Save Stobo Hope from Commercial Forestry Project

Substantive hearing in Court of Session, Edinburgh 

The Stobo Residents Action Group Ltd lodged its petition for judicial review with the Court of Session in April 2024 and the Scottish Government as the respondent lodged answers to this petition. The Stobo Residents Action Group Ltd has now been granted permission for the petition to proceed. This means that the court agrees it is arguable that Scottish Forestry have acted unlawfully.

There will first be a procedural hearing, later followed by a substantive hearing within the Court of Session, Parliament Square, Edinburgh. We will provide you with dates of these hearings in a future update.

Fundraising

We need to continue fundraising to reach our target of £35,000 for our judicial review and we have extended our crowdfunder time for fundraising into September. Thank you for your support and we would be very grateful if you could continue to let others know of our campaign, which we believe could raise greater awareness of the continued destruction of Scotland’s iconic landscapes by Scottish Forestry.

Destruction of heather moorland with herbicide

Stobo Hope has large tracts of dry dwarf shrub heath, a habitat of international importance confined to the British Isles and seaboard of north-western Europe. 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. Upland heathland is a habitat which Scottish Ministers consider to be of principal importance in relation to conservation of biodiversity (listed on the Scottish Biodiversity List).

Much of the western slopes of Stobo Hope including wetland habitats and land adjacent to Stobo Hopehead Burn, has had an indiscriminate, broad-spectrum herbicide applied in the past few months, which have wiped out important plant communities including heather, blaeberry and many species of wildflowers, grasses, ferns, lichens and mosses. This will also have had a devastating effect on faunal populations, destroying the habitat, cover and food supply for mammals, birds, reptiles and invertebrates including the red-listed black grouse. It is impossible to see how this ecological destruction can be seen to be furthering the conservation of biodiversity or be compliant with current UK regulations for woodland creation and management.

The herbicide appears to have been used for about three square kilometres (300 hectares) and a video (below) shows the scale of the damage. The loss of vegetation cover will result in increased water runoff and may have adverse consequences for aquatic life. Although there may have been a partial lull in forestry operations due to being outside the tree planting season, it appears that forestry track construction has continued up the glen, causing further disturbance to wildlife, particularly during the bird nesting season.

What are the implications for Black Grouse from the Stobo Hope woodland creation scheme?

Scottish Forestry claim that the proposed woodland creation scheme ‘is not likely to cause a significant negative environmental impact to black grouse’. Black Grouse have undergone a catastrophic decline in the Southern Uplands and are threatened with extinction. Stobo Hope currently has the second largest lek in the Scottish Borders.

Black grouse typically require large open areas of heather moorland with heather and other dwarf shrubs providing food sources and cover for nesting while the extensive areas of wet grassland and flushes provide vital insect food for newly hatched chicks. The variety of habitats at Stobo Hope at different altitudes across a large contiguous moorland landscape helps to address the seasonal changes in habitat and diet requirements.

The Stobo Hope woodland creation scheme will contribute to the continued landscape scale losses of semi-natural upland habitats across Southern Scotland which are leading to the decline in black grouse and other emblematic upland species including curlew and ring ouzel. These losses occur through the replacement of moorlands with commercial coniferous forest, and the loss of suitable grazing in open areas. Herbicide application at Stobo Hope has accelerated this destruction, destroying cover and nesting sites for black grouse, increasing predation pressure and removing food sources, particularly for young grouse that rely on invertebrates.

Black grouse. Copyright Laurie Campbell Photography.

Further pictures and examples of ecological damage at Stobo Hope

The devastation caused by herbicide (below) shows the dead vegetation contrasting with the east side of Hopehead Burn.

In many areas, shallow ploughing of peaty soils seems to have occurred (also with herbicide application), increasing soil erosion and loss of carbon to the atmosphere.

Drains have been put in some areas to dry out the wetland habitats for growing sitka spruce.

More forest tracks have been put in, including within the designated National Scenic Area (NSA).

To date it appears that the eastern slopes of Stobo Hope may not yet have had herbicide applied – the bell heather is now starting to flower, giving the hills the characteristic colours of summer.

The Stobo Residents Action Group.