- EXCLUSIVE: The Trump Organization’s plan to build another golf course in Scotland could destroy the local environment.
- Authorities concluded last year that Trump’s existing course had “destroyed” the protected sand dune system.
- “They just eliminated it as a natural environment,” Bob Ward, of the London School of Economics, told Insider.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Before becoming president, Donald Trump was best known in Scotland as the man who spurred the construction of an extremely controversial golf course in the face of fierce opposition from residents and conservationists.
The result was Trump International Golf Links, an expansive course set between the spectacular sand dunes at Menie Estate along the coast of Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.
The ex-president is very attached to the course: he organized a high-profile photo-op there as a presidential candidate in 2016. There were even rumors that he would fly there in January to avoid the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
However, the resort has caused enormous damage to local habitats, which have lost their protection status due to the irreversible damage that the course has caused.
And residents and conservationists now say that the Trump Organization’s latest plan to build a second 18-hole golf course approved by the Aberdeenshire Council last year – will cause even more environmental destruction in the area than the existing course has already caused.
The rough terrain of Scotland’s new Trump golf course is marked in red. The location of the area that has lost its conservation designation due to the existing course is marked in green.
NatureScot / Annotions by Insider
Local residents believe they have good reason to be concerned.
Last year, the sand dunes at the existing Trump International course lost their status as a specially designated conservation site after NatureScot officials, a watchdog, concluded that the golf course had “destroyed” the dune system causing permanent loss of habitat.
The damage was so severe that the authorities decided that there was no point in granting that part of the conservation area a special scientific status.
“Sand dunes are a dynamic system, driven by the wind, so they go back and forth,” said Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment at LSE.
“Building a golf course at the top means that you can’t have the dunes moving, so they have to stabilize them. So they planted vegetation on top of them and put physical restrictions on them so that the dunes can’t move and it’s not another dynamic system
“The argument that Trump International Golf Links used was that they protected them by stabilizing them. But essentially what they did is simply eliminate it as a natural environment.”
“Sand dunes as a habitat are rarer than rainforests,” said Guy Ingerson, a green politician who competes in Central Aberdeen in the May elections in Scotland.
“They are one of the fastest disappearing habitats in the world. So losing such an area of coastal sand dunes like this was really devastating as an environmental issue up here.”
Getty
Trump’s second camp will be adjacent to the existing one and will be built in an area other than sand dunes that remain as part of the Site of Special Scientific Interest. There are fears that they too will be destroyed, which means that the entire sand dune system will eventually be destroyed – or “stabilized”.
“I think it will eventually lead to more damage to all sand dunes,” said Bob Ward, of LSE.
“There will be nothing left of the natural dune system. At the moment, if you go there, you go along the coast and there is a very large dune bank that protects the interior, including the golf course. And once you go to the inland, there was this whole dune system. But part of it has already been destroyed by the golf course – and now a larger area will be affected by this second golf course. The whole thing will be unrecognizable. “
The council said the new course “will contribute to the significant social and economic benefits that are expected to be delivered by the broader development proposals within the Menie estate.”
But the current course has seen losses of more than $ 1 million a year and residents say the economic benefits promised by the Trump Organization when it built the first field never materialized.
Guy Ingerson said, “Mr. Trump and his organization have promised the world: thousands of jobs, lots of new amenities for the local community. That hasn’t happened. So why are we allowing him to create a new golf course when he doesn’t? did it fulfill existing promises made? “
The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.