Kirsty Hughes illustrates in text and images the challenges and hopes associated with rewilding the Highlands: “The rewilding journey is a long and vital one. With places like Dundreggan and Glen Affric showing the way, it can – and must – be a successful one.”
climate crisis
Scotland does not need nuclear energy
Contrary to what you might have heard…, nuclear power is an outdated technology. Scotland can build a strong, resilient energy supply based on renewable energy.
One snort for hello?
“It doesn’t have to be like this, as David Attenborough has reminded us at the end of every episode of his most urgently powerful and poignant series: Green Planet, and with force in the final fifth, Human Worlds. Solutions are tantalisingly within reach. At no risk to ourselves we can make our own surrounds much greener – and a lot more pleasant.”
From Big Oil to Big Wind
“Challenges lie ahead. But one major difference between Big Oil and Big Wind is that the latter has the potential to help rescue the planet from the climate emergency.”
Kathleen Jamie: the poetry of natural resistance
“But another important thing is that poetry is for everyone. Don’t for one minute think poetry was ever a highfalutin thing. It never was – particularly In Scotland. Think about the ballads, think about Burns – these are ordinary everyday folk.”
Blow winds…rage, sing, make music
there’s something comforting about listening to the music made by a different natural force over which we have no control.
From poor house to empty hotel
“Most people in the sector I speak to agree – this system wasn’t broken before Brexit. Now it is. But who will answer the pleas of Highland hospitality business owners? They are desperate for the mitigation of seasonal visas. But the Scottish Government has no control over immigration, just as it had no say over Brexit itself.”
COP26 and Africa’s development needs
“Are we in the developed world prepared to accept that it would be fair for Africa’s C02 emissions to rise even as ours fall? Or are we prepared to fund a transfer of resources to enable solar, tidal, wind and so on, to supply their needs? At the end of COP26, more money was promised – but it fell far short of what African negotiators wanted.”
Garb-Age in the Highlands
“They filled a boat with 15 bags of plastic waste. By weight, 90% of the waste was from the area’s salmon farms, which regularly discard long black snakes of feeding tubes into the sea.”
Jobs and a just transition can deliver climate ambition
“Governments should work with unions and employers to ensure green jobs: offer good wages, benefits and job security;
provide better training and advancement opportunities;
give workers the right to organise, and are safe and accessible to all.”