In July this year many of you supported a crowdfunder set up by the Stobo Residents Action Group who were taking a judicial review against the Scottish Government agency Scottish Forestry’s decision to approve a commercial woodland project, including a large sitka spruce plantation, on valuable moorland habitat in the Scottish Borders, a site important for many species but particularly for black grouse and golden eagles. The main premise of the legal challenge was that Scottish Forestry approved the work application after wrongly determining that an Environmental Impact Assessment was not required (see here).
This evening the Stobo Residents Action Group has published an update about its legal challenge on its crowdfunder page. Part of it is replicated here:
Stobo Hope: taxpayer funded £2 million forestry grant contract cancelled.
Court of Session rescinds £2 million contract, all funding, EIA decision and grant of consent
We are pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached between Stobo Residents Action Group Ltd (the Petitioner in the judicial review) and the Scottish Ministers (the Respondent in the judicial review) which has resulted in the reduction (legal cancellation) of the grant contract for the Stobo woodland creation scheme managed by True North Real Asset Partners Ltd.
The screening decision by Scottish Forestry dated 18 January 2024 (which determined that no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was required) and the grant of consent by Scottish Forestry dated 27 February 2024 have also been reduced by the court.
As a result of the court’s order, any continuation of forestry development at Stobo Hope is, until a new decision on consent has been made, unlawful.
The Scottish Ministers have, in effect, agreed to the granting of the remedies sought by the petitioner (on the basis that there was a failure to consider the impact of blanket spraying four square kilometres with herbicide) rather than contesting our petition through to a substantive hearing in the Court of Session. As a result, the court is not required to determine if the Respondent had acted lawfully.
We continue to believe the decision to forego an EIA was unlawful for other reasons, including but not limited to:
- A failure to properly consult NatureScot and give weight to its recommendation that the woodland scheme should be an EIA project, in part due to the likely significant effects on the National Scenic Area; and
- A failure to address cumulative impacts of multiple forestry schemes nearby.
The court is, however, no longer required to determine those matters because of the agreement mentioned above. Should Scottish Forestry repeat its decision to not have an EIA for the Stobo woodland creation scheme a second time, we will examine that decision very closely and it is probable we will lodge a new petition to challenge that decision where there are grounds to do so.
Unfortunately, works were continuing yesterday on site (10 September 2024) notwithstanding the lack of any consent, causing further destruction, including ground preparation works on Penvalla (picture below). Scottish Ministers have been made aware of this.
We are extremely grateful to our solicitors, Balfour and Manson, for all their hard work, support and patience over the last eight months in achieving this outcome for the Stobo Residents Action Group. We are confident that this will lead to better, more transparent decision-making about sustainable rural landuse across Southern Scotland and result in the better use of scarce public funds to support rural communities and protect their natural environment.
Adverse environmental impacts of inappropriately sited commercial conifer plantations.
The £2 million of taxpayer funds were seemingly meant to subsidise returns for the Forestry Carbon Sequestration Fund, a registered collective investment scheme based in the tax haven of Guernsey, through developing an appreciable Sitka spruce plantation and the sale of carbon credits.
The intended pecuniary gains from this scheme appear to be correlated with the extent and intensity of destruction of Stobo Hope’s unimproved grasslands, wetlands and internationally important dry dwarf shrub heath, with the consequential extirpation of fauna including the black grouse, threatened with extinction in the Southern Uplands.
Similar taxpayer-funded schemes cumulatively costing hundreds of millions of pounds in the past decade alone have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of semi-natural habitats across Scotland. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and current Scottish forestry policy (permitting the wrong tree in the wrong place) is at odds with Scottish Government pronouncements to reversing biodiversity loss. Section 1 of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act, 2004 places a general duty on public bodies and office holders (who include Scottish Forestry) to further the conservation of biodiversity. It is not evident that this has been a consideration with this project.
Pryor and Rickett Silviculture Ltd, the forestry developers, submitted an application to Scottish Forestry for a screening opinion to determine if an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was required for the Stobo Woodland Creation Scheme in June 2023.
Pryor and Rickett Silviculture Ltd failed to disclose to Scottish Forestry that four square kilometres of land would be blanket sprayed with herbicide, killing all plant life and associated dependent fauna. It was also confirmed that blanket spraying of herbicide was contrary to good forestry practice and the UK Forestry Standard. As a direct result of our judicial review, after the petitioner provided the respondent in August 2024 with photographs of the landscape-scale destruction of unimproved grasslands, wetlands and heather moorland, a prompt investigation was conducted. It was established that a large area had been blanket sprayed with herbicide in August 2023, apparently unnoticed by Scottish Forestry.
Given the unauthorised works in August 2023 and other factors, it seems to us that investors and forestry managers were confident that approval by Scottish Forestry of the proposed Stobo woodland creation scheme in its then current iteration (or virtually identical subsequent iterations) would be a foregone conclusion. This approval would be irrespective of past, ongoing or yet-to-take-place consultations with others, including NatureScot, the RSPB or members of the public.
A new ecological impact assessment of the proposal should be undertaken in line with the Guidelines for Ecological Impact Assessment in the UK and Ireland (CIEEM, 2018) and importantly assess the values of ecological features present on the site at the time of the ecological surveys undertaken by Nevis Environmental Ltd (now Mabbett & Associates Ltd) in support of the scheme in 2021, rather than after blanket herbicide treatment and other works.
Fundraising – a special thanks to Wild Justice
We are very grateful for your generous donations, notably £5,000 from Wild Justice, an organisation dedicated to wildlife through challenging government decisions in the courts, campaigning for legislative improvements and providing others with support to protect nature. Wild Justice raised our campaign profile through the highly recommended Raptor Persecution UK blog.
Wild Justice is run by Dr Ruth Tingay, with thirty years of expertise in raptor research and conservation, Dr Mark Avery, conservationist and scientist, and Chris Packham CBE, naturalist, film maker and presenter.
The Raptor Persecution UK blog written by Dr Ruth Tingay focuses on campaigning against the illegal killing of birds of prey, including in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, where golden eagles continue to be killed.
Campaigns by Wild Justice include returning tens of thousands of hectares of internationally important heathland to a favourable condition on Dartmoor’s commons. We would be grateful if you could donate to Wild Justice and read more about their work. Thank you.
What happens next in our campaign?
Our campaign hopes that Scottish Forestry will not approve the Stobo Hope woodland creation scheme. We hope to engage constructively with Scottish Forestry, with a genuine participatory role for charities, public and private bodies, benevolent landowners and the local community. The saving of £2 million of taxpayer funds arising from our success so far in this campaign creates a greater opportunity for an alternative woodland creation project at Stobo Hope under different ownership with social and economic benefits. Such a project could be a visionary one with a moderate amount of native woodland and natural regeneration while retaining large areas of contiguous moorland, grassland and wetland habitats for traditional cattle grazing with mutual benefits for conservation and nature friendly agriculture.
We will keep you informed of forthcoming developments.
Future Donations?
Donations to this crowdfunder (net of crowdfunder fees) are only for our legal costs, which will be published in a future update. The Stobo Residents Action Group are unpaid volunteers. If you are considering donating or have already donated, we would be grateful if you could consider the following:
At present there is uncertainty about future legal costs because we do not know how the current situation at Stobo will develop.
We may have significant future legal costs for further legal action, such as a new petition if Scottish Forestry attempt to approve the existing or a modified woodland creation scheme without an EIA.
However, we may not have significant future legal costs, if at all, if a favourable outcome for Stobo can be achieved without the need for further legal action.
The overview section of our crowdfunder campaign expressed our intention that the decision by Scottish Forestry to approve the woodland creation project be reversed. To date we have successfully cancelled the decision to approve this project without an EIA. We hope to achieve a position where the current woodland project or a modified project will never be approved.
We will keep our position under review and at a future juncture any remaining funds will be donated to the Borders Forest Trust (Scottish Charity No. SC024358). This charity has an excellent record in woodland and biodiversity restoration, such as its 3,100 hectares of ‘Wild Heart’ land in the Southern Uplands. If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us through this crowdfunder page.
ENDS
This is a brilliant result. It’s even more so because it was achieved by a small group of knowledgeable and committed volunteers rather than a massive NGO with all the associated resources. The Stobo Residents Action Group, along with its lawyers, have put together a strong case that has forced Scottish Ministers to cancel the contract rather than face costly court proceedings. They deserve this win and I applaud the considerable time and effort they’ve put in to get it.
Thanks also to everyone who supported the group by contributing to the crowdfunder. I’d encourage you to visit the crowdfunder page to read more background about the legal challenge and to keep an eye on the group’s next moves.
UPDATE 10 December 2024: Investment firm applies for judicial review against decision to halt commercial forestry plantation at Stobo Hope, Scottish Borders (here).
Raptor Persecution UK 