06 Nov 2019

£50 million Woodland Carbon Guarantee scheme will encourage farmers and landowners to plant more trees and help to tackle climate change. On Monday 4 November 2019, alongside the Forestry Commission, Defra announced the launch of the £50m Woodland Carbon Guarantee (WCaG) to help boost tree-planting rates in the fight against climate change. The WCaG is an incentive […]

06 Nov 2019

Wildlife & Countryside Link ‘The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has published the final report of its invasive species inquiry which, among other things, calls for a tripling of the invasive species budget and a ‘citizens army’ of 1.3 million volunteers to act as our frontline of defence. Link warmly welcomed the Committee’s recommendations, many of which we have campaigned […]

06 Nov 2019

Guardian The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from 11,000 scientists from across the world. “We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” it states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change […]

02 Nov 2019

The Super-trawler in the English Channel and the developing commentaries (see below) and illustrations have been a stark reminder to a much wider audience about the scale of modern industrial fishing. This note highlights: The sheer size of these super trawlers that simply dwarf any ‘traditional’ trawler. The legality of the quota allocation via the […]

02 Nov 2019

Reported in the Independent based on an FOI from NGO Open Seas Several thousand tonnes of dead fish have been illegally discarded by trawlers in the North Sea and west coast of Scotland this year, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. Small, juvenile fish often end up getting caught in scampi fisheries because their mesh nets […]

02 Nov 2019

From the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland by Allen P Sragow    19th August 2019 A US attorney warns that Scotland has 18 months to legislate new marine mammal protection standards or find the largest export market for Scottish salmon closed for business United States Marine Mammal Protection Act 1972 (“MMPA”) prohibits injuring marine […]