Scotland's Biodiversity Crisis

As with Climate Change, it is past time to give some more hard facts and consequences to Scotland and its Economy of the scant regard we have given to this since the 1950s. I often hear it said (usually by farmers) that farmers are the real custodians of the countryside. Farming has a far greater negative impact on biodiversity than development. Since the 1950s the standard of soil husbandry has steadily declined, habit destruction continues and to make it worse millions, probably billions of pounds of taxpayers money is spent on incentive schemes that are of minimal value and rather than manage a very little space for native crop pollinators, farmers spent millions importing wild bee colonies from Eastern Europe. While Brexit ended that, it is still possible to import Queen Bees. There are also suggestions of incentives for farmers to improve their soil husbandry - an incentive to an industry to look fetter their most basic and essential resource - two examples of the logic of the mad house.

We all depend on a healthy environment which reams of statistics show have declined steadily since the 1950s. I am 69 and cannot claim to have been a great custodian of our country, but it is my children and grandchildren who will pay an ever bigger price for the carelessness and casual indifference of my and previous generations. We have been living off an environmental credit card for many years without even making the minimum monthly payment - and we all know where that leads.