We participated in the Restore Nature march on 22 June as first-time protesters. We live near Loch Lomond in a Glen with four Munros overlooking Loch Long; a sea loch, where porpoises, seals and the odd turtle make regular visits in uneasy harmony with submarines, aircraft carriers and oil tankers that share this fjord further down. It is an idyllic Scottish location.
The nature is rich here, but fragile, like so many places under stress. We have lived here for three years and become alarmed at the sudden deterioration. There are two key things that drove us to march:
- The lack of investment in the organisations who have responsibility for these important things.
- The lack of co-ordination between the organisations themselves and with local communities.
Observing nature
The Glen hosts several species of bat, five of which live around our house and some use our eaves as a maternity roost during the summer. We identify them visually and with a bat monitor which fascinates our 5-year-old grandson, who in turn hangs upside down in a tree at forest school, showing them how to be a soprano pipistrelle. This spring, only the soprano pipistrelles have appeared; of the common pipistrelles, the long-eared brown, noctules and Daubentons there is no sign.
The kingfishers that had moved back into the River Loin, which runs through the Glen – for the first time in decades have gone. There is also no further scat (poo) from the otters or pine martens that indicates their activity in the river. The birds vary – I haven’t seen a bullfinch this year but many others are doing well. Except for the golden eagles – on 3 and 4 March this year Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) dynamited a new road in the ancient Argyll Forest on the hill overlooking the Glen. This is the time of year when golden eagles, who mate for life, look for nesting sites and the males display to their mates. On these days a golden eagle pair were displaying and so our golden eagles have moved elsewhere.
Construction during breeding season
A month later, at the beginning of April, the Civil Grid started building their long-planned road. This involved moving heavy machinery down the Glen to the Loch Sloy dam, to start work on improvement that will increase hydro-electricity output – a good thing. Except work started in the main breeding season for many of the birds and all the mammals in the Glen. It has disrupted the badgers, foxes, and red squirrels; many have disappeared and moved altogether. Civil Grid have an ecologist working for them, so where were they when this decision was made? Whilst they say they will remove much of the road and bridges they have built, Civil Grid cannot replace the wildlife we have lost as a result of the devastating time of year they chose to start.
The Glen is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), protected by law and monitored supposedly by NatureScot. Where is the protection?
Monoculture and invasive species
FLS are aware of this – dynamiting suggests a complete disconnect. The Glen also suffers from terminal monoculture of Sitka spruce. Sitka spruce is not a native species to Britain but is grown by FLS as a fast timber crop. But FLS leave it for over 40 years; they may as well grow a native, less invasive species. The spruce have needle blight, so have to be felled now. They also grow larch, which suffers from a fungus called Phytophthora ramorum, and Scotland is likely to lose all its larch trees, the only deciduous larch. This is poor management. And yet the FLS plan is to plant more of the same spruce that currently have needle blight rather than native trees.
Neither do FLS control the invasive rhododendrons; these are now growing in the SSSI. In fact, the Glen suffers from Japanese knotweed, skunk cabbage, Himalayan balsam as well as rhododendrons, all growing unconstrained on FLS or Argyll & Bute Council land.
Brutal cull of nature
In 2022, FLS culled the red deer. Herbivore control is much needed in Scotland to allow for new forests to re-generate naturally; they eat everything. But here, they had got very much out of control; they used my compost heap as their personal snack bar. FLS organised the cull, mainly because of their plantation replanting. The cull was brutal. It endured for a year through the deer rut, when the stags famously compete for the breeding rights and the deer breed. More than 600 red deer were shot, and none has been seen in the Glen since. Whilst there needs to be control, as deer have no natural predators, leaving them until they become so numerous that they damage everything, followed by mass slaughter cannot be the best way. Taking the old and sick at the right times of the year must be a better way.
Reliance on citizen scientists
Which brings me to the Loch. Two years ago, there was a local die-off of crustaceans. Crabs, mussels, clams, all of them died suddenly in our part of the Loch. My Grandson found a crab in the final paroxysms of death. We called the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and sent photos. They asked us to take samples and freeze them (I am an archaeological scientist), and these samples were sent to the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Lowestoft for analysis. The fear being that the same virus that had hit the northeast coast of England around Hartlepool and killed off their crab industry may also be here. It wasn’t.
CEFAS don’t know what killed them but could only detect the presence of a small amount of algae that shouldn’t have harmed the crabs. My personal research suggests that it was the toxins given off by the bacteria that eat the algae once it dies off that may have been responsible. SEPA was too busy to send somebody themselves to investigate an incident that could potentially have formed a threat to the Scottish shellfish industry. No further investigation has been made, and there appears to be no plan for the future if this kind of thing hits any other part of the UK. These organisations (and I have to say SEPA and Marine Scotland co-ordinated well here), don’t appear to have the manpower to handle anything off-plan and are relying on ‘citizen scientists’.
Nature fails with lack of co-operation
Loch Long is also a declared litter sink; a lot of the plastic waste floating around the River Clyde is brought in on the tide and deposited at the end of the Loch where salt, sand, seaweed and the sun turn it into lethal micro-plastics. There are no funds to deal with this, so despite local efforts to clear the beach – this beautiful place where the porpoises come – becomes more lethal.
The Glen is part of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The main financial efforts of the Park are focused on the Trossachs. Investment in the Cowal Peninsula, home to the rare Atlantic rainforest is negligible. Forestry and Land Scotland, NatureScot, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, Argyll & Bute Council, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Marine Scotland, do not work together.
350 nature-concerned organisations were at the march on Saturday, and Chris Packham said what a challenge it was to get them to agree to be in the same place at the same time. It is a triumph that they did. But we need a miracle for them to work together; nature is failing because here the official organisations are failing to cooperate. With Scottish Greens no longer part of the government in Scotland, no one in authority is holding anyone to account. NatureScot did not participate in the March.
Of all the things we have been incensed and been powerless to do anything about, we finally set aside work, dog and grandchildren, got on the train from Scotland and marched for Nature: for the air we breathe, the water we drink and the plants on which we, and every bird, animal, insect depend.
Life does not exist without them and is being destroyed under our very noses.
