Hi All
It has been an extremely important week. Members of our team have been in Sweden to start laying the foundations for an extensive awareness raising campaign over there. The reason for this is simple. Vattenfall is a company owned entirely by the Swedish government and their headquarters are in Stockholm. As we all know, the Swedish people are well known for their awareness of environmental issues and being proactive in attempting to live in a sustainable way. I wonder how many of them know that their own government is trying to push through a development that could lead to the extinction of the wildcat. Would Vattenfall try and push through a development in Sweden, if it could lead to the extinction of one of their own iconic species? We all the answers to that question is NO.

Therefore we have been in touch with and met with a range of environmental groups in Sweden to put in the place the foundations for a media campaign and a series of events in Stockholm. We are hugely encouraged by the response so far and our plans have been met with great enthusiasm.

Let us be clear, at every point we have given Vattenfall the opportunity to do the right thing and move this development to a more appropriate site. We have personally met they Senior project team at their Edinburgh offices. All we got was fake smiles and false promises. All the while they knew that the data held in their possession confirmed that there is an extensive population of wildcats on their proposed development site. Before we came to Sweden we contacted senior people in the Stockholm office including their Vice President of the Environment. You would of course expect someone in such a role to be open to discussion. But no, they have refused to meet, refused to facilitate a meeting with Anna Borg ( the CEO of Vattenfall) and worst of all, suggested we contact the Scottish project team, the very same people who have tried to smother the wildcat data.

From our experience, Vattenfall is behaving like any large, multi national Corporation, whose employees hide behind management structures and shift the responsibility. This is just not acceptable, particularly when the fate of the rarest cat in the world is at stake. This is post is being written as we sit in the lobby of Vattenfall’s headquarters, waiting to see the CEO, Anna Borg. You will see from the picture above that we are signed in. We will let you know what happens.

We have been extremely reasonable, but now it is time to bring the fight to Vattenfall’s back yard. We are very confident that the people of Sweden will get behind us and that Vattenfall, will face up to this issue and do the right thing. We have politely asked them, but now we must make them.

It is vital that we build as much capacity as possible in Sweden, so if there are any Swedes who are interesting in helping us with this campaign, then please do email us at:

admin@wildcathaven.co.uk

Hopefully you can all see that we are doing everything humanly possible to save the Clashindarroch wildcats. We are fighting on every front. We are working flat out and are more motivated than ever in our mission.
If you want to help us then please visit:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/wildcats/

As always we will keep you fully updated on developments and we will let you know what happens at Vattenfall HQand if the CEO speaks to us. Interesting times. 

All the best
The Wildcat Haven Team