How mighty space rockets could be grounded by the humble bumblebee
IT is one of the country’s most endangered creatures – so could the plight of a bumblebee be used to ground flights from Britain’s first spaceport?
Around six satellite launches a year are planned from a site in the north of Scotland, part-funded by the UK Space Agency with £2.5 million plus £9.8 million from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).
It could become the first orbital space launch facility in continental Europe by 2020-21, creating 40 highquality jobs in Sutherland and 400 in the wider Highlands.
But opponents of the space station hope to block it by proving the proposed site is home to the rare Great Yellow bumblebee.
And to maximise their chances of finding the creatures they have signed up for bee-spotting classes
‘Any ally to our cause is welcome’
operated by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in Borgie, Sutherland. The Great Yellow, or Bombus
distinguendus, can no longer be found anywhere in Britain except in a few parts of the Highlands and some of the Western and Northern Isles.
Critics of the proposed £17.3 million space port on the Mhoine peninsula near Melness in Sutherland believe that if the bees are found at the site the authorities will have no choice but to scrap the spaceport.
John Williams, chairman of the Protect The Mhoine pressure group, whose members include crofting and non-crofting residents, said: ‘About a dozen people are being trained in bee recognition.
‘Any ally to our cause is welcome and we want to have the facts to challenge any misinformation over the importance of the area to wildlife. If the Great Yellow Bumblebee can help ground this project, good. The environmental arguments against this project are relevant, reasonable and powerful. We’re not anti-rocket, but this is the wrong place.’
Once found throughout Great Britain, in the past 100 years the Great Yellow Bumblebee has contracted in range to a few clusters in the North and West of Scotland. Its main populations are on the Western Isles, Orkney, Coll and Tiree, with lowland Caithness and small scattered centres in coastal Sutherland its last mainland populations.
The decline of the Great Yellow Bumblebee is thought to be linked to increasing intensity of farming and other land use, resulting in a lack of the flowers essential for all bees to thrive. Its numbers have declined by about 90 per cent in 50 years.
Land on the Melness Crofters Estate at the Mhoine peninsula has been identified as the potential location for the launching of small rockets carrying micro satellites.
Already HIE has completed a year of environmental studies. Further research is being undertaken before a planning application is submitted later this year but HIE claims there have been no ‘major’ environmental concerns raised yet.
Its director of business and sector development, David Oxley, said: ‘We believe that we can build this facility to ensure we have the right environmental concerns dealt with appropriately and grow the economy of the Sutherland region.’