On 18th April landowners and land management interests launched a concerted campaign claiming that rather than muirburn being a significant cause of wildfire it was a means of preventing it (see here for BBC coverage). In response I was pleased to have this letter published in the Herald and then when Nan Spowart took up…
Tag: landed estates
The Tinto Hills Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) (see here) was not the only protected area to be destroyed by muirburn during the periods of high fire risk this Spring. The muirburn triggered wild fire considered in this post took place in the glen running north from Glenballoch in Glen Banchor which has previously…
Since my post on how muirburn is responsible for a significant number of wildfires (see here) I have been contacted by a number of readers who have provided further information and photographs including what happened on the Tinto Hills SSSI (formerly a Site of Special Scientific Interest but now, in one reader’s words, “a site…
I was provided with this incredible photo through a friend who had been Knoydart 2 weeks ago and, for four days between 2nd and 5th April, had watched a fire on Morar to the south. An alert was raised for Knoydart and the community started to muster and prepare a response. It was not long…
Its not just grouse moor managers in eastern Scotland who have been ignoring the warnings from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) of very high fire risk (see here) and (here) but also some farmers/crofters and stalking estates on the west. Richard, who sent this photo, commented that it looked like the firea bove got…
On 1st April the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) issued a “Very High to Extreme” warning for the period 2nd till 7th April (see here). It advised the public “to avoid lighting fires outdoors across all areas of Scotland during this period.” The NASA global wildfire data base (see here) enables one to check…
Had the muirburn provisions of the the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 (“the Act”) passed a year ago come into force such fires at hat pictured above would be now illegal. Clause 20 of the new Act shifted the current muirburn season, which dates back to the Heather Burning (Scotland) Act 1926, from…
On 27th February I was sent this photo of muirburn on King Charles’ estate of Delnadamph, which has no deer and is managed intensively for grouse shooting (see here). The reader commented it was very windy that day, as is evident from the near horizontal plume of smoke. That was confirmed by the forecast for…
Hogmanay was forecast to be a wet day and Strathspey was flooded so I thought I would take a look at the River Gynack overflow, which had been reconstructed after being almost washed away in 2017 (see here), to see if it was operational and, if so, how the revised design was working. My estimate…
I had always intended to include the Royal Sporting Estate at Balmoral in my series on Deer Density in the Cairngorms (see here) after a walk round the upper part of Glen Muick in May. However, I followed that up with a further Freedom of Information request on current deer numbers at Caenlochan (see here). …
It is now five months since my post questioning how abrdn, Akre and the Natural History Museum (NHM) had applied the Biodiversity Intactness Index to the land at Far Ralia in an attempt to demonstrate that the careless and destructive tree planting there would result in an almost miraculous improvement in nature (see here and…
I have not visited Far Ralia, the land in the Cairngorms National Park Abrdn’s Property Income Trust (APIT) bought for £7.5m three years ago and has now put on the market for £12m, since January. I have, however, recently obtained a copy of an inspection Scottish Forestry (SF) conducted in June through a freedom of…
The basic elements of the the scandal concerning abrdn’s proposed sale the Far Ralia estate in the Cairngorms National Park are very simple. Having bought the land now known as the Far Ralia estate for a reported £7.5m in September 2021, Abrdn are now trying to dispose of it for £12m having in the intervening…
After first hearing about the native woodland scheme at Muckrach I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Scottish Forestry (SF) for its contract with Calthorpe Estates, the family trust which owns the land, and any reports from inspection visits. Just like when the BrewDog Lost Forest disaster become apparent (see here), it turns out…
Following my post on the disastrous new section of road at Muckrach (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) informed me that they weren’t aware of the work but were now looking into it. I then heard from another source that the CNPA were due to meet with Savills, who oversaw the whole Muckrach…
When James Watt, sometime chief executive of the beer company BrewDog, speaks about tree planting in the Highlands, he reminds me of unpleasant landowners of the past. In his latest attempt at defending BrewDog’s disastrous planting efforts on their Kinrara estate near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, Watt did not mince his words when…
On 28th June Raptor Persecution UK published a press release from Police Scotland appealing for information after a goshawk nest near Loch Gynack on the Pitmain Estate had been abandoned, apparently after a shot gun attack (see here). While no-one has yet been charged, this post will argue this was an “incident” waiting to happen…
Besides operating as a museum, the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London promotes itself (see here) as having “world-class expertise” and being able to help tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today.” When it came to native woodland that certainly used to be the case, as anyone will know who has read Richard…
Following my last post on deer density (see here), which was prompted by the 200+ deer I had seen on the Quoich flats on 3rd May and which took a theoretical look at what 10, 8 or 6 deer per square km means for the natural environment, this post relates those arguments to what is…
One evening three weeks ago I went up Ladylea Hill at the northern end of the Candacraig Estate. While the predominant land use in most of the upper catchment of the River Don is intensive grouse moor management, much of Candacraig has been used for commercial forestry for some time and the main “sporting use”…
The 1996 Deer Act created a new duty for NatureScot, the body responsible for the control of deer in Scotland, to take account of “the size and density of the deer population”. The Report of the Scottish Government’s Deer Working Group, published in 2020 (see here), recommended that NatureScot “should adopt 10 red deer per…
On 18th December a planning application (see here) was submitted to Highland Council on behalf of Akre Ltd for retrospective planning permission for works they had undertaken relating to the Far Ralia hill road, confirmation that the law had been flouted as I claimed last June (see here). The application form suggests the works started…
Following my post on deer fencing and capercaillie on Speyside (see here), a friend and sometime contributor to Parkswatch, Nick Halls, brought to my attention to the latest issue of the Geographer, the magazine of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. It is all about trees. In it there is an interview with Thomas MacDonell who…
Soon after suggesting that sporting estates managed for grouse pose the greater threat to access rights because of their concerted attempts to make people “keep to the path” (see here), I came across this salutary reminder that some deer stalking estates are still ignoring the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC). One of the primary meanings…
On Friday the following comment was submitted to my post on Access Rights and Grouse Moors (see here) “Without mammalian (mustelid and rodent) control there would be no ground nesting birds of any kind, grouse or otherwise.” Comment: This is plainly wrong. Ground nesting birds evolved along with mustelids and rodents long before any predator…