18 Apr 2023

The world’s deepest offshore wind turbine has been installed almost 17 miles off the coast as part of Scotland’s biggest offshore windfarm. The Scottish energy company SSE installed the 2,000-tonne turbine foundation at a depth of more than 58 metres (192ft) in the early hours of Easter Sunday as part of the £3bn Seagreen offshore windfarm. […]

12 Apr 2023

UNESCO has approved eight new ecohydrology demonstration sites in Brazil, Chile, Italy, Pakistan, Poland, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom. With these new additions, the Global Network of UNESCO Ecohydrology Demonstration Sites now totals 37 sites in 26 countries The Eddleston Water project, supported by the Scottish Government in the United Kingdom, is investigating the effectiveness […]

21 Mar 2023

A network of new Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) will have a catastrophic impact on the industry, ministers are being warned. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) said the strict conservation zones were far too big a price for fishermen to pay when they lacked ecological justification and were being introduced for purely political reasons. In […]

14 Mar 2023

Salmon deaths on fish farms in Scotland nearly doubled last year, according to Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) Scotland. FHI data shows that nearly 15m salmon mortalities were reported by farms in Scotland from January to November 2022, the latest data available, compared with 8.58m in all of 2021 and 5.81m in 2020. Deaths are caused by growing […]

06 Mar 2023

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and the Tourism, Mairi Gougeon has told Scottish Labour MSP for Central Scotland, Monica Lennon, that the government has no plans to introduce a three-nautical mile limit. When the Scottish Labour MSP for Central Scotland asked in a written question: “To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to […]

14 Feb 2023

Four dead seals have tested positive for bird flu in Scotland, as the number of cases of highly pathogenic avian flu in mammals continues to grow globally with experts warning of “a step-change” in its spread. The largest ever bird flu outbreak had already spilled over into otters and foxes in the UK, with about 70 […]

14 Feb 2023

The Red Rocks and Longay Marine Protected Area (MPA), in the Inner Sound of Skye will be permanently designated from 9 February 2023, protecting a flapper skate egg-laying site of national importance from various activities. These include certain types of fishing, recreational sea angling, marine deposit sites/waste disposal, aquaculture, marine infrastructure and anchoring, amongst others. […]

31 Jan 2023

Researchers in Scotland have developed a tool to help ensure porpoises are not being harmed by the construction of offshore wind farms. The pile driving required to build offshore turbines can harm or even kill noise-sensitive marine mammals like porpoises. To move them away from the construction sites, acoustic deterrents (ADDs) are often installed underwater: delivering […]