Shetland Islands
Our Environmental Concerns.
Shetland has some of the most spectacular coastal scenery, quiet inland lochs, and gentle heathery hills in Scotland. But in the 21st century, like the rest of the country, we live with consumerism and this creates its own problems.
Climate change and its impact on seabirds
The particular vulnerability of seabirds to climate change is illustrated by the unprecedented breeding crash of the North Sea seabirds in 2004. The direct cause for the breeding failure of common guillemots, Arctic skuas, great skuas, kittiwakes, Arctic terns and other seabirds in Shetland and Orkney colonies was a shortage of small fish called sandeels, a crucial prey species for the seabirds. Warming ocean waters are thought to be behind the major sandeel decline.
Damaged Peatland
Most folk are aware of the importance of the rainforests in the carbon cycle on our planet but humble peatbogs actually store more than three times as much carbon as the rainforests and can help protect our planet from climate change. The UK's peatlands are a huge carbon store, with an estimated 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon locked up in the peat. Over half of the area of Shetland is covered in peat which has been accumulating at a rate of about 1mm a year for at least 3000 years.
Once damaged, however, peatland cannot deliver the same range of benefits and peatland that has been drained and is drying out or eroding, will actually be releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fortunately there are some fairly simple management measures that can be undertaken to restore peatlands, with funding available for projects such as the Amenity Trust’s, through the Peatland Action Fund administered by Scottish Natural Heritage.
Find out more about the peatland restoration:
> UNIVERSITY OF THE HIGHLAND AND ISLANDS
> 60 NORTH pages 44-45
> BBC RADIO SHETLAND
Marine plastic
Plastic production worldwide is increasing, and half of all plastic items are designed to be used once and then thrown away. We discard far more plastic than we recycle or reuse. Most of the litter we pick up during the Voar Redd Up is plastic. Large pieces of plastic can strangle animals while smaller pieces are ingested by birds. As many as nine out of 10 of the world’s seabirds are likely to have pieces of plastic in their guts. Smaller pieces are also ingested or fish and then fed up the food chain, all the way to humans. This is problematic due to the chemicals contained within plastic, as well as the pollutants that plastic attract once they are in the marine environment.
> SEE VIDEO "The Flying Dustin PART 4"
The Fulmar faces some very serious modern problems, 9 out of 10 Fulmars in the North Sea have plastic in their stomachs whilst global warming is diminishing its natural prey stocks, leading to breeding failures. The film was shot at various locations around Scotland including Aberdeenshire, the Orkney Islands, St Kilda as well as in the Netherlands.
> SEE VIDEO "The Flying Dustin PART 3"
The Fulmar faces some very serious modern problems, 9 out of 10 Fulmars in the North Sea have plastic in their stomachs whilst global warming is diminishing its natural prey stocks, leading to breeding failures. The film was shot at various locations around Scotland including Aberdeenshire, the Orkney Islands, St Kilda as well as in the Netherlands.
Learning about the impact plastic litter on the environment and wildlife with Karen McKelvie inspired our S3 pupils to write and illustrate "Magnie and Ina's Journey of Discovery".
Magnie and Ina's Journey of Discovery
