Melness Crofters and Sutherland Spaceport hold Greenwashing session at COP26

The COP26 climate change summit being held in Glasgow this month has come under severe criticism from environmentalists and has seen tens of thousands of people from around the world protest in the streets of the city, many sharing the message that large corporations and organisations are simply greenwashing or gaslighting the population with insincere messaging.

The Melness Crofters Estate and their partners, Sutherland Spaceport had organised a session during the COP26 event on Friday 12th November to convince attendees that their removal of several tonnes of peat from the site of the controversial spaceport will be good for the environment.

The peatlands upon which the Sutherland Spaceport will be built are actually far more effective in carbon sequestration than the Amazon rainforests and the destruction of a huge section will release tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

The chairperson of MCE, Dorothy Pritchard, hosted the session and has said in a statement “Peat cutting played a big part in community life and culture here in Sutherland as hard-working crofters once used peat to heat their homes. However, we now know that healthy peatland plays a crucial role in reducing the impact of global warming”, failing of course to acknowledge that the consortium that includes Danish/German company Orbex, will be removing several tonnes of peat which is considerably different to a crofter extracting a few kilos to heat their home.

The environmental protest group, Extinction Rebellion held a protest outside the COP26 venue in Glasgow against the huge destruction of peatfield in Sutherland and weren’t convinced by the claims that moving the peat elsewhere was a positive contribution to the environment.