Wild Land News no 56, Winter 2002/2003

COMMENT Article

Welcome to the new-look Wild Land News - after 20 years we decided to give the magazine a facelift.

2002 was a notable year for us. The International Year of Mountains helped to focus public attention on our wild land resource and encouraged us to look at it in a global context. In the same year we saw the inauguration of Scotland's first National Park in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs. The significance of wild land was given a huge boost when both the National Trust for Scotland and the Scottish Executive's own agency, Scottish National Heritage (SNH), produced separate policy papers specifically on the subject - these are examined elsewhere in this edition of WLN.

The foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 had devastating repercussions for the tourism industry, and the experience gained played an important role in the re-shaping of the Access section of the Land Reform Bill, which has continued its progress throughout 2002. A recent VisitScotland survey showed that visits to the countryside for "walking" are worth £438m to the economy, while earlier research by the Scottish Tourist Board and SNH found (not surprisingly) that 90% of visitors associate "beautiful scenery" with Scotland prior to their visit. The economic importance of our wild land is becoming firmly established.

Nevertheless, it takes time before all this recognition trickles down to become crystallized into legislation giving real protection to our heritage. We in SWLG are constantly aiming at a moving target as newly-emerging technologies put new pressures on the landscape. The mobile phone revolution has seen telecommunication masts popping up everywhere as companies strive towards saturation coverage. And the demand for alternative energy sources has forced us to oppose certain wind and hydro projects, inevitably exposing us to taunts from our critics of being against renewables.

It was against this background that we decided to publish our booklet Scotland's Wild Land - What Future? We asked ten leading figures to produce articles on the subject of wild land, and the result is a well-balanced overview, reflecting on how we define and value wild land and how we aim to protect it for future generations. The booklet was produced in time to be included in the conference pack for delegates at the IYM/SNH conference reported on in this edition of WLN. It has been subsequently been distributed to all members and several libraries, and publicised by some like-minded organisations. We hope to achieve much wider circulation in due course.