The Timber Growers Association (TGA) has voiced deep concern over Scottish executive proposals to introduce the principle of ‘recklessness’ to complement existing prohibition of intentional acts of destruction and disturbance to wild animals and birds.
TGA’s Scottish chairman Michael Bruce said the proposal would mean individual foresters and forest workers having to consider this complex legal concept before undertaking a management operation near many Schedule 1 species.
‘Foresters cannot be expected to act as lawyers, nor should they have to accept the risk of criminal prosecution as part of their normal daily work,’ he said.
Rather than adding ‘yet another bureaucratic burden’, he urged the Scottish Executive to concentrate on rescuing a forestry industry that was ‘on its knees’.
