Scotland's endangered wildcats could be saved in massive 800 sq mile Highland rewilding plan
Scotland's endangered wildcats could be saved as part of a massive 800-square-mile rewilding plan across the Highlands. The new Affric Highlands charity has set out ambitious plans to regenerate native woodland, peatland and riverside habitats and boost endangered species like wildcats, covering a sweeping stretch of the country from Loch Ness to the west coast.
The group said it will work with local landowners to boost the local economy and make the region a hub for sustainable timber, fishing, farming, venison and wildlife tourism. Affric Highlands - whose emblem is a wildcat, also known as the 'Highland Tiger' - vowed to see the iconic animal flourish as it takes on the huge 30-year project.
The beautiful and rare wildcat - once widespread across the UK - is now only found in northern Scotland. With fewer than 300 left, the mammal is considered critically at risk of extinction.
In a statement, Affric Highlands said: 'It is hoped that habitat restoration will support efforts to help this much-loved species thrive again.'
It also promised action to aid conservation efforts for other struggling species like red squirrels, mountain hares and Atlantic salmon.
The rewilding plan will cover a linked network of landholdings stretching from Loch Ness to Kintail in the west, and encompassing Glens Cannich, Urquhart, Affric, Moriston and Shiel.
Despite the region's world-famous beauty, it is largely ecologically damaged, with much land degraded following centuries of deforestation and overgrazing.
That includes the globally unique Caledonian forest which has been reduced to isolated fragments, while damage to peatlands means they are emitting rather than absorbing carbon.
The charity said this was limiting people's opportunities for sustainable land-based jobs and undermining sustainable farming which depends on functioning natural processes.
Affric Highlands executive director Stephanie Kiel said: 'Affric Highlands is a community focused vision of hope.
'It's hugely inspiring to be setting out as a new charity on this ambitious 30-year journey to take large-scale nature recovery to a new level.
'We want to create new opportunities and real benefits for local landowners, communities and rural economies, so nature, people and livelihoods can all thrive together.'
Restoring habitats will boost biodiversity and benefit wildlife including golden eagles, red squirrels, black grouse, mountain hares, salmon, trout, ospreys and otters.
Despite Scotland's renowned landscapes, data shows the country is one of the most nature-depleted in the world.
Rewilding means the restoration of nature on a large enough scale that it can then take care of itself.
Affric Highlands began work in September 2021, operating as a joint venture led by Trees for Life with support and advice from the Rewilding Europe network - before now launching as an independent charity.
It has already built a broad coalition of 19 landowners backing the project, covering an area of around 225 square miles within the vast landscape.
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Local rewilding schemes so far include restoring native woodlands and peatlands - and creating new woodland on riverbanks to provide shade, nutrients and shelter to Scotland's threatened wild salmon population.
Steve Micklewright, Trees for Life's chief executive, said: 'Affric Highlands' success so far – coupled with the opportunities for people offered by its bold vision of landscape-scale nature recovery – has brought us to the point where it can now begin a new era as an independent charity.
'This is fantastic news for breathing new life into the Highlands through rewilding.'
Frans Schepers of Rewilding Europe said: 'Affric Highlands will enrich the social fabric and wildlife of these glens and hills.'
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Reuters
2 days ago
- Reuters
Titan sub disaster was preventable, US finds in scathing report
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five people in 2023 could have been prevented, a U.S. Coast Guard investigative board found on Tuesday, calling the vessel's safety culture and operational practices 'critically flawed.' The Titan vanished during a descent to the Titanic wreck on a tourist expedition, losing contact with its support ship. After a tense four-day search, its shattered remains were discovered strewn across the seabed 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the bow of the legendary ocean liner that sank in 1912, claiming more than 1,500 lives. OceanGate, the U.S.-based company that managed the tourist submersible, suspended all operations after the incident. A company spokesperson said on Tuesday the company again offered its deepest condolences to the families of those who died "and directed its resources fully towards cooperating with the Coast Guard's inquiry through its completion." The chair of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, Jason Neubauer, said the accident was preventable. "There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework," he said in a statement with the release of the 300-page report. Chloe Nargeolet, whose father, French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died on the submersible, said she was satisfied with the investigation. "The OceanGate boss didn't do his job properly and obviously my father didn't know any of that," she said. "It was not random or bad luck, it came from something. It could have been avoided.' The board determined that the primary contributing factors were OceanGate's "inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process for the Titan." It also cited "a toxic workplace culture at OceanGate," an inadequate regulatory framework for submersibles and other novel vessels, and an ineffective whistleblower process. The report added "for several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company's favorable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny." The board found that OceanGate failed to investigate and address known hull anomalies following its 2022 Titanic expedition. It said data from Titan's realtime monitoring system should have been analyzed and acted on during that expedition. It also criticized OceanGate for failing to properly store the Titan before the 2023 Titanic expedition. The report faulted the absence of a timely Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into a 2018 OceanGate whistleblower's complaint combined with a lack of government cooperation, calling them a missed opportunity and added "early intervention may have resulted in OceanGate pursuing regulatory compliance or abandoning their plans."
Times
4 days ago
- Times
I was meant to be on the Titan sub. I refused after the safety briefing
There was less than an hour to go before Jim Kitchen would step on to a submersible that would take him to the bottom of the sea and reveal the ruins of the Titanic. But at the briefing for the June 2023 trip he began to have serious doubts. Sitting in a hotel room in St John's, a city on the Newfoundland coast, with five other passengers and a team of about 20 leading the dive, Kitchen raised his hand to ask a series of questions. 'Would the ship transporting the sub be able to withstand the Atlantic's 25ft-high waves?' 'What does the weather look like?' 'How long could they expect to be waiting at sea before making the dive?' His concerns, he said, were waved away by a senior mission co-ordinator. 'Everyone's looking at me sideways, thinking, 'Hey, can you just give it a rest?'' said Kitchen, a 60-year-old American entrepreneur and business professor at the University of North Carolina. But it was the response to his last question that sent chills down his spine. He wanted to know how many times the submersible — a first-of-its-kind deep-sea vessel named Titan, led by the maverick explorer Stockton Rush — had descended the 3,800m down to the Titanic shipwreck that summer. 'The answer was: 'none',' Kitchen told The Times. 'So I motioned to Rush and I said, 'Hey, talk to me after.' I didn't want to spook everyone else in the group. I told him I wasn't going to go. There was no way I was getting on board.' One week later, on June 18, Titan imploded, instantly killing all five passengers on board including a teenage boy and Rush himself. The vessel had almost completed its journey to the Titanic when its carbon-fibre hull fractured under the immense pressure of the deep ocean. Rescuers searched the ocean floor for four days before locating the wreckage. This week, a two-year US coastguard investigation concluded that the 'primary' cause of the disaster was the failure of OceanGate, the vessel's operator, to 'follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing and maintenance of their submersible'. It said the safety culture and operational practices of the company, founded by Rush, were 'critically flawed' and that the disaster had been 'preventable'. Days earlier, the dive that Kitchen was meant to be part of was abandoned due to poor weather. Had it descended, 'it would have been my group who died', Kitchen said. Now, the entrepreneur, who has been to space, all 193 UN recognised nations and the deepest point in the Earth's seabed, said he suffered from 'survivor's remorse' and harboured a lot of 'anger toward that company because they were so deceptive'. He said 'the heartbreak that I felt toward the mum and her boy, who didn't even want to go on the trip,' could not be overstated. He was referring to the 19-year-old Suleman Dawood, who died in the disaster alongside his father, the British businessman Shahzada Dawood, the British explorer Hamish Harding and the French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet. In the months before his trip to St John's, as he learnt more about the operation's shortcomings, he said he saw first-hand how flawed OceanGate was. He said the company 'deceived and manipulated' its customers, repeatedly dismissed his safety concerns and refused to refund him the $150,000 he had paid for the trip. He revealed how OceanGate tried and failed to secure insurance — 'Why would we need it?' Kitchen is said to have been told — and that the company listed him as a 'researcher' for the trip to get around US coastguard regulations that forbade paying members of the public from diving on the vessel. 'You had to be designated a researcher — even though I wasn't,' he said. 'Why? Because that was the only way that they could get around the rules.' Kitchen, who started his first business in the 1980s promoting low-Earth orbit trips, knew the British explorer Harding from their involvement in the Blue Origin space missions. 'I had met him several times. I just felt awful when I learnt the news.' A spokesman for OceanGate said that 'after the tragedy occurred, the company permanently wound down operations and directed its resources fully towards co-operating with the coastguard's inquiry through its completion. We again offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who died on June 18, 2023, and to all those impacted by the tragedy.' Before his involvement with OceanGate, Kitchen was part of the historic dive in July 2022 to Challenger Deep, a slot-shaped valley in the floor of Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in the Earth's seabed. It is nearly 11,000m down — surpassing the height of Everest. 'It was otherworldly,' he said of the dive. 'The life down there is likely what exists on Jupiter's moons. Seeing these creatures and how beautiful and persistent life is was just unimaginable.' The expedition, led by the undersea explorer Victor Vescovo and a team of experts on a submersible called Limiting Factor, showed Kitchen what a professional deep dive looked like. 'It gave me the knowledge of what a proper organisation and sub should be,' he said. Unlike the Titan, the Limiting Factor was made of titanium, not carbon fibre, and had been commercially certified by DNV, an internationally recognised classification society, Kitchen said. Every nut and bolt used in its assembly was approved for use, as was the design of the vessel. It had been subjected to extensive and repeated testing, too. At one point, the sub was flown to the Krylov State Research Centre, a shipbuilding institute in Saint Petersburg, and placed into a vast pressure chamber where it was tested at a pressure equivalent to 14,000m deep, according to Patrick Lahey, the chief executive of Triton Submarines, which built the vessel. 'It remains one of the most formidable pressure-test facilities in the world. In fact, when we did our pressure test, it was the deepest test they'd ever done, because we went to full ocean depth plus 20 per cent,' Lahey said. Only once did Titan experience this type of testing, at a facility in Maryland under limited conditions, according to court documents compiled by the coastguard. The carbon-fibre hull is also said to have imploded during early scale-model testing at the University of Washington, a sign that the vessel's design was not reliable at extreme depths. Yet, reports say, OceanGate pressed ahead with its design, bypassing standard engineering caution and expert advice. Industry leaders like Lahey voiced their concerns about OceanGate to US regulators, but Rush ignored the criticism and accused his rivals of stymieing innovation, Kitchen said. 'I remember asking them, what would happen if Titan got to Titanic depth and something happened? 'No problem, we'll just ascend,' was their answer,' he said. 'They were claiming affiliations with Nasa, with Boeing, with the University of Washington — all to give the appearance of legitimacy. It was all smoke and mirrors.' Plus, on its 90 dives to the Titanic, the Titan had reached the shipwreck's depth only 13 times. Kitchen first signed up for his once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Titanic after his journey to the Mariana Trench. Described as a 'modern-day Marco Polo' by news outlets after going into space with Blue Origin in 2022, the married father of two said his 'desire to push boundaries' was what turned him into an explorer. But when the Limiting Factor team learnt of his plans to step on board the Titan, he said they warned him against it and told him it was a matter of time before Rush's operation ended in disaster. That convinced Kitchen he should pull out, but when he approached OceanGate to ask for a refund he was told the money had already been spent. He considered taking the company to court but decided to see how Titan's dives went in 2023 before making a final call. 'I wanted my money back but I'll be honest: I really wanted to go to the Titanic,' Kitchen said. 'I wanted to believe what they were telling me, but there was a big part of me that just didn't.' The 2023 dives proceeded without major incident. There were reports of 'mishaps' — including aborted dives due to technical issues — but nothing 'catastrophic', Kitchen said. So when he got the call from OceanGate in early 2023 that he was still enlisted for the summer, he told himself: 'I guess I'm going.' He believes that today's commercial submersible industry is safe. Lahey said tens of millions of commercial dives had been completed over the past four decades without incident. But still, Kitchen welcomes the recommendations made by the coastguard's report this week. 'If there are calls for additional safety — good,' he said. 'I want to see deep-ocean vehicles made from the proper materials. I want to see them certified. I want to see them insured. I want to see them tested.' In the meantime, he hopes the case against OceanGate remains open, as 'a lot of other people were complicit' in the disaster, beyond Rush. Though no OceanGate employees have been arrested or criminally charged, the company remains under investigation. 'What they did was manipulate,' Kitchen said. 'They deceived and manipulated customers. Rush could not do that alone.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
Oceangate's Titan whistleblower: 'People were sold a lie'
When the Titan submersible went missing during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in 2023, David Lochridge hoped the five people on board – including his former boss - could be rescued."I always hoped that what happened wouldn't happen. But I just knew if they kept carrying on the way they were going and with that deficient equipment, then there would be an incident," he told the whistleblower had been sacked by the firm behind the sub, Oceangate, after warning about safety issues in June 2023 the sub imploded killing all five people on board – including Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush. A report from the US Coast Guard (USCG) published on Tuesday found that Oceangate's failures over safety, testing and maintenance were the main cause of the disaster."There is so much that could have been done differently. From the initial design, to the build, to the operations - people were sold a lie," Lochridge told the he firmly believes the US authorities could - and should - have done more to stop Oceangate. Lochridge had joined Oceangate seven years earlier as the company's Director of Marine Operations. He moved his family from Scotland to the US, and was full of excitement about the company's was building a new submersible to take paying passengers down to the most famous wreck in the world - the he was going to be involved in the project from the very start, working alongside the team designing the straight-talking Glaswegian has worked at sea for more than 25 years, first with the Royal Navy and later as a submersible pilot. He also led submarine rescue operations, responding to distress calls from people trapped underwater. He knows about the risks involved in deep responsibilities included planning dives and, as chief pilot, he would be the one taking the sub and its passengers 3,800m beneath the waves to see the Titanic. Safety was at the heart of his role."As the director of marine operations, I'm the one responsible for everybody," he told BBC News. "I was responsible for the safety of all Oceangate personnel and all of the passengers that were going to be coming in the sub." A prototype for the new submersible, which would eventually be called Titan, was being developed with the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). The plan was to build its hull - the part where the passengers would sit - out of carbon deep diving sub had been made out of this material before - most have hulls constructed from titanium or steel. But Lochridge had confidence in the APL said he was told by Oceangate's CEO Stockton Rush that the craft would undergo a safety assessment by an independent marine organisation, known as was adamant that this third-party oversight was essential - especially because Titan was to be made of experimental by the summer of 2016 he was starting to have doubts about the stopped working with APL and decided to bring the design and construction of Titan was worried. He didn't have the same confidence in Oceangate's engineers. He told the BBC he didn't think they had experience of building subs able to withstand the immense pressures found at the depth of the Titanic."At that point, I started asking questions… and I felt I had a duty of care to keep asking them," he the parts for Titan began to arrive, and the craft started to take shape, Lochridge said he was spotting problem after problem."When the carbon hull came in, it was an absolute mess," he saw visible gaps in the material, areas where the layers of carbon fibre were coming apart - known as he identified issues with other key components. The carbon fibre hull had titanium domes fitted on each end, but he said the metal had been machined incorrectly. He was also worried that the sub's view port had not been designed to work at extreme concerning, he learnt that Titan was not going to be independently certified for told the BBC that he had always been outspoken on safety issues - so he wasn't going to stay silent."I brought up all the issues that I was seeing… but I was just met with resistance all the way," he January 2018, he outlined his concerns again to Stockton Rush. This time Rush asked him to complete an inspection of the was at a crucial point of its development. Passengers had already paid deposits for dives to the Titanic planned for later that year. Test dives were about to start in the Bahamas before those expeditions got wanted Oceangate to delay these plans."I formulated a report and I sent it out to all the directors in the company."The following day he was summoned to a meeting with Rush and several other Oceangate employees.A transcript from the two-hour-long meeting, where the itemised report was picked over, reveals a heated exchange between Lochridge and the end of the meeting, in response to Lochridge's safety concerns, Rush says: "I have no desire to die. I've got a nice granddaughter. I'm going to be around. I understand this kind of risk, and I'm going into it with eyes open, and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do."To Lochridge's surprise, immediately after this meeting he was he was so concerned about Titan that he got in touch with the US government's Occupational Safety and Health Administration - told him his case was urgent because it involved public safety and that he would be placed under the whistleblower protection scheme, designed to protect employees from retaliation by employers if they've reported concerns about workplace part of this process, OSHA passed Lochridge's concerns about Titan to the US Coast Guard (USCG) in February Lochridge says after OSHA wrote to Oceangate to tell them it was starting an investigation, everything March, Oceangate asked Lochridge to drop the OSHA complaint - and demanded he pay $10,000 for legal costs. Lochridge in July 2018, Oceangate sued Lochridge - and his wife Carole - for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud and theft, amongst other allegations. The following month, Lochridge countersued for unfair maintains that throughout the process OSHA was slow and failed to protect him from the ongoing retaliation he was receiving from Oceangate."I provided all the documentation to OSHA, I was on the phone to OSHA every few weeks." he said. "OSHA did nothing." 'They beat us down' In December 2018, under increasing pressure from Oceangate's lawyers, Lochridge and his wife took the decision to drop the meant the legal proceedings were settled, and as part of this agreement Lochridge withdrew his complaint at OSHA. OSHA stopped its investigation and also notified the US Coast guard that the complaint had been suspended. Lochridge also signed a non-disclosure agreement."Carole and I did everything we physically could, we just got to the point that we were completely burned… We had nothing left to give to it. They beat us down."Oceangate continued at pace with its plans to reach the 2018 and 2019, the prototype sub made its first test dives in the Bahamas - including one, piloted by Stockton Rush, that reached a depth of 3,939m.A crack was later found in the sub's carbon fibre hull, and in 2020 that damaged hull was swapped out for a new one, in what became the second version of Titan. In 2021, the company started taking passengers to the Titanic, and over the next two summers made 13 dives to the famous in June 2023, the sub went missing with five people on board - including Stockton Rush. After days of anxious waiting, the sub's wreckage was found littered across the ocean the US Coast Guard's public hearings held last year, Lochridge criticised OSHA for its lack of action. "I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented.""It didn't need to happen. It didn't - and it should have been stopped."In response to Mr Lochridge, a spokesperson for OSHA said its whistleblower protection programme was limited to protecting individuals against employer retaliation. They said their investigation had "followed the normal process and timeline for a retaliation case".OSHA said it does not investigate whistleblowers' underlying allegations about public safety… but instead refers those to the appropriate agency - in this case, the US Coast spokesperson said: "The Coast Guard, not OSHA, had jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Lochridge's allegations regarding the safe design and construction of marine vessels."But the US Coast Guard's report into the disaster agrees with Lochridge and says that OSHA's slow handling of the investigation was a missed opportunity for early government report also criticises a lack of effective communication and coordination between OSHA and the USCG. It said action has now been taken to improve this following the disaster. Jason Neubauer, the chair of the USCG's Marine Board of Investigation, told the BBC that the coast guard could have done more. "The system did not work for the whistleblower in this case, and that's why we just need to get better - and we have."Oceangate said that in the wake of the accident, it had permanently wound down operations and directed its resources towards cooperating with the inquiry.
