Gain protected status for Teviothead Volcanic Complex and its environment
Gain protected status for Teviothead Volcanic Complex and its environment
The Issue
An iconic Scottish landscape is being threatened and being subjected to land clearance. We need to protect it by calling for a protected status for the Teviothead Volcanic Complex. This tight geological cluster of volcanic vents in the Scottish Borders has a unique cultural heritage and compounded unrecorded archaeology from the Iron Age onwards.
The region is a natural fortress, with hidden fortified valleys and passes, and was once most likely a kingdom in itself.
We call these hills The Reivers, in recognition of the unruly Borderers who once lived here, before their historic brutal clearance in the Pacification of the Borders - and whose descendants have now spread the world over.
Unsurveyed and unrecognised, today this region has become a haven for an abundance of wildlife, protected species such as nesting skylarks, and curlews - and has just seen the return of the iconic Golden Eagle.
It is also a haven for unprotected species like the feral goat and has pristine dark skies. This is due to the pressure on the surrounding landscape, which is being systematically planted with vast commercial blanket forests, and industrial-sized wind farms - forcing wildlife out.
This incredible landscape of ballads, history, mythology, and wildlife, should be preserved as an asset for future generations to appreciate, enjoy, and explore.
Today, this hill country is again subject to modern-day land clearance, and two of the country's biggest wind farms, Teviot and Fawside, totalling 107 massive Turbines up to 240m high, are in the planning for the peaks and ridges.
The region already has 16 operational wind farms - over 500 turbines within the vicinity, as well as hundreds of square miles of commercial blanket forestry.
Future Scottish policy plans to keyhole wind farms into commercial forestry. We believe that all future developments should be discussed with the consideration of protected land status, and all current plans suspended until this happens.
These remaining hills must be protected.
Please sign our petition if you want this to happen, and in the first instance to be discussed in the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments, who up to this point have refused to do so.
Thank you.
2,119
The Issue
An iconic Scottish landscape is being threatened and being subjected to land clearance. We need to protect it by calling for a protected status for the Teviothead Volcanic Complex. This tight geological cluster of volcanic vents in the Scottish Borders has a unique cultural heritage and compounded unrecorded archaeology from the Iron Age onwards.
The region is a natural fortress, with hidden fortified valleys and passes, and was once most likely a kingdom in itself.
We call these hills The Reivers, in recognition of the unruly Borderers who once lived here, before their historic brutal clearance in the Pacification of the Borders - and whose descendants have now spread the world over.
Unsurveyed and unrecognised, today this region has become a haven for an abundance of wildlife, protected species such as nesting skylarks, and curlews - and has just seen the return of the iconic Golden Eagle.
It is also a haven for unprotected species like the feral goat and has pristine dark skies. This is due to the pressure on the surrounding landscape, which is being systematically planted with vast commercial blanket forests, and industrial-sized wind farms - forcing wildlife out.
This incredible landscape of ballads, history, mythology, and wildlife, should be preserved as an asset for future generations to appreciate, enjoy, and explore.
Today, this hill country is again subject to modern-day land clearance, and two of the country's biggest wind farms, Teviot and Fawside, totalling 107 massive Turbines up to 240m high, are in the planning for the peaks and ridges.
The region already has 16 operational wind farms - over 500 turbines within the vicinity, as well as hundreds of square miles of commercial blanket forestry.
Future Scottish policy plans to keyhole wind farms into commercial forestry. We believe that all future developments should be discussed with the consideration of protected land status, and all current plans suspended until this happens.
These remaining hills must be protected.
Please sign our petition if you want this to happen, and in the first instance to be discussed in the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments, who up to this point have refused to do so.
Thank you.
2,119
Petition created on 4 October 2022