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Many projects creating long-term impacts that are visible on the Scottish landscape today were authorised at a time when environmental sensitivities were less well developed. This paper examines the development of the regulatory mechanisms for three major landscape impacts: mineral workings, hydro-electric schemes and forestry. Today, the requirement for environmental impact assessment provides one common element in all three cases, but there are marked differences. The most notable is the control of most forestry planting by economic instruments rather than any formal authorisation procedure. Given the long-term effects of these projects on the landscape, a major issue is the extent to which authorisations can be reviewed to reflect modern concerns and revised in future as physical conditions or public knowledge or attitudes change. Only in relation to mineral workings does the legislative scheme make provision for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the updates related to environmental law. The Energy Act seeks to implement the coalition government's Plan for Government and Carbon Plan to support Great Britain's low carbon, safe, and affordable energy infrastructure. The 2011 Water Environment Order in Scotland allows the Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to practice their functions. Meanwhile, the 2011 Storage of Carbon Dioxide regulations are discussed.

The article discusses the court case wherein communications were sent to Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) for alleged non-compliance on public participation grounds in relation on plan to build a bypass around the Aberdeen, Scotland. The complainant alleged SNH's nondisclosure of report on the site's freshwater pearl mussels was a violation of Article 4 of the Convention. The compliance committee recommends Great Britain to review the regime for allocating costs in judicial review applications.

The Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament in 2010. The Bill proposes a number of significant changes to the law in Scotland, replacing most of the existing law on game and poaching and introducing new controls on the use of snares. Further provisions will ban the release of non-native species and introduce new control measures for those that are in the wild. Other measures adjust the law on deer, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, wildlife licensing and muirburn. Although making many welcome changes, the Bill is a miscellany of assorted reforms rather than the expression of a single vision for the future of wildlife law, aspects of which will remain in a fragmented state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK and Scottish governments policy commitments to renewable energy, driven by recognition of the impacts of global warming and climate change, have led to increasing interest in all aspects of renewable energy. This article is concerned with how the Scottish Executive is able to reconcile new hydro-electric developments as a source of renewable energy with the local impacts of those developments. The outcome of a recent application for consent to construct a hydro-electric scheme at Shieldaig and Slattadale in Wester Ross provides an illustration of the issues involved. The local environmental impacts of hydroelectric development are considerable and the application of environmental impact assessment to the approval procedure for new schemes means that a much broader range of environmental impacts is now considered than ever before. The decision shows the importance of compliance with European Community environmental law, and is particularly interesting for its application of the precautionary principle to prevent impacts on protected species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]