Wild Land News no 57, Spring 2003

Key Strategic LINK Seminar Article

Scottish Environment LINK, the umbrella body for Scottish conservation organisations, held an important seminar on Wild Land in mid-February. The background to the seminar was threefold:

Firstly, there were key publications in the public realm - the SNH policy statement on wildness; the NTS wild land policy, and our SWLG publication on the future of wild land. These documents have raised the awareness and debate in Scotland.

Secondly, there was a need to bring forward robust wild land and landscape arguments to protect areas against intrusive developments, some relating to renewable energy schemes such as the hydro scheme at Shieldaig.

Thirdly, it was realised that although many LINK bodies are keen to protect wild areas for a variety of reasons (access, landscape, habitats, water resource, etc), there was no formal collaboration on protecting such land. This is especially crucial as much of Scotland's wild land does not have legislatively protective designations such as SSSI or SAC/SPA status.

So a very well attended event was held in Pitlochry, bringing most of the key players together to hammer out some common threads. The morning started with some very scenic freezing haar on the low-lying glens and straths, which unfortunately was partly to blame for a SNH speaker being involved in a road accident, luckily without harm to himself or others.

After a set of overview presentations, there were contributions on detailed topics, including our own Fiona Anderson on a planning angle on wild land. There followed workshops and vigorous debate. This had the benefit both of contributors with enormous experience in the field together with those who have been actively involved in lobbying MSPs in Edinburgh over new legislation, such as the Land Reform Act, and implementing the EU Water Framework Directive.

One of the key discussion topics was as to what extent should one actively manage landscapes and regulate land use to stimulate more wildness, as against removing managed activity and allowing natural processes to take over.

The day drew to a close with a closer understanding of the issues and a desire for LINK bodies to work closer together, and with SNH and other organisations. SNH are hoping to hold a seminar this year to publicise their statement on wild land. Everyone at the seminar supported this statement wholeheartedly (apart from reservations that some of the maps could give the wrong impression about how widespread or otherwise wild land is).

It is hoped that this seminar will be the start of a greater focus on wild land that will spread across many organisations and be brought into play in a range of ways. The only disturbing note of the day was the widespread awareness that some of the proposed renewable energy projects could be detrimental to some wild land, and that these projects were getting strong, unquestioning support from elements in the Scottish Executive.

Overall a significant event both for moving the debate forward and bringing greater unity.

Alistair Cant