Walking back down the road in upper Glen Falloch in September the difference in vegetation between the east and west banks of the River Falloch was striking. On the right of the photo you can see lots of natural regeneration, whereas on the left there is none. The Roy Map 1747-52 (see here) shows the…
Tag: Deer
Following the poorly designed consultation on creating a new National Park for Scotland which took place May-June (see here), the Scottish Government asked NatureScot, its statutory adviser on such issues, to provide advice on the role of National Parks and “how new nominations for National Parks could be evaluated”. In the summer NatureScot set up…
Last week it was reported (see here, for example) that Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) are to buy 16,500 acres from the Glen Prosen estate for £25m to plant trees. This raises a number of important questions about land ownership and land-use in the Cairngorms National Park. It also illustrates some of the weaknesses with…
I have written several posts on parkswatch about the Royal Family’s environmental hypocrisy (see here for example), advocating action to tackle the climate and nature crises to the world while doing the opposite on the land they own in Scotland. But until now it has been very difficult to show simply how bad this is….
Landslips, flooding and riverside tree planting in Balquhidder – tackling the source of the problems
On Sunday I went for a walk in Balquhidder, which I had not visited since a beautiful day just before lockdown in 2020 when people were being advised to stay at home. On that day we came across just one person but we did see from close up the multiple land slips on both sides…
Just four months after Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) bought back the lease for an undisclosed sum from the Camping and Caravanning Club (see here), the Strathy has revealed in an excellent article that this arm of the Scottish Government has not even shortlisted the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust (the AGCT) to operate the…
Last month it was reported that Brewdog had been awarded over £1m in grants by Scottish Forestry Scotland as part of its Lost Forest project at Kinrara. The Scottish Forestry website is very hard to use – searches for Brewdog, Kinrara and on its land based database all come up blank – and I have…
When you see bizarre claims on a sign once they are easy to dismiss as the product of a landowner’s fevered mind. This, however, is the second sign I have come across in the last year that claims “red culls” are carried out “By Order of the Scottish Government”. (Apologies I cannot recall the location…
On Thursday, the Scottish Government’s Biodiversity Minister, the Green MSP Lorna Slater, who also has responsibility for National Parks, launched a consultation (see here for news release) on creating a third National Park in Scotland. It is to credit of the Greens that they have forced the Scottish Government to reverse their longstanding opposition to…
Following the online protest organised by the Grampian Moorland Group against the National Park Partnership Plan (see here), Scotland’s “Regional Moorland Groups” have been putting a glossy leaflet through the door of every household in the Cairngorms National Park. The Moorland Groups are shadowy organisations (see here) that do not declare their membership so it…
Today the Grampian Moorland Group have been mounting an online protest (see here) against the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA)’s proposals to reduce the numbers of red deer in the National Park from around 11 to 5- 8 per square kilometre. The protest is backed by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) (see here) and Scottish…
Unless tree shelter manufacture has been revolutionised recently it looks remarkably like the Chief Executive of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) was celebrating the erection of hundreds of plastic tree tubes along the River Larig in Balquhidder last week. Incredibly his tweet – fake news about conservation – got 49 likes…
Ten days ago I went to have a look at the (larger) part of the Ralia estate that has been bought by Standard Life but first had to pass through the part of the prorperty that borders the A9 and has been retained by the previous owners. I had been there several times in the…
[Update: since posting this I have been contacted by Seafield Estates who have informed me that “there are 20 sheep in Kinveachy, they have not been there long and we have already arranged for them to be gathered and returned to their rightful owner”. They also told me that “There are occasionally sheep in the…
Dave Morris paid tribute to Adam Watson, the great ecologist of the Cairngorms, shortly after his death (see here) but Parkswatch has done little else to celebrate and promote his work and legacy. Over the last year Jenny Aitchison, Adam’s daughter, has been sending me copies of photos he took in the Cairngorms, starting with…
In November I spent an hour or so on the eastern side of Coille Coire Chuilc, north west of Crianlarich (for maps showing location see below). The wood (“coille”) is the second most southerly fragment of the Caledonian Pine Forest in Scotland and protected as such, being a Site of Special Scientific Interest and being…
In Scotland it is often easy to tell whether land is protected for nature, it looks, sounds and feels like nature is doing well. Ben Dolphin explained this recently in a fine article for walkhighlands (see here) about why Scotland’s Nature National Reserves are a good place to walk. The challenge for both the Scottish…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) website has had a makeover. If you click on their site address https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/ you are greeted by a photo of a digger in the uplands, the hashtag slogan “Let’s do net zero” and a page of links to information on various aspects of the “climate emergency…
The Abergeldie Estate, which I referred to in my post on the Royal Family last week (see here), is now under offer. That is hardly surprising. There are plenty of billionaires in the world for whom forking out £23m to become neighbours of the Royal Family is small change. Whether the prospective buyer will be…
Royal hypocrisy “It is a source of great pride to me that the leading role my husband played in encouraging people to protect our fragile planet, lives on through the work of our eldest son Charles and his eldest son William. I could not be more proud of them.” (Queen’s Speech to COP26 reception for…
“We need farmers”. Speaking in Glasgow on 2 Nov, alongside First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and young activists, the former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, emphasised the role of farmers in making a “step change in our relationship to the natural world”. Such a step change was “really…
On 10th November 2018 a large landslide took place above the eastern end of Loch Quoich. It was triggered by the collapse of a crag halfway up the steep hillside, demolished an electricity pylon and resulted in the road to Kinloch Hourn being closed for 6 months while the slope was stabilised at an estimated…
Today’s Herald on Sunday, in conjunction with the independent investigative journalists’ platform the Ferret, looks forward to next week’s COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow. 26 people were asked to contribute their views on a future vision for Scotland (see here). This is what I said: “In the Scottish uplands overgrazing by red deer will…
This post takes a look at the implications of the co-operation agreement and shared policy programme that has been agreed between the SNP Government and the Greens (see here) for National Parks in Scotland. Investment in National and Regional Parks While the SNP said absolutely nothing about National Parks or Regional Parks in their election…
Watching the torrential rain showers in Glasgow over the last ten days, I have been wondering about what impact they have been having in hills, both in our National Parks and more widely. Erosion is a natural process but the impact of increased heavy rainfall due to climate change on eroded slopes such as that…