What's New
What's new...
October 2009
'What's new' items from:
Photographs Donated to Macaulay
13 October 2009
The Institute’s exhibition at the Royal Highland Show this year ‘A Century of Changes in the Scottish Landscape' has prompted a former staff member of Nature Conservancy to donate landscape images to the Institute.
Inge Aalders and Jane Morrice recently visited Mr Huxley, who has worked for Nature Conservancy since 1957, and he has donated approximately 800 transparency slides and black & white negatives from across Scotland. These were taken during his time with the Conservancy in the hope that their record of Scotland's landscapes in the 1950s and 60s will not be lost for future generations and can be of value to our work on landscape change. The Institute hopes to collaborate with either Aberdeen or St Andrews University photo library for archiving and digitising this fabulous collection.
Macaulay Scientist Wins Prize at Symposium
13 October 2009
Congratulations to Liz Bourne on her winning the prize for the best talk at the recent Botanical Society of Scotland Student Symposium. The panel of judges felt the talk to be of an excellent standard, and commended Liz on the clarity of science and the way that she communicated her research. The prize is a tour for two at the new Scottish Whisky Heritage Centre in Edinburgh.
Soaring Demand for Allotments
12 October 2009
The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute's Bob Ferrier, a keen allotment holder, responds to the announcement that pressure groups are urging the Scottish Government to address the soaring demand for plots as increasing numbers of people seek to save money by growing fruit and vegetables.
Allotment availability across Scotland has decreased substantially to just 6,700 from the boom times in the 1940s, when there were around 65,000 allotments nationally.
Dr Nanette Milne, Tory MSP for North-East Scotland, has called on environment minister Roseanna Cunningham to set up a summit "in view of the fact that demand for allotment land increasingly outstrips supply".
Ms Cunningham said she wants all interested parties to take part in "discussions about the future of derelict land".
"We are aware that some 3,000 people are on a nationwide allotments waiting list, and that 70 per cent of the currently allocated allotments are owned by local authorities," Ms Cunningham said. "That leaves 30 per cent that are not, so there is capacity to grow the number of allotments outwith local authority land."
National Soil Archive on the BBC
2 October 2009
Over the past 70 years the levels of crucial minerals in our basic foods have declined significantly. This is bad news for consumers in the west, but potentially deadly news for those in the developing world who cannot afford a perfectly balanced diet. Dr Steve Hillier from the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute introduces the National Soil Archive, stored at the Institute's Craigiebuckler site, and explains its importance in monitoring the quality of the soil we produce our food in during BBC Radio 4's 'Costing the Earth' with Alice Roberts, originally broadcast on Monday 28th September at 9pm.
You can find more stories about the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in the latest edition of our newsletter, in-land.
News about upcoming events can be found here.
Media releases can be found here.
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Updated: 23 Jan 2024, Content by: CN
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