Tuesday 23 May 2017

GAMEBIRD LICENSING IN SCOTLAND


Please find (below) a message to all SGA members and those who have contacted us following the decision of the ECCLR Committee (May 23rd) to write to Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham recommending further exploration, with stakeholders, of a licensing system for ‘intensive’ grouse management systems in Scotland.


We respect the vote of the ECCLR Committee and will continue to work constructively with Scottish Government.

However, as a representative body, we take our responsibilities to our law abiding gamekeeping members- who are in the overwhelming majority- seriously, and will defend their right to go about lawful work free of fear of having their livelihoods threatened by those who will be emboldened by the potential of seeing licences revoked. 

The SGA will not defend wrongdoing, and has taken action when its position on wildlife crime has been breached. But we also believe honest working people deserve to have their rights to 

employment protected. Any decision which could ultimately see a business - in any field - ended, with resultant loss of employment, ought to be taken on the appropriate, substantive standard of proof rather than on the basis of suspicion. We view this as a fundamental right.