Environment

Scottish Smallholding and Grower Festival 2016

Now in it's fifth year, the Festival has something for everyone interested in smallholding in Scotland. With shows of sheep, goats, pigs and poultry and waterfowl and cattle breed societies, and with a focus on rare and traditional breeds, it's a great place to meet breeders and make connections. There's also trade stands and craft exhibitors; a Garden, Craft and Food competition; rural skills demonstrations and a programme of fifteen talks to inform, inspire and educate.

#ruralhour Climate Change

#ruralhour is an hour-long Twitter discussion run by the Scottish Rural Parliament. 

This #ruralhour discussion is on the topic of ‘managing the effects of climate change’ in rural Scotland

Questions:

Applications are now being accepted for a new grant scheme to support green community groups and environmental projects.

The funding from the Postcode Local Trust will encourage lasting benefits by bringing people together to improve local ecology and habitats, encourage biodiversity and benefit the wider environment.

Over 200 people recently attended events on the new Environmental Co-operation Action Fund in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.

The Environmental Co-operation Action Fund is a new £10 million scheme which is part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP).  The purpose of this new competitive fund is to encourage the development and delivery of landscape scale environmental projects by paying facilitators to initiate and enable co-ordinated environmental actions on multiple land holdings in a project area.

Views are being sought on the future direction of the Cairngorm and Glenmore area of the Cairngorms National Park.

A 14-week public consultation has launched with the aim of developing a long-term strategy for the management of the publicly-owned land in this area.

Royal Society of Edinburgh discussion - Life in the Soil: does it matter?

The evening will focus on the vital roles which biodiversity beneath our feet play - in maintaining the soil's fertility, the ecosystems services which they perform, the possibility of new pharmaceutical products, and the problems associated with disease transmission. Soil ecosystems are rich, diverse and vital to life and society.

Speakers to include:

Using visitor studies to inform better visitor experiences

Your time and money are in short supply! Use your resources effectively by understanding what your visitors really want.

This event will look at ways you can use visitor studies to provide better visitor experiences.

The event will address the best use of visitor studies from large to small scale projects.

The Tesco Local Community Scheme for community greenspace projects is now open for applications until 11 December 2015.

The money raised from the 5p bag charge in Tesco stores will be used to pay for a large number of local projects to improve greenspaces in communities across Scotland, England and Wales. The grant scheme is administered by Groundwork, working with greenspace scotland to deliver the programme in Scotland.

What Future for our Farming Systems? Environmental Challenges and Integrated Solutions

Farming systems across Scotland, the UK and Europe can vary markedly from place to place. A range of factors can influence what types of production are practiced in any one place. However, climate and soil type are especially important in dictating the type and intensity of management that is possible.

Pages