Wild Land News no 54, Winter 2001/2002

International Year Of Mountains 2002 And The Scottish Wild Land Group Article

An overview by IYM's Scotland project officer, Andy Macpherson

Most readers of Scottish Wild Land News will already have heard about International Year of Mountains through earlier issues of this journal or from other sources. Consequently, rather than outlining the general background to IYM, I shall focus on themes of IYM that I think are likely to be of particular interest to SWLG, and offer some personal perspectives on where IYM could lead.

IYM's mission statement is "to promote the conservation and sustainable development of mountain areas, thereby ensuring the well-being of mountain and lowland communities", whereas SWLG "works to protect and conserve wild land throughout Scotland, and.is in favour of sensitive development of rural areas where it is sustainable and takes account of the interests of local communities." Wild land does of course not necessarily mean mountains alone (and it could be stretching things to call some of Scotland's mountains "wild land"), but the overlap is considerable.

Fiona Anderson opened an article on defining wild land in the summer 2001 issue of Wild Land News with the words: 'John Digney noted that in 19 years of the Wild Land Group's existence there had always been a strong, and usually unanimous, sense within the Steering Team of where a wild land issue was involved, but that we had never actually produced a specific definition of "wild land"'. It would be possible to spend more than a year trying to define terms and themes such as "sustainable development", "mountain regions" and "mountain communities" (for example, the Mountain Forum recently hosted a lengthy exchange of emails on the subject of defining mountains). Given that Andy Wightman's 1996 paper for the then Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link on sustainable mountain development appears to have been widely well received, it seems reasonable to proceed on the basis that roughly 70% of Scotland can be considered mountain country. As with wild land there can be a sense of when a mountain or sustainable development issue is at stake even in the absence of universally accepted definitions. Further work led by SWLG on defining wild land, and research proposals from the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College UHIMI on evaluating the research and policy priorities for mountains in Scotland, are set to be valuable tools emerging in 2002.

New Initiatives

2002 promises without doubt to be a significant year for wild land, mountainous or otherwise, in Scotland. In addition to the launch of Scotland's first national park and the countdown to the second, the coming year will also see access legislation, the first season of the Cairngorm funicular and the opening of the Adventure Centre at Ratho dedicated to the development of adventure sports. It is also International Year of Ecotourism, an industry again highly intertwined with wild land, and in September a "Rio plus Ten" summit is to be held in Johannesburg to evaluate progress towards sustainable development goals set in Rio in 1992, including Agenda 21's chapter 13, the "Mountain Agenda".

There are some key differences in emphasis between SWLG and the programme for IYM in Scotland. SWLG has been in existence for 19 years whereas IYM is by definition a short-term initiative. IYM has more of an overt "people" orientation, and of course is an international rather than specifically Scottish venture. Perhaps most significantly, IYM is aimed at maximising coverage of mountain issues in the time available, reaching as wide an audience as possible in contrast to the rather quieter and more tightly focused approach of SWLG. All of these differences serve to highlight the complementarity between IYM and SWLG. The IYM project in Scotland owes its existence in part to work done in previous years by SWLG and other organisations, and hopefully IYM can contribute towards raising mountains and sustainable mountain development higher in the policy agenda and so facilitating future work by SWLG.

Because IYM is by its nature of short duration, it is important to ensure that it does not vanish into the ether on 31 December 2002. This concern is frequently raised; indeed the UN's own guidelines for International Years state that they should generate activity in the long term. This process has arguably already started through the establishment of the IYM project in Scotland, bringing together as it has a collection of key bodies to fund and steer the project. IYM could also serve to help the Scottish Mountain Network to gel, and towards this end dates are now being sought to call a meeting of the wider network.

Public Profile

Because the remit of IYM is so wide, it is possible to engage with a wider and larger cross section of society than SWLG, albeit to a lesser depth. By stressing the socio-economic and cultural as well as environmental significance of mountains, it may be possible to engage with policy makers proactively and stressing the positive; a task made easier by the work and experience of such bodies as the Cairngorms Partnership and the Access Forum.

There can be little doubt that pressures on wild land will continue to grow, and equally little doubt that delicate balancing acts will be needed to avoid polarisation of stances such as possible "wild land versus renewable energy" scenarios. The foot and mouth disease outbreak earlier this year served to bring to a wider audience than before the significance of mountains and wild land as an economic resource, yet the need to manage that resource on a sustainable basis was not so highly publicised. Earlier articles in Wild Land News have commented on the discrepancy between the working processes of the Access Forum and the draft legislation that ensued, and on the concerns arising over the lack of planning powers for the Cairngorms National Park, yet it remains the case that enormous strides have been made, through the strenuous efforts of players in all sectors. At the recent launch of the Nevis Strategy, the opening speech noted that a body such as the Nevis Working Party would have been unthinkable a decade ago. While much remains to be done and there is no room for complacency, another significant contribution that IYM can make can be to point to ways forward through celebrating what has been achieved.

Since I took up this job in August, I have encountered near-universal enthusiasm for IYM. If by the end of the year there is a general perception that mountains are of fundamental importance globally comparable to rainforests and oceans, and that they deserve protection, I should feel as though IYM had accomplished a lot.

I should like to thank SWLG for supporting IYM financially and for providing the space for this article. I should also like to take this opportunity to invite any comments or suggestions that any Wild Land News readers may have.

Andy Macpherson can be contacted at andrew.macpherson@perth.uhi.ac.uk or on 01738 877 885. The IYM Scotland website is www.iym.org.uk.