REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform hosted another successful fringe event at the SNP’s Annual National Conference over the weekend, where the discussion centred on land reform and grouse moors.
Panellists included Scottish Environment Minister Màiri McAllan, Max Wiszniewski (Campaign Manager at REVIVE), Amanda Burgauer (Executive Director of Common Weal), Robbie Marsland (Director of the League Against Cruel Sports Scotland) and Mhairi Stewart (Policy Strategy Lead at the John Muir Trust).
A summary of the event will hopefully be published by REVIVE in due course but suffice to say, as before (here & here), there was considerable interest and strong support from SNP delegates.
REVIVE’s ingenious ‘Play Your Cards Right‘ game was once more available for delegates to interact with, helping them to engage memorably with the coalition’s concerns about the various damaging aspects of driven grouse moor management.
MSP David Torrance (Kirkcaldy), here with Max Wiszniewski from REVIVE, was one of many to have a go:
The Scottish Government’s long-anticipated move to draw up an effective and enforceable licensing scheme for grouse shooting (see here) is set to begin shortly with the publishing of a public consultation document prior to the drafting of legislation which will be subject to debate and amendments as the draft bill progresses through Parliament during this session, as set out recently in the 2022-2023 Programme for Government (see here).
UPDATE 21st October 2022: REVIVE coalition for grouse moor reform well received by SNP and Scottish Greens conferences (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
I’ll believe when I see it. SNP are ace at kicking the can down the road.
Agree just think what could have been achieved environmentally with 14 years in power. Absolutely useless, good at campaigning (for some things) absolutely crap at actually governing and worse still on the environment; Trumps golf course, hill tracks, deer numbers, beavers to name but a few – all failures or fudges.
Pressure and a close eye will need to be kept on them.
But if you don’t like them, won’t vote for them, want to just be exactly like the rest of the U.K. (i.e. England) then great! have what’s happening there as far as raptor protection or moorland reform is concerned. Then you won’t have to moan about the SNP. Problem solved. Yes?
Problem solved NO. When you have an SNP minister reportedly saying “I don’t give a f*** about beavers” what hope have you got?
IF we as in the population of Scotland ever become independent, who actually owns Scotland.
Interesting to see that a rep from the John Muir Trust was involved. If that signals there’s a chance the JMT will become formal partners in Revive that would be a fantastic result. More organisations really should be crossing the Rubicon by supporting it openly, surely as time goes by there’s less and less to lose by officially joining, rather the reverse. Good to see Max is doing such a fantastic job.