SNP INVERNESS AND NAIRN MSP FERGUS EWING: Cairngorms National Park Authority should emphatically state it will not support lynx reintroduction
The deliberate release of at least four lynx in the Highlands has generated national headlines, and caused local farmers much concern for their sheep and livestock.
The introduction or reintroduction of the beaver, the wolf and lynx is very much on the agenda of metropolitan-based pressure groups and re-wilding enthusiasts.
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Yet most active working farmers I know view this as just another threat to their livestock. These are livestock facing attack from existing predators - against which they have ever fewer legal weapons in their armoury, thanks to overzealous legislation in Holyrood, much promoted by the Greens and fellow travellers…
When rural secretary, I made my view crystal clear in a speech to the NFUS main annual conference: the state sponsored reintroduction of the wolf or lynx would happen “over my dead body”.
This was, it has to be said, not in my official script. And officials rushed afterwards to “clarify” that there was in fact a legal process set out for the reintroduction of species and that was the policy. Well, It wasn’t mine - then or now.
Local well-respected Strathspey farmer Robert MacDonald made it clear last week that this illegal release has caused much concern locally and he speaks with the authentic voice of local farmers and their views. They are also right to be concerned given there are, within the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA), enthusiasts for bringing in the lynx.
Why else would they have undertaken a “fact-finding” exercise on this topic to Switzerland recently? Conveniently paid for by NGOs I believe. The CNPA should now emphatically state that they will not support this reintroduction. I will ask them to do so.
The act of the illegal release was in itself, not only illegal and reckless, but also cruel. For, as we have seen, one of the animals has died. Let us hope those behind the release are brought to justice.
Meanwhile, I urge my cabinet secretary successor Mairi Gougeon and her deputy minister Jim Fairlie, himself a former sheep farmer, to make it clear that they too will stand up to the Greens, the pressure groups, the re-wilders and provide assurance to rural Scotland about importing new predators to attack our livestock. Not in my name. Not by this government.
A9 debate this week
This week in Holyrood we will debate the A9 dualling project. What went wrong and how to put it right. It’s a debate pressed not by the Scottish Government - who would, I think, prefer that all were “quiet on the northern front” - but by the petitions committee of which I am a member.
It’s all thanks to petitioner Laura Hansler, the feisty Highland campaigner. It does prove that an individual person can go to parliament and secure a debate - a debate which the government plainly prefer not to have.
Our petitions committee has already had some success. Glasgow-based super quango Transport Scotland have been forced, or embarrassed, by strong criticism in the evidence to the committee last June, into changing their terms and conditions for contractors doing the work - Ts and Cs which had held back any progress. Because unlike England all risks were forced onto contractors, meaning few were interested in taking on projects or bidding.
We have in our report, made several major recommendations to the Scottish Government. But the response to that report from Fiona Hyslop, the transport secretary has pretty much dismissed them all. If she disagrees with that verdict, let her say so this week.
My main aim as your man in Holyrood, continues to be to persuade the government to accelerate the completion from the new date of 2035 and re-sequence the order of work. That will improve lives and save lives. Courier readers can be assured that I will pursue this campaign doggedly over the year.