Nature of Scotland Award winners – bog restoration

Attended the Nature of Scotland Award ceremony last night as guests of Scottish Power Renewables. Although unexpected, we won the award for Sustainable Development in recognition of our partnership working on forest-to-bog restoration on windfarm sites in Lanarkshire. This was a tremendous outcome for SPR, having invested so much money in the science necessary to develop the stump flipping/ground smoothing techniques we now take for granted. For a windfarm developer to win this type of award is unusual, and it is a sign of their genuine commitment to developing and implementing best practice in an industry not otherwise always well known for adopting a sensitive and cautious, informed approach in the uplands. We were also delighted to have undertaken all the technical work for the project, which stands out as one of the best projects we have been involved in. Suffice to say the celebrations went on into the wee small hours…