Two weeks ago RSPB attended the Royal Highland Show (RHS). Here, Chris Bailey, Advisory Manager for RSPB Scotland, reflects on the highlights from the show.
The Royal Highland Show (RHS) is one of the focal events of the year for RSPB Scotland. With just under 180,000 visitors attending this year, helped by excellent weather, the show gave us an opportunity to talk about RSPB’s work with farmers and crofters as well as our wider Give Nature A Home Campaign. In many ways there was a traditional feel to the show, industry announcements and discussions primarily happened on Thursday and Friday with the weekend focused on engaging with the general public. There was also the added spice of the Scottish referendum with lots of discussion about the pros and cons.
Image: Royal Highland Show 2014 by Nicola Bell
The RSPB held a reception on Friday celebrating our partnership working with landowners and farming organisations in our eight farm advice focus areas. Read more about our focus area work in South and West Scotland , East Scotland and North Scotland. The reception had a number of short talks from Stuart Housden, Director of RSPB Scotland, Paul Wheelhouse MSP, Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Debra Long from Plantlife Scotland and Paul Kirkland from Butterfly Conservation Scotland. The reception was well attended with several MSP’s, the NFUS President, chairs of SNH, SRUC & BASC, the CEO of the Crofting Federation and a number of farmers in attendance. We had an opportunity to talk about existing advisory work, future agri-environment targeting and the need for more specialist targeted advisory support. This will be essential as Scotland’s Rural Development Programme remains severely under-funded given the challenges it is being asked to address. The minister responded by discussing the Scottish Government’s aims during the next Programme. We were very grateful that the minister found time to attend within his very busy schedule.
At the weekend, the focus fell on Giving Nature A Home with a number of children's activities. One of the most popular was the drawing competition where we asked young visitors to draw a wildlife garden. One of my colleagues has a difficult job deciding an overall winner. I am glad I don’t have that responsibility as there were lots of entrants, all of which were very creative!