When the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had her first conversation with US President Elect, Donald Trump, on Friday, it’s unlikely they got around to talking about golf - as perhaps her predecessor, Alex Salmond, might have done.

But maybe it’s a topic she needs to raise. As we report today, the Trump organisation has unilaterally torn up an legal agreement it made with the Scottish Government to protect the environment from his golf course at Menie in Aberdeenshire.

This is important, not just because it’s Trump, and not just because the place he got to build his golf course was a precious and legally protected natural sand dune system. It’s the message it sends to other developers who want to trash Scotland’s priceless natural heritage.

Another US millionaire and Trump golf rival, Mike Keiser, is expected to soon apply for planning permission to construct a golf course on another protected sand dune system at Coul links on the coast north of the Dornoch Firth. If he learns from Trump, he could make all sorts of promises to conserve wildlife, and then just ignore them later.

Other developers on mountains, in national parks and in cities could get the same idea. Trump himself, having seen how easy it is to get away with planning breaches at Menie, could try his luck with planning authorities at his other Scottish golf resort at Turnberry in South Ayrshire.

The conditions imposed on controversial developments that enable them to proceed are not trivialities that can be tossed aside upon a whim. They are legal promises that are meant to prevent real harm to nature and wildlife.

In the first instance it falls to the local authority, in this case Aberdeenshire Council, to enforce the conditions. So far the council doesn’t seem to have done much about Trump ditching an expert group set up to minimise the damage caused by his golf course.

Council officials have repeatedly written to Trump, but apparently not had any answers. He may have been a busy guy lately, but that doesn’t excuse his unresponsiveness.

The council now needs to get tough, and start threatening legal action against the Trump organisation for breaching planning conditions. And the Scottish Government, instead of sitting diffidently on the sidelines, needs to give the council all the help it can.

Scotland cannot allow anyone, no matter how powerful or how wayward, to get away with breaking the rules that protects our environment.