The leftist government of Scotland has admitted to felling nearly 16 million trees on public land in order to make way for supposedly ‘green energy’ wind turbines.
The Rural Affairs Secretary for the leftist-separatist locally-devolved government of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), Mairi Gougeon, has admitted that some 15.7 million trees were cut down since the year 2000, or around 1,700 per day, in order to clear room for the construction of wind turbines.
In a letter last month to Scottish Tory Member of the Scottish Parliament, Liam Kerr, reported on Sunday by the Telegraph, Gougeon said that approximately 7,858 hectares of trees have been felled over the past two decades. With an average of around 2,000 trees per hectare, “this gives an estimated total of 15.7 million trees which have been felled in order to facilitate windfarm development.”
“Where woodland is removed in association with development, developers will generally be expected to provide compensatory planting in order to avoid a net loss of woodland.”
Gougeon claimed that many of the trees would have been “replanted on-site” and that the majority were expected to be cut down for commercial uses, regardless. Forestry and Land Scotland went on to claim that it has planted some 500 million trees during the same time period.
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However, responding to the letter, Mr Kerr said: “Most people will be astonished to see the number of trees cut down to make way for wind farms,” adding that the government “must be alive” to the “significant costs” of the installation of massive wind turbines.
“I’ve been contacted many times by rural communities all over the country questioning the location of these developments, sharing legitimate concerns not just about the visual impact but also damage to wildlife and business. Now we learn there’s significant damage when it comes to trees.”
In addition to the need to cut down millions of trees, and the negative impacts on native bird and bat populations, wind turbines have also been criticised for their need for rare earth minerals in order to generate electricity. To create usable energy, high-powered magnets are made from rare earth minerals such as neodymium and dysprosium, which are almost exclusively mined in Communist China.
The mining process for such minerals can often have catastrophic consequences for local people, with villagers in the Chinese town of Dalahai previously recounting that their teeth began to fall out, they began suffering from skin and respiratory conditions, cancer rates shot up, and children were born with soft bones after a neodymium mine was opened up nearby.
Nevertheless, the Scottish government has vowed to continue its “green energy” push, with a Forestry and Land Scotland spokesman saying: “Renewable energy generated from wind farms is a key element in Scotland’s response to the climate emergency and the shift towards net zero and the infrastructure on land that we manage generates enough power for 600,000 homes.”
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