Wild Land News no 61, Autumn 2004

COMMENT Article

Welcome to the (native) woods. This number of WLN is devoted to the rewooding of the Highlands, and especially Affric where we held our annual field reconnaissance (see AGM report). What are the prospects for restoring native trees and woods to areas from which they have disappeared, and what are the implications for wild land - positive and possibly less positive?

We are delighted to have contributions from Forestry Commission Scotland, who own much of Affric, and are pioneering some remarkably enlightened and radical conservation measures there. And from Trees for Life, who both campaign and implement with great tenacity and care. Malcolm and Alan gave generously of their weekend time to show us what was going on in Affric.

Trees for Life have a vision which extends the Affric 'miracle' to neighbouring western glens such as Cannich and Conon. FCS have of course a much wider remit, both on state forest land and via grant aid. While we wish them both every success in spreading the Affric achievement, there are inevitably some lessons to be learned and the odd note of caution to be sounded. Richard Tipping and his Stirling team, and one of our Steering Team, focus on these in their contributions.

In a future issue we plan to address the first steps taken by our two infant National Parks. But a note of initial disappointment must be sounded as the first draft planning policies begin to emerge from Cairngorms at least. We were alerted via our membership of Scottish Wildlife and Countryside LINK to a policy on hill tracks, which are so blatantly destructive of wild land values.

One might have thought that the magnificent restoration by NTS of the Beinn a' Bhuird track (WLN 50) would set the standard for the new Park. We were amazed to find that the draft policy says almost nothing about the negative aspects of these tracks, other than allude to Adam Watson's famous stance against them. It reads as blandly as though it is East Loafshire's policy on garden sheds, and deals mainly with how to design them to blend in nicely. The whole tone is that hill track development is expected to be a routine thing in the National Park:

it states that it is in the very nature of the estates to require hill tracks for vehicular access.
it says tracks will be approved 'where absolutely necessary to serve the needs of estates (sporting, agricultural or forestry) and use by estate staff'. There is no discussion at all on how necessity is tested - so if the estate says it's absolutely necessary that's that settled. With many other forms of development, such as shopping centres, the protagonists devote whole inquiries to the 'need for the development'.
it doesn't discuss alternatives to hill tracks, nor does it attempt to identify parts of the Park where they may be more acceptable or embargoed completely.

We would like to see a principled stance taken against such tracks - if not here, then there is little hope for the rest of the Highlands. Deer management is perfectly practical in the steeper rougher west where it is physically impossible to bulldoze tracks. The famous Feshie cull was carried out by helicopter. If it is about motoring grouse clients to each butt, then the health benefits of walking up might be pointed out (if walk-to-school is now government policy.). Exceptions might be made where the track is a replacement for a more intrusive one, or where it is temporary and brings some benefit such as timber extraction.

Feel free to make your own comments to the Park Authority - sadly it seems to be bearing out the initial concerns that it was geared to favour local interests (including the big estates) and to exclude expert knowledge, and of course the users from the rest of Scotland who underpin the economics of the Park.

David Jarman