cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/55549226

Scientists have identified hundreds of genes that could help some European ash trees withstand the fungal disease that has ravaged woodland landscapes across Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Forest Research and partner organisations have produced the first pangenome of European ash, a genetic reference that captures DNA variation across multiple trees rather than relying on a single specimen.

When we started writing our report on battery storage in Scotland we knew that there was a problem. We had heard from many community members that they were getting the go-ahead on greenbelt land, on woodland sites, and right next to heritage sites, including neolithic rock art. 


However we didn’t realise how bad the situation was until we started to look into it in detail. Our Battery Storage and Planning report found that planning permission for large battery storage installations (decisions for installations over 50MW are made by the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit - ECU) were always granted. A large BESS, up to that time, had never, ever been turned down. We found that decisions routinely disregarded National Planning Framework 4, including not incorporating planning conditions for biodiversity enhancement even when the local authority had requested them

ScotRail also continues to perform strongly compared with the railway across Great Britain, ranking highest amongst the large operators and scoring above the Great Britain average in 10 of the 11 measures included in the latest scorecard.

The train operator recorded almost 900,000 more passenger journeys in July 2026 than in 2025, with almost 8.5million journeys made across the month as people travelled to major events across the country.

Context for posting an article about a company: ScotRail is publicly owned, so these results show the advantages of public over private ownership. Trains run for public service rather than pure profit.

When a group of mothers chained themselves to cubicles at a Edwardian bath house in 2001, they hadn’t foreseen sparking the longest consecutive running occupation of a public building in Britain.

In the most diverse residential area of Glasgow, passionate members of the Govanhill community proceeded to spend 140 days fighting against the baths’ closure, facing a violent stand-off with police on horseback but ultimately saving their beloved 100-year-old venue.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/42274718

Envirolution — a truly community-based and free festival dedicated to increasing understanding, connection, and engagement with the natural world, came to Aberdeen and we enjoyed it so much in 2024 and 2025 that we’re bringing it back on Saturday, 5 September 2026.

Our mission (that we want you to be part of) is to support all communities in the transition towards a more sustainable future.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/54131806

Scottish rewilding estate hosts pioneering research into nature and mental health - Trees for Life

Rural school pupils visiting Trees for Life’s Dundreggan rewilding estate near Loch Ness have been helping shape a pioneering nature-based research programme to boost young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Working alongside researchers from the University of South Wales (USW), pupils from Highland schools have been exploring how spending time in nature can improve wellbeing, help young people cope with difficult times, and support the mental health of those living in remote and rural communities.

Many young people face poor mental wellbeing, because of issues including exam stress, bullying, body image worries, and climate anxiety, say the researchers. Rural school students also experience infrastructure and social barriers, including isolation.

A new nursery has been opened near Loch Lomond as part of a project to supply and expand native woodland across Scotland’s first national park.

It will include restoration and maintenance of both temperate rainforest and the remnants of Caledonian pine woodlands.

One of our key programmes is Healthy Pathways, which has been developed to support adults build confidence, connections and create a stronger sense of community.

The project provides a safe, welcoming space where people can take part in creative, therapeutic and social activities that encourage connection, self-expression and renewed confidence.

All sessions are free, with materials provided.

In addition to the creative café, Healthy Pathways will be running a series of free health and wellbeing workshops.

Themed sessions will include mindfulness, healthy eating, budgeting, healthy relationships and health and fitness.

A third aspect of the Healthy Pathways programme will be the creation of a new womenʼs group around gender specific issues.

Mass urban transport schemes are to be celebrated but should come hand in hand with holistic thinking about how to transform our cities to be more sustainable. They should come with a great expansion of safe-cycling routes such as in Copenhagen; a citizens assmbly to discuss a 15 Minute City plan for Edinburgh; a permanent ban on AI data centres; protection of, and mass expansion of green spaces and allotments; a plan for tree planting; affordable low-carbon housing; create alternative zero-carbon to flying in and out of the city; cancel cruise ships from the Forth; have a wider plan to accelerate community renewables in the city. And, crucially, create participatory forums for citizens to discuss the way forward, as Patrick Geddes noted: “Town-planning is not mere place-planning, nor even work-planning. If it is to be successful it must be folk-planning.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50556488

D'aww, look at the kittens!

Across the Forth Valley, there are already many fantastic groups, projects and individuals looking after nature and biodiversity, with community gardens, wildlife surveys and habitat restoration projects happening all over the region.

To celebrate, we’re hosting the Forth Valley Biodiversity Festival, which is a month-long programme happening this August which aims to support existing efforts and bring these groups together under a shared festival banner. August is the perfect time to run the first year of this festival, as pollinators, butterflies, dragonflies, bats and wildflowers will all be out on display!

“Tranent currently has one of the lowest levels of tree cover in East Lothian and I’m sure this community-led scheme will bring about much-needed improvement, especially in residential areas.

“Trees can provide many health benefits, including better air quality and reduced stress levels. I believe Tranent Tree Town will create a model which can be rolled out across other communities in the county which are also in need of greater urban tree canopy cover.”

Doors Open Days Festival 2026 takes place over the weekend of September 5th and 6th.

“This year’s festival highlights the environmental, social, and economic challenges facing our communities, while celebrating how our region is responding and adapting to them.

“I encourage everyone with a story to share to consider hosting an event. It’s a wonderful opportunity to attract visitors from across the country and beyond, while strengthening connections with local communities.”

And on August 29 a free ‘Compostable Art’ session will see collective home embedded artist Alicia Storie run a workshop focussed on making artworks from the landscape we call ‘home’.

Alicia is a climate artist and designer with a particular interest in circular design, sustainable materials, and climate conscious design within our homes and communities.

As festivals like this grow, the language that once described the work gets taken up by institutions and funding bodies far removed from the actual effort.

Words like diversity, participation, inclusion, community and solidarity get turned into criteria and tick boxes, things to be measured and reported rather than practised. They stop describing anything real. And the festival that inspired them gets cited as evidence of a thriving community by the very institutions that had nothing to do with building it. I want to be clear: this festival was never trying to hit a diversity target. It started because people were being attacked in the street.

The question we keep returning to is this: what kinds of artistic practice help create a shared world in which more people can appear, act, speak, disagree, remember and be recognised?

The conditions that a festival creates – being visible, on the street, together, part of something that says you belong here – can generate things that outlast the event itself. Networks form. Organisations get founded. People who were isolated, find each other.

NEW BUS timetables are to come into effect across Shetland from Monday 17 August.

Additional evening and weekend services are being introduced, providing greater flexibility for people travelling for work, leisure, social activities and appointments.

"Coupled with the £2 bus fare cap, bus travel has never been a better option for getting about Shetland."

As an anti-racist festival born out of community solidarity, the packed programme is once again brimming with grassroots arts, heritage trails, live music, film screenings, and radical discussions.

The support statement from the CIC says the roundhouse will be a Community Build, offered for free, with a chance for people to learn new, transferable skills.

This was supposed to be the biggest gathering of the far-right in Scotland for years. It had been carefully orchestrated. Speakers from neo-nazi groups Patriotic Alternative and Homeland Party addressed the crowd, as did Reform UK councillor Audrey Dempsey. Sharing a platform with Nazis is never a good look. But with questions about policing in Glasgow ongoing the anti-fascist forces far outnumbered the far-right.

The day did not turn out the way the far Right hoped. A group of around 500 people, mostly men, came to their rally, but there was no mass turn out from the targeted Glasgow housing schemes.

The counter-protest quickly grew to around 4000 people. The mood of that side was in stark contrast to the anger within the far-Right space. In a long line stretching from the top corner to a gate near the bottom of the park, anti-racist men and women, young and elderly, chanted: ‘There are many, many more us than you’ and sang and laughed at the absurd appearance of several of the angry men on the grass.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50040837

Some good news for us today. Seeing beavers in the wild is pretty special

Working with the support of Orkney Islands Council which maintains the verges, the NatureScot/RSPB multi-organisational Species on the Edge project, funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, will create, where there was once only short cut grass, a transformation into a biodiverse environment with a range of wildflower plant species.

“Species on the Edge is a collaboration of eight conservation organisations, working with communities across Scotland’s coasts and islands to save our rarest and most vulnerable species from extinction.”

The agreement with BETA means that Loganair becomes Europe’s first commercial airline operating an electric aircraft fleet.

The scheme, which was officially launched at the Border Union Show in Kelso on Friday, July 24, supports the planting of landscape trees outside traditional woodland settings, helping to deliver a range of environmental benefits.