Hi All
With COP26 about to start, and all the attention on the Scottish government and its commitment to biodiversity, healthy ecosystems and climate change, now is the perfect time for us to push to reach a million signatures. We can then use this incredible milestone to generate interest and coverage in the media.
Around 13 wildcats are found in the Clashindarroch Forest in Aberdeenshire, making it the most important site remaining for this Critically endangered species. The Scottish government own the Clashindarroch forest and you would of course expect them to protect this precious forest and its iconic wildcats. However, the reality is that they are actually collaborating with Vattenfall ( a company owned by the Swedish Government) to develop windfarms on the site. Such development requires large scale forest clearance, the construction of roads, the laying of miles of cabling etc. In short it leads to extensive disturbance. Wildcats are incredibly vulnerable to disturbance so this would be disastrous and could lead to their extinction at this site and ultimately towards their complete extinction in the wild.
For clarity let us state that we are very much pro renewable energy, but of course it needs to be the right development at the right site. In this case it is totally wrong. There are thousands of other bare hills in Scotland that would be far more suitable. Let us not forget that the Scottish wildcat is 70 times rarer than the Giant panda. It deserves the chance to have a safe forest haven to live and breed in peace.
We currently stand at 955,000 signatures, already making this one of the biggest ever petitions on this platform. We have shown you how this petition has been so important in putting pressure on the government by demonstrating clear public interest in saving the Clashindarroch forest and it's precious wildcats. We now need a big push to smash through a million and that will trigger our ability to do a press release. Imagine the headline,' A million people pledge support to save the Scottish wildcat'. Given the wider context, this could hopefully gain a lot of traction with decision makers. That is our sincere hope.
Therefore can we please ask every single one of you to share this link with everybody you can and urge them to sign. Let's see if we can give the magnificent Scottish Wildcat a million voices.
Very best wishes as always
The Wildcat Haven Team