Britain’s answer to Greta Thunberg, Finlay Pringle, has objected to the first vertical launch spaceport planned for the Scottish Highlands saying it will destroy habitats.
Pringle – who shot to fame in 2018 for telling Bear Grylls he ‘sucks’ over a shark diving experience – has lodged a formal protest over the £17.3m development.
The port is due to be built in Sutherland on the Moine Peninsula, south east of Tongue in the far north of Scotland.
The 12-year old from Wester Ross told Highland Council the spaceport was set to be sited close to Europe’s largest peat bog, a potential UNESCO world heritage site.
In time, up to 12 launches a year could be made from Sutherland, carrying small, commercial satellites that will typically be used for Earth observation.
Scroll down for video
Notional image of the UK’s first commercial spaceport at the Sutherland Site in Melness, Scotland, which will conduct the UK’s first vertical, orbital rocket launch in the early 2020s
Pringle has been dubbed Scotland’s leading young environmentalist by the likes of wildlife TV presenter Chris Packham and campaigner Greta Thunberg.
He said in his letter to the council: ‘The spaceport site is close to a Special Area of Conservation; Special Protection Area; RAMSAR site (Wetland of International importance) and also 3 SSSI designations for rare plants and animals.
‘In this unique area they are proposing a spaceport for space tourism and to launch satellites for research we don’t need, such as to study climate change!’
He claims that the spaceport will release up to 950 tonnes of CO2 into the air, saying to expel that much CO2 launching research satellites is wrong.
‘How backward is that, we already have more than enough information about climate change to know that we only have 10 years left to reduce our carbon dioxide levels – no more study is required,’ he said.
‘We just need governments and councils to listen to the science and take proper, meaningful action on the climate emergencies they have declared.’
A number of other objections have been raised to the spaceport plans with just 88 of the 300 comments on the planning application in favour of the development.
Melness Crofters Estate (MCE), who own the earmarked site, and local community councils have backed the scheme – but haven’t done so ‘lightly’.
‘We wanted to ensure that the environment was protected and safety ensured,’ wrote Dorothy Pritchard, chairperson of MCE.
‘There is a balance to be struck between environmental issues versus employment; MCE negotiated hard to ensure that our land is protected now and in the future.’
MCE, will receive income from the spaceport and says funding will go back into the ‘whole community’ and it intended to set-up a charitable fund to help local projects.
It said protesters who had run a ‘sustained, vociferous campaign’ had ‘misrepresented’ the spaceport and the intentions of MCE.
The facility would comprise a launch control centre, a single launch pad and associated infrastructure.
These would include roadways, fuel storage, office premises, and antennas.
Finlay Pringle was awarded the Young Animal Hero award in 2019 and can be seen here with Liz Bonin and Ben Fogle who presented the honour. He says placing a spaceport in Scotland near important ecological sites is harmful and damaging
A temporary lightning tower would also be installed at the launch pad around flight days with about 12 expected per year.
The planning application to Highland Council includes measures to address and minimise impacts on the land and marine environments.
Some of MCE members have objected to the Space Hub Sutherland development proposals put forward by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).
Mr Gordon McEwan, a shareholder of MCE, who lives ‘very close’ to the site, said he felt let down by the organisation.
‘I, for one, object to this application with all my heart and soul,’ he wrote to Highland Council, saying he believed it will impact the peace and quiet of the area.
‘Yes, we need jobs and a healthy community – at what cost to this beautiful land and peat bog – my backyard.
‘That is what every visitor to the Highlands comes to see, enjoy and appreciate.’
Pringle says one of his main objects is the impact on the peat bogs – partly due to their unique habitat but also because they are a ‘vital carbon sink’.
‘Compared to the Amazon rainforest peatbogs can store 30 times the amount of carbon dioxide from the same land area.
‘Just recently the Scottish Government recognised this importance by announcing funding to help restore more of this precious habitat.
‘Why then are Highlands and Islands Enterprise using £9.8M of public money to support the building of a spaceport?
‘Surely it doesn’t make sense to spend our money restoring peat bogs and then to spend more of our money destroying them?’
Scotland’s largest private landowner, billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, is among those who have objected to the spaceport being built in the Highlands.
Mr Povlsen’s company Wildland Ltd has made a holding objection, saying it is concerned about the potential ecological and landscape damage.
Pringle says he just wants people to listen and governments to start to take action.
‘We need people in authority to take the climate and ecological breakdowns seriously, refusing planning for this project would be a good start and signal the council is prepared to take positive action on climate change,’ he said.