Cromarty Rising

So, what activities may impact on cetaceans? Well according to Marine Scotland: The following activities have the potential, in certain situations, to be associated with the disturbance, injury and/or killing of cetaceans:   Seismic and other geophysical/geotechnical surveys   Construction works (including pile driving, rock dumping, cable and pipe laying)   Marine renewable energy generation […]

So what happens when a cetacean is disturbed and what is the consequence? Here’s Marine Scotland’s take on it: How do I know if disturbance of cetaceans occurs? Although wide scale displacement or abandonment of an area can be relatively easy to detect, other forms of disturbance can be difficult to determine, particularly if animals […]

Another excerpt from Marine Scotland Guidance: “Two main factors have the potential to cause death or injury to an animal, resulting in an offence:   physical contact; and   anthropogenic sound (noise)” So, potentially an increase risk of physical contact with cetaceans and tanker / tugs undertaking STS but the interesting part is noise. The […]

The Marine Scotland document relating to EPS disturbance has a section on EPS risk assessment. We are not going to go through the whole process here, however this paragraph leapt out: “Marine users should focus on the assessment and management of potential risk by considering practicable and proportionate alternative methods or locations to the activity, […]

Carry on our series on EPS disturbance – here is more from the Marine Scotland Guidance 1.2.5 What constitutes deliberate disturbance? Article 12(1)(b) of the Habitats Directive has been considered by the European Court of Justice. The Commission Guidance (paragraph 33) therefore proposes the following definition: ‘Deliberate’ actions are to be understood as actions by […]

A transcript of the recent STS debate is now available here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2017-05-02.6.0&s=carbon John Finnie’s opening speech is particularly insightful – we have copied below: John Finnie Green I thank colleagues for signing the motion, particularly my friend and colleague Claudia Beamish, whose signature ensured that the motion enjoyed cross-party support. The motion congratulates Cromarty Rising, a number […]

This was an under-reported story from last week – the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland are to undertake research into the impact of STS. We will be very happy to assist in that process and we very much welcome their interest. Here is their press release in full.   Concern over Moray Firth […]

For those of you in Skye, Ross and Lochaber constituency, Cromarty Rising attended the hustings this evening in Cromarty. Four candidates were present from SNP, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Conservatives & Unionists and Scottish Labour. When posed the question about what they would about STS, both SNP and LD were unequivocal in their responses that they […]

A reminder that all candidates standing in Ross, Skye and Cromarty will be at the Victoria Hall, Cromarty this evening for a hustings event. It starts at 7.30 and will no doubt be a busy event. We expect STS to figure in the questioning!

By way of an update, the petition currently lodged with the Scottish Government was due to go back to the petitions committee. They received representations from the MCA, the Scottish Government, SEPA and SNH. However, they somehow forgot to send the responses back to us to allow us to respond. It will now be the […]