Environmental

As sea kayakers, we are very close to nature and aim to minimise our environmental impact, whilst helping to improve the environment. We aim to ‘leave no trace’, removing everything that we bring in, be it on multi-day trips, or simply a picnic on a local beach. Going further, we try to take more litter with us than we brought and leave the shore in better shape than we found it.

We try to follow the good practice outlined on the SCA website Protecting the Environment.

We help local organisations, specifically for the past few years we have been trying to reduce the impact of invasive Tree Mallow on Lamb Island at North Berwick. Tree Mallow is taking over the island, its roots choke Puffin burrows, preventing them from nesting. Landing is very difficult and SOS Puffin cannot land on the island and remove it. With some care, sea kayaks can land in calm conditions, and so over the winter, outside the nesting season LSKC has been making visits to remove the invasive Tree Mallow.

We have also supported Have You Got The Bottle with their (now successful campaign) to introduce a deposit return system for plastic bottles in Scotland.

In general we try to stay on top of the water rather than in it, but information on water quality for a number of beaches in the Firth of Forth can be found on the SEPA website.

Removing Tree Mallow from Lamb island