Trump golf course environmental claims ‘laughable’, campaigners say

Campaigners have described as “laughable” the environmental credentials of Donald Trump’s new links golf course, which is set to open in Aberdeenshire in 2025.

Trump International has billed the new 18-hole championship links near Balmedie as “one of the most environmentally-friendly and sustainable courses ever built”.

The company said “virtually all the materials” used in the construction of the new course – named MacLeod after Mr Trump’s Lewis-born mother – were locally sourced and that it had a sustainable irrigation system.

It also said “more than one million sprigs of native marram grass” had been planted and “six tons of marram seeds” sown on the course, which spans sand dunes, heathland and wetland areas.

Environmental campaigners, however, have questioned the course’s green credentials.

They point out that work done to construct the original links at Menie – to which the new MacLeod course is an extension – did irreversible damage to the Foveran Links sand dunes, which led national nature agency Nature Scot to “de-notify” it as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in 2020.

In a 2019 statement following the announcement of the decision, Scottish Wildlife Trust chief executive Jo Pike said: “Building Trump International Golf Links on a unique dune system has destroyed the dynamic nature that made it special.

“It is therefore wholly unsurprising that the area will lose its SSSI status.”

Speaking to the i newspaper on Saturday, Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said the idea that building another 18-hole course next to the existing one could be environmentally friendly was, therefore, “laughable” and “complete nonsense” .

He told the newspaper: “The damage is severe and irreparable, so there is no way they can credibly make that claim.”

Professor Jim Hansom, a geomorphologist at the University of Glasgow, told the i newspaper that “biblical” quantities of sand had been moved to build the first course, which had destroyed the “underlying structure” of the soil.

According to the i newspaper, naturalists have also warned of potential effects of the course on local wildlife, including otters, deer, badgers and geese, and insects and other invertebrates living in the sand.

A spokesman for Trump International Golf Links, Scotland said: “Not only are we creating the greatest 36 holes of golf at our resort in Aberdeenshire, providing much-valued local employment and an outstanding leisure destination, our environmental contribution is second to none.

“We satisfied all the requirements of national and regional regulatory authorities, and in many instances surpassed them.

“We brought in the very best ecologists, geomorphologists and environmental scientists to ensure the courses work seamlessly within the landscape.

“Both courses were designed and built with the utmost respect for the unique environmental features of the site and its long-term maintenance and sustainability. Protecting and enhancing the land’s natural features lies at the heart of the design and construction methodology.

“Sadly, there are people who cannot face up to the reality of the excellence of what has been achieved.”