Hi GB/All.
This is another example of why stories in the Daily Mail have to be treated with great suspicion. The scare-mongering headline is completely innacurate when you actually read the substance of the article. This is an international scouting festival. People are travelling to it from around the world. With different dietary needs (such as Kosher food, a proportion of the Scouts being vegetarian etc) it is common sense that the organisers should choose the cheap option of vegetarian meals. This will mean that they don’t risk offending their international guests.This does not mean that the UK scouts have banned meat in their organisation’s normal operation. In this light, you can see, the Daily Mail article actually has no substance to it at all. It must have been a slow news day at their offices.
With regards to fires. In an event with hundreds/thousands of tents (on an Island protected by the National Trust as Britemp noted) the risk of a catastrophic fire is unaviodable. It would destroy much natural beauty and threaten to wipe out a significant portion of the world’s scouting movenment. That may put a slight dampenener on the celebrations one might think.
Campfires are only banned on Brownsea Island. This is because it is a national nature reserve and the last southern stronghold of the red squirrel. The Daily Mail (the paper that supported Hitler) is being misleading. Again.