Environment

Conservation charity Trees for Life is encouraging people going to the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival to have their own trees planted.

Organisers of the festival in the Highlands are calling on attendees to help mitigate the carbon impact of travelling to the festival near Inverness through donations to fund native trees.

A new working group has been formed by the Scottish Government to develop the future policy on farming and food production.

Thr group is made up of producers and comsumer and environmental organisations and will consider how we use Scotland's natural assets to produce food and mitigate the impact of climate change. The new group will also look at how best to support such activity is Scotland has to leave the European Union.

Bracken Control Without Chemicals: Techniques to balance farming and wildlife

Bracken can be a serious problem on hill grazings and marginal land. Without careful management, large areas can easily be overrun, which is bad news for everything from livestock to wild birds. Uncertainty about the future use of the traditional herbicidal spray Asulam has prompted people to look again at bracken control techniques, to strike a balance between productive agricultural land and the bird and insect species which depend upon bracken habitats.

For ten days in late May, tourists, wildlife enthusiasts and local businesses around Caithness, Orkney and Shetland support Orca Watch, a citizen science project organized by the Sea Watch Foundation now in its 8th year, hoping to catch a glimpse of killer whales otherwise known as orcas, and any other species of cetacean (whale, dolphin and porpoise) visiting the  waters of the Pentland Firth.

Scottish Land and Estates are now seeking nominations for the 2019 round of the Helping it Happen Awards.

Now into their third year, the awards are looking to build on past success and acknowledge the enormous contribution that rural businesses make to the Scottish economy.

Two hundred people including farmers, researchers, academics and students gathered in south west Scotland on 16 May 2019 for the Ethical Farming Conference.

Delegates came from across the UK and from countries further afield including Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and the USA for what is believed to be the first-ever conference on the emerging 'ethical' farming sector.

Hundreds of people will take part in this year's Orca Watch, conducting watches and collecting records of orcas passing through the Pentland Firth.

A new group will develop ideas on farms that could provide practical, innovative solutions to help climate change mitigation.

Under reforms to the Farming for a Better Climate (FFBC) the new farmer-led initiative will help to drive low-carbon, environmentally sustainable farming practices in Scotland.

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