Please help Buddhist Monks in Scotland keep their meditative and quite sanctuary free from deforestation noise and air pollution.

Source Article for Text & Picture: http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/holy-isle-buddhists-fight-power-plant-1-2438917

FOR centuries it has been a place of sanctuary far from the bustle of the world at large, where those in search of peace and tranquillity can seek refuge for years at a time.

But a community of Buddhists who preside over an isolated island retreat off the west coast of Scotland have warned that the future of their refuge is under threat because of plans for an “ugly” and “harmful” biomass plant.

The group of Tibetan Buddhists who cherish the “quiet, pristine atmosphere” of Holy Isle in the Firth of Clyde believe their way of life will be shattered by “damaging” plans for the industrial scale plant on nearby Arran. The noise pollution and smoke will, they say, ruin the small island’s silent, meditative retreats.

Now, they have enlisted the help of thousands of supporters to urge the local authority in Ayrshire, which meets to discuss the application next month, to reject the plans.

The Northern Energy Developments scheme plans to open a wood-fired combined heat and power plant, using 40,000 tonnes of wood per year from Arran’s forests, at the Heights, an area of felled woodland between the towns of Lamlash and Whiting Bay in the south of the island.

But the plan is encountering widespread opposition on the island itself. A campaign group, No to Arran Biomass, claims that the plant is not suitable for the area and the Buddhist community on Holy Isle, in Lamlash Bay, has now joined the protest. On Holy Isle, opposition to the facility is being led by Lama Yeshe Rinpoche, who escaped persecution by fleeing Tibet as a teenager, and later made his way to Samye Ling, the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Europe, on the banks of the River Esk in Dumfriesshire.