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…about cuts to tree planting.
Reporting Scotland this morning.
Have you ever seen UK Government advisers headlined raising concerns about tree planting on the main new broadcasts?
Me neither.
Have you ever seen any context on Reporting Scotland’s coverage of tree-planting?
This kind of thing?
First, from State of Nature 2023:
So, 8% of the population but 60% of the trees.
Second, 8% of the UK population but 76% of the new tree planting.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cdn.forestresearch.gov.uk/2022/09/Ch1_Woodland_2022.pdf
Third, 20 times the tree-planting of Labour Wales:
https://www.confor.org.uk/news/latest-news/scotland-leads-way-on-uk-tree-planting-but-misses-target
What’s that saying about wood and trees?
Can’t see the facts for the BBC bias?
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Talking-up Scotland 
Aye, and followed through on the website https://archive.ph/ieT9U with Kevin Keane rehashing the ” ‘We’ll have to burn millions of trees after cuts’ ” article (with comments open) from the beginning of the month as “Climate change experts have ‘serious concerns’ at tree planting cut” today.
What was obviously aimed to pressurise SG on their impending budget decisions, has now been recycled to criticise what they’ve actually passed as the budget, as you rightly highlight, “Can’t see the facts for the BBC bias?”….
The real story is private forestry groups are not going to be able to syphon off nearly so much funds from SG because they don’t have the money, caused by decisions made in London.
I’ve nothing whatever against tree-planting, it ultimately will grow to sink carbon, but how about Kevin Keane et al agitate to get a UK-wide home insulation programme going and hack back the levels of emissions relatively instantly ? After all, it will increase “energy security”, reduce inflation as well as the cost of living, and generate “growth” in the economy, surely it ticks all those political boxes ?
Having already passed 70% reduction in gas use in January (400 yoyo per annum) before closing the insulation envelope, I’m now left curious whether next year’s gas bill will be a quarter or a fifth…. 🙄
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That article poses more questions than it answers; for me, at any rate.
First and foremost; why are they growing millions of trees that they don’t have firm orders for?
Wouldn’t there be a tendering process; contracts entered into? You don’t rock up to your local garden centre, or B&Q and enquire as to whether they have several million Sitka spruce saplings, by any chance; do you? With those numbers, you’d be ordering ahead; knowing full well that what you’re looking for hadn’t been propagated yet, and you’d be looking for delivery 1, 2, or perhaps 3 years hence. I can’t imagine that a 41% budget cut means “sorry pal, we’re only taking 59% of your trees this year”. So either they’ve not got a solid enough contract, with strong clauses, to protect them from changes of circumstance; or they’re growing stuff entirely on spec.
Anyhoo, I appreciate your efforts in diving into the BBC swamp so often; I don’t know how you have the stomach for it. It is beyond sad what passes for discussion on a Scottish HYS.
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“First and foremost; why are they growing millions of trees that they don’t have firm orders for?” – They ain’t – Nurseries grow what seedling and varieties they reckon will sate the market, what doesn’t sell this year goes out the following year…
These plants are tiny for the few years, you can struggle to find them before cutting back the long grass to let them come on…
The notion that subsidies dictate what a nursery does or a forestry group plants is total claptrap, it simply reduces profits and payouts to their shareholders….
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Scottish Gov funded land community buy out. More land has been taken back. Scotland owned by a few people. Land is tax free to keep farms together. Hill farming in Scotland. Sheep. Not so much arable land by proportion. Landlords could pay higher rates. Instead of land tax.
Farmers will have to diversify. The majority of farmers are over sixty. There will be a land take over by younger folk. Many family members do not want to take over farms. Preferring other more lucrative occupations.
Scotland has a ‘right to roam’. Raises £Billions from farming goods and tourism. Less densely populated, by comparison. The best place for renewables in the world. Worth £Billions. Tax on renewable companies – landowners. Corporation, capital gains and profit tax.
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Why ccan’t the millions of trees that appear to be heading for a bonfire in Scotland be sold to meet the demand in England, Wales or Northern Ireland?It sseems to me that it is unlikely that if only Scotland is curring back on funding the rest of UK wide market is so finely balanced that it can’t can’t soak up some of the over stocking in Scotland.
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“cutting” not “curring”.
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Because BBC Scotland and the rest of the mainstream media are not interested in context, nuance or anything positive. They want things that can be presented as bad and that they can blame the Scottish Government even if they had little or no involvement.
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This is yet another good example of the Unionist media looking for any stick to beat the SNP with.
On the issue of tree planting one of the things I find interesting when we hear about plans to increase the number of trees in the UK is that there is rarely any mention of the natural regeneration of of our forests. Trees managed to spread for millions of years by regenerating without humans being required to plant them. We could aid that process by culling deer in Scotland and also restricting sheep in certain areas. It shouldn’t all be about planting. Guy Shrubsole’s, The Lost Rainforests of Britain is good on this and an excellent read!
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It’s pretty much always a case of the SNP, and they as the Scottish government, always being promoted as …
“Damned if they do and damned if they don’t”
Meanwhile within the UK there are those always ready to promote that for other governments within the UK ……mainly Welsh & UK governments…..that when things go wrong….it is because of external factors, mitigating circumstances, extenuating circumstances, global issues, ongoing wars in the world, and the blame lying with another government (Wales Govt blames UK Govt as does Labour HQ….and UK blames the Welsh Govt for it’s own failings) …..indeed the excuses are endless and varied…..but absolutely no responsibility or accountability is placed at their door by the many apologists who rush to defend them….and indeed as governments they themselves are often inclined to fail to acknowledge their failings…..or admit they are liable……BUT………
Meanwhile in Scotland’s politics, who currently are subject to a huge collective force that are all a part of the UK political stitch that is rallying against Scotland and it’s politics…..well we are lead to believe (conned by) the ludicrous notion that only the Scottish (Devolved) government, and the SNP as a party, are totally responsible and totally accountable for all that occurs within Scotland via what only they do and say (or are unable to do or say)……where absolutely no mercy or external influences is ever to be given or considered or indeed taken into account….as in the same considerations are never given to them, as is given to other governments and political parties, in respect to significant factors that have a huge impact on their ability to fully govern within Scotland….indeed you would be forgiven, given the criticism that they get, in assuming that the SNP was in charge of an independent country and thus held all powers and all money with no external interference (UK Govt) or restrictions via that same external oppressive force aka the UK Govt ( who uphold EVEL)……
BTW I have a “Change” for Labour to action…..do the right thing by WASPI women…..as for them to not wrong this right would then be , for this scandal, the very same decision then being maintained by Labour as that of the Tory party…..indeed did we not have Labour politicians supporting WASPI women….so if they talked the talk then if Labour do win the next GE…well the least these same ‘supportive’ Labour politicians for WASPI women can do is to walk the walk……
Though TBH I’m not placing a bet on that happening if they do win the next GE !
My God this is just all beyond unbearable is it not….you would need to be daft to not realise the truth in it all……..I thank God I am not (that) daft….and I’m not even the sharpest tool in the box but even I am able to “see the wood for the trees”……LOL
NMRN
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OT but but amusing – Top billing at the National goes to ” Humza Yousaf ‘frustrated’ as Keir Starmer snubs Bute House invitation ” whilst for James Cook it doesn’t even rate a passing mention for fear of jeopardising a gong.
Among the subjects to be discussed with Kier Starmer were ‘child poverty and the two child cap and how to alleviate if Starmer becomes UK PM’, you know, things which affect ordinary people – Instead James believes the political “news where you are” should be about SG publishing it’s budget (2043 comments and counting), etc., and reading Calum Watson’s latest ‘ferry story’, ” ‘Lessons learned’ as Ferguson ferry costs rise again ” https://archive.ph/qZ4pF….
It wasn’t so long ago James was promoting SG missing targets on child poverty, yet here he is promoting the plight of a bald millionaire who declared the business ‘bust’ he was in charge of 5 years ago.
🙄
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