MSPs to press Government over a national tree for Scotland

Wednesday 9 January 2013

MSPs are to press the Scottish Government on how to designate a national tree for Scotland.

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Members of Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee agreed to contact ministers after hearing a plea for the Scots pine to be made the country's national tree. Campaigner Alex Hamilton has submitted a petition calling for the tree to be given the designation.

The petition has already won the backing of a number of environmental organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Trees for Life, Woodland Trust Scotland and the Scottish Wildlife Trust.Mr Hamilton and Alan Watson Featherstone, the founder and executive director of Trees for Life, argued that creating a national tree would be fitting as 2013 has been designated the Year of Natural Scotland.MSPs agreed to consider the issue and will write to the Scottish Government, asking about the potential process for declaring a national tree for Scotland.Nationalist Adam Ingram said: "We need to know how to go about the designation of a national tree for Scotland."Mr Watson Featherstone said: "A mechanism was found to declare the Year of Natural Scotland, so it can be done."Mr Hamilton told MSPs that 70 countries already had a national tree but Scotland did not. He said having a national tree was a "symbolic statement of a nation's aspirations and its commitment to woodland".He said the Scots pine "in all shapes, colours and forms" was a "wonderful representation of a multicultural Scotland".Mr Watson Featherstone said the Scots pine was "the only tree named after our country".

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Environment

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MSPs to press Government over a national tree for Scotland

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