Flow Country 'keep us covered' bid endorsed by SNP shadow culture secretary
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The bid to secure UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the Flow Country has been boosted by endorsement from SNP minister John Nicolson.
Mr Nicolson, the party’s Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), has recorded a message of support for the Flow Country Partnership’s ‘Keep Us Covered’ campaign to secure cross-party backing from political leaders across Scotland and the UK for the bid.
If successful, the Flow Country will become the world’s first peatland World Heritage Site, delivering a globally significant boost to the efforts of Scotland and the UK to tackle climate change and protect biodiversity. Not only does this vast 190,000 hectare tract of land store more carbon than all the UK’s trees combined; it will continue to actively draw down CO2 from the atmosphere for generations to come and create new economic and cultural opportunities for the area’s rural communities.
Urging others to ‘Get Behind the Bid’, John Nicolson MP, who has close ancestral links to Caithness, commented:
“It has been a great pleasure to support The Flow Country Partnership’s Keep Us Covered campaign and to help secure this extraordinary site’s rightful place on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
“I’m delighted to offer my enthusiastic backing for The Flow Country’s bid to be Scotland’s next UNESCO World Heritage Site and our first listed purely on natural criteria.
“The Flow Country, as well as being an area of outstanding beauty, is especially important for biodiversity and for carbon capture.”
Political leaders from all the main parties at Westminster will have the opportunity to voice their support for the bid and meet representatives from the Flow Country at a reception hosted by the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland at Dover House in Whitehall on Tuesday 13 September.
The Flow Country Partnership’s project coordinator Dr Steven Andrews said:
“The project team is delighted that senior political leaders like John see the potential benefits for the environment, for communities and for the natural economy that UNESCO World Heritage inscription of the Flow Country can bring.
“The more public support we can get, both at Westminster and at Holyrood from politicians willing to get behind the bid, the stronger our case will be to UNESCO that this is a place that merits the highest level of international recognition.”
The bid, which comprises an extensive nomination dossier and management plan will be submitted to UNESCO by the UK Government (DCMS) at the end of 2022 and following a site visit the outcome will be decided in mid-2024.
