Early morning thoughts

Some early morning thoughts while looking over our beautiful Loch Linnhe, and imagining the devastation that would be caused if we experienced such a disaster as has just occurred off Mull – the sinking of a feed barge and the resultant oil spillage...

The same thing happened off Skye a couple of years ago, and an exclusion zone had to be placed around the site because of the toxic, explosive and highly poisonous gases, hydrogen sulphide and methane, which were leaking from the rotting, submerged feed.

The vast scale of the proposed farm at Lurignish would require frequent barge visits with huge quantities of feed and therefore a much-increased probability of a similar occurrence, but on a potentially catastrophic scale.

We may be accused of being NIMBY’s, but it is with well researched and well-founded reason that we do not want such a project “in our backyard”.

Looking over the loch, all is mirror smooth today, but around the coastline the surface will soon be broken by seals popping their heads up to have a curious look around, gannets diving for their breakfast, otters swimming to one of the tributary rivers to clean the salt off their fur, reflections of oyster catchers as they zig zag across the bays – and if we’re lucky, visiting minke whales, porpoises and dolphins as they make their way up and down the coast in search of an ever diminishing source of food.

As the day goes on, and if the weather is welcoming, local and visiting families will come to enjoy the beaches, some to swim, some bringing paddle boards, others, kayaks – all to relax, enjoy the unspoiled beauty…and breathe deep.  If they are snorkellers or divers, they will discover the unseen treasures beneath the surface – an extraordinary diversity of marine creatures from tiny sea anemones to huge, but graceful flapper skates.

How blessed we are to have all this “in our backyard”, and what a huge responsibility we have, to act as its guardians and ensure that we conserve it and protect it from this threat - above and below the surface, for all creatures seen and unseen - and to do our tiny bit for the very survival of our planet. A small pebble thrown into our water here will surely send ripples outwards to reach other shores and encourage others to throw their own small pebble…and so the wave of awareness will swell.

Our lochs - just as mines and wells for minerals and oil - are a strictly finite source of food.  The tiniest creatures, down to the simple amoeba, are part of the food chain which ends with us humans – and if we carry on destroying the links, that chain will eventually break.  Human-created climate change and pollution are already impacting our West Coast waters, but the apparent lack of vision in encouraging employment diversity in our coastal communities means that proposals such as this mega farm are an easy win for politicians. Yet it seems we do not learn from history. When eggs become Golden Eggs, human nature rushes greedily to put them all in one basket – jobs and communities come to depend on the bounty, blind to the inevitability that one day they will wake up to find the basket empty, plundered by corporate greed.

We urgently need to think beyond the “now”, to support a just transition to more diverse and sustainable rural employment opportunities that take advantage of our wonderful natural resources without destroying them.  We need politicians to take their fingers out of their ears and corporate, green-washing lobbyists to be shown the door. There are innovators out there with exciting, truly green ideas – such as those researching the opportunities for growing seaweed to make a plastic substitute. For such projects, I’m sure we would all be happy to be called DIMBY’s – Definitely In My Back Yard.