LAST summer I visited the island of Tiree and saw first-hand the impact that an increasing number of ferocious storms and climate change is having and the threat to the unique machair meadow habitat ("Machair under threat from rise in level of seas", The Herald, May 15).
Your article highlighted that machair is under threat from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and came hot on the heels of two related news stories last week.
A new climate change and biodiversity report card showed that wildlife across Scotland is under pressure now from a variety of climate-induced changes. We also heard for the first time in three million years levels in the atmosphere of the principle greenhouse gas carbon dioxide had reached the symbolic 400ppm milestone and continue to rise.
Nature is telling us that climate change is having an effect right now and scientists are telling us what the future consequences will be for wildlife and for communities in Scotland.
RSPB Scotland is working with crofters and partners in the Hebrides on its Machair LIFE+ project to ensure a viable future for both the resident crofting community and the fantastic wildlife their land use supports, such as the secretive corncrake. All this will be for nothing and future generations will be unable to visit machair as we know it if we don't do more now to stop burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases.
Jim Densham,
Senior Land Use Policy Officer,
RSPB Scotland,
2 Lochside View,
Edinburgh Park, Edinburgh.
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