Warning over rural workforce
The Perth-based gamekeeping body for Scotland has warned the prospect of the Scottish Government forming a coalition will“see angry workers and families taking to the streets”.
Nicola Sturgeon announced last month that talks over a formal co-operation agreement with the Scottish Greens, which could see some of their MSPs given ministerial positions, had taken place.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) believes that prospect will place over 13,000 jobs at risk and will lead to protests among rural workers.
It comes after Green co-leaders Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie vowed in their election manifesto to end shooting and angling - which they labelled as“bloodsports”.
SGA chairman Alex Hogg MBE says rural workers in these sectors“will not stand by and watch their livelihoods ripped apart”by a government coalition.
“Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie’s clinical cull of jobs, using emotive labelling, is not about biodiversity and climate, it is a misguided class war that will actually sacrifice over 13,000 rural workers and their families,”he said.
“Putting a significant part of Scotland’s land and river working community on the dole, rather than engaging them, is a massive climate mistake and we hope, in the first 100 days of government, that the first minister is not about to throw Scotland’s rural workforce under a bus.
“When deer are being left to rot in state forests at tax payer expense, the Greens are nowhere to be seen.
“Scottish Gamekeepers
Association members have managed a million deer in the last decade, more than anyone else.
“Yet if you take out a client while doing so, manage the deer properly, create a permanent community job, bring in tourist income and help Scotland become a Good Food Nation, that is a bloodsport in the Greens’eyes.
“Yet both will save trees and protected habitat. It’s nonsensical labelling.”
He added:“Instead of buying Green policies from Lorna and Patrick, the Scottish Government should listen to upland scientists working in the field today.
“If you plant trees on moorland, you gain some biodiversity and lose it elsewhere.
“There is no guarantee you will store more carbon. Recent science, in fact, shows you may store less.
“Rewetting peatlands is another thing where more research needs doing.
“Scientists are beginning to understand that wet bogs release methane which is far more damaging in warming terms than carbon, yet tax payer money is again being shelled out on rushed solutions which need much more understanding.
“Rural workers, who actually manage land, rivers and habitats will stand for this no longer.”