracks. The group argues that the proliferation of controversial upland tracks is ‘out of control’…

Posted in Access issues, Nature

John Muir Trust objects to proposed Glen Etive hydro schemes

Posted on August 11, 2018 by Helen Webster

Wild land charity the John Muir Trust has lodged objections to three proposed hydro schemes in the popular outdoor area of Glen Etive near Glencoe on wild land grounds. The proposed schemes on the south-east side of the Glen Etive Road at Allt Ceitlein, Allt Chaorainn and Allt Mheuran are within the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe National Scenic Area, the Glen Etive and Glen Fyne Special Protection Area and within Wild Land Area 9 Loch Etive Mountains. The proposed developments are part of seven hydro schemes planned for the glen by the same development company. The Trust has stated…

Posted in Nature

Looking after what we love?

Posted on August 9, 2018 by David Lintern

Scotland’s environmental record so far this year isn’t that easy to digest, but David Lintern has had a go… It’s 2018, and god knows there’s a lot of bad news competing for our attention. But in a slight change to our usual programming, we’ve decided on less detail but more scope for this, a roundup of Scottish conservation issues. Why? Because there’s only a few of us here at Walk Highlands Towers and many more of you, and we need your help to keep up with what has also been a hell of a year for the Scottish environment. Here’s…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature, News

New ‘suspension bridge’ keeps red squirrels safe in Highlands

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Helen Webster

A specially designed rope bridge slung between trees high over a Highlands road is giving red squirrels a safe crossing. Camera footage has revealed regular use of the bridge by the charismatic species. Conservation charity Trees for Life installed the bridge over a road near Shieldaig last summer, as part of its project to reintroduce red squirrels to the northwest Highlands. Footage collected for more than a year from a camera trap has now revealed squirrels from a flourishing new population at Shieldaig crossing the bridge and exploring their new homes. Together with nearby road signs alerting drivers to the…

Posted in Nature

Airlifts on Suilven for second phase of path repairs

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Helen Webster

This week from Monday 7 May, community-owned Suilven in Sutherland will be at the centre of four days of helicopter activity to carry hundreds of tonnes of stone and gravel to the high slopes. The airlifts mark the start of a new phase of repair work on the path from Glencanisp, which will carry on through the summer, with the £200,000 project expected to be completed in August. The mountain is bracing itself for an upsurge in visitors following the release later this month of the film ‘Edie’, starring Sheila Hancock as an octogenarian who makes a life-changing decision to…

Posted in Access issues, Nature, News

Trust applauds Scottish Govt rejection of two major wind farms in Highland Wild Land Areas

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Helen Webster

The John Muir Trust has welcomed the decision by Scottish Ministers to refuse consent for two major developments in the Highlands because of their landscape impact on two recognised Wild Land Areas. In one letter the Minister states that these areas “are of recognised national importance”. A Public Local Inquiry (PLI) into an application by Muirhall Energy for a 20-turbine development at Caplich in Sutherland, found that the proposed wind farm would cause “significant harm to Wild Land Areas 34 [Reay-Cassley] and 29 [Rhiddoroch-Beinn Dearg-Ben Wyvis] and would compromise the natural environment, amenity and heritage resources of these areas”. A…

Posted in Nature

Saving Red Squirrels

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Ben Dolphin

Back in November I wrote a piece for Walkhighlands about pine martens, in which I referred to a study that was underway at the time into their intriguing relationship with both red and grey squirrels. The results of that study were published last week and made headline news, so now seems a good time to revisit the subject. Many of you are doubtless familiar with our squirrels but I think it’s still worth going back to the very beginning of this fascinating story. The red squirrel The red squirrel is the only squirrel native to the British Isles, i.e. it…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Can we live with lynx?

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Dr David Hetherington

A landmark new book, The Lynx and Us, is being published next month by Scotland: The Big Picture. Here the author of the book Dr David Hetherington, the UK’s leading lynx expert, asks what it would be like to live alongside lynx. Until just a few years ago, the lynx was virtually unknown as a former native of Scotland. Beavers and wolves dominated discussions about reintroductions. Nowadays though, it seems you can barely open a newspaper, magazine or website without meeting the intense, feline stare of a lynx as the prospect of their return is very publicly raised once again.…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

£5.6million Lottery cash for Scottish landscapes

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Helen Webster

The National Lottery has marked the first day of Spring with an investment of over £5.6million in three large-scale Scottish landscapes from the remotest islands of Orkney to the industrial coastline of North Ayrshire. The North Isles in Orkney, Callander’s Pass on the eastern edge of the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park and River Garnock catchment in Ayrshire will benefit from this major funding package which is set to impact on over 700 square km of countryside, an area the same size as Singapore. Around 60 individual projects will take place to conserve many different habitats while creating…

Posted in Nature