Increasing numbers of a new version of the “Welcome to the moor” sign are now being erected across Scotland, particularly in the Cairngorms National Park, but so far have received, as far as I am aware, little critical comment. When is a welcome not a welcome? I have no problem with people being welcomed to…
Tag: landed estates
Just when it appeared that the Cairngorms National Park Authority was starting to get a grip on the proliferation of hill tracks which has blighted the Cairngorms landscape, they have blown it. Faced with a proposal by WildLand Ltd, the company controlled by Anders Povlsen, the Danish billionaire to create almost 15 miles of new…
Last Saturday, sitting in a hut in the Snowdonia National Park, I came across a Guardian travel supplement “Adventures in Wild Britain” which featured ten places to experience Britain’s most stunning wildlife. One of the places was Glen Falloch at the head of Loch Lomond (see here). Regular readers and anyone who hillwalks there,…
If you see a digger in the hills……………report it! On Friday, I went for a run up Geal Charn and went just beyond the summit because the views then open up down Loch Ericht. There was a digger a little way to the south on what used to be a stalkers path into the Fraoch…
At the end of August, after a stravaig over the east Drumochter hills, I looped back to Dalwhinnie through the Drumochter pass, the idea being to combine enjoyment with a look at the effectiveness of the restoration of the land along the Beauly Denny. Just beyond Dalnaspidal and hidden behind the A9 shelterbelt, I came…
Large developments are, I believe, fundamentally incompatible with the whole concept of National Parks, wherever they are located across the world. National Parks are places where the natural environment should come first, not second. That’s why I, like many people, object to the An Camas Mor development in principle. We should not be building…
Like many people, I suspect, I have been waiting for months for another case of raptor persecution to occur in the Cairngorms National Park. For under the current grouse moor management regimes that dominate much of the National Park, its not a case of “if” but “when” another raptor will disappear. While its taken longer…
The Luss Gathering takes place each year on Luss playing fields which now form part of the west Loch Lomond camping management zone. Since last year the camping management byelaws have made it a criminal offence to erect a tent in a camping management zone without explicit authorisation from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…
One of the priority actions under the last Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Partnership Plan was to develop long-term Land Management Plans across the National Park, an objective that everyone with an interest in land-use and landscape should support. Interested to understand what progress had been made, I asked the LLTNPA for copies of…
This post looks at the Conservation and Land Management section of the draft Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) which is out for consultation until 3rd July (see here). It argues that the Outcomes (above) in the draft NPPP are devoid of meaningful content, considers some the reasons for this and outlines…
On the longest day, the Cairngorms National Park Authority initiated enforcement action against the Cluny Estate for the unlawful track up Carn Leth Choin at the head of Glen Banchor (see here). This is extremely welcome. In March the CNPA had written to me stating that they had been in discussions with the…
On 27th April, the same day the above article appeared in the Strathie about felling at Curr Wood, on Speyside, SNH’s latest post on Scotland’s Nature popped into my inbox https://scotlandsnature.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/time-to-celebrate-bugs-in-the-cairngorms-national-park/. And guess what bug featured? One so rare that …………….it only occurs at a single location in the National Park, Curr Wood………….shome mistake surely!…
On Wednesday evening I went to have another look at the northern section of the access track which had been created for the construction of the Beauly Denny powerline and which was due to be restored last year (see here). Its situated on the east side of the A9 behind the tree shelter belt and…
The Cairngorms National Park Authority Board is meeting on Friday to discuss and approve its new Partnership Plan, the overarching Plan which guides what it will do over the next five years (see here for the 60 page plan and supporting documents). The LLTNPA’s announcement about this can be read (here). Its positive the Board…
The sale of the Tulchan Estate, which straddles the northern boundary of the Cairngorms National Park, was announced last week (see here). The estate, or rather Tulchan Sporting Estates Ltd which Leon Litchfield, the previous owner, set up as the vehicle to own it soon after he purchased the estate in 1993, was bought by…
Following my post questioning what the Cairngorms National Park Authority was doing about the unlawful hill track leading onto Carn Leth Choin in upper Glen Banchor, west of Newtonmore (see here), I wrote to the Cairngorms National Park Authority. On 8th March (I have been in Norway in-between) I received this response from Murray Ferguson:…
The LLTNPA is discouraging camping at designated sites. Following the implementation of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Management Zones on 1st March and the requirement to purchase a permit for the use of designated sites or risk a criminal conviction I revisited two sites to refresh my recollection of the environmental condition…
Following my post about the failure to restore the destruction caused by the Beauly Denny by the developer, Scottish and Southern Electric, I went last Monday to have a look at the section of the “temporary” construction track on the Drumochter Estate. Under the Beauly Denny planning application determined by the Scottish Government, all…
The Cairngorms National Park announced last week it has won a planning quality award for the extension of the Speyside Way from Aviemore to Kincraig (http://cairngorms.co.uk/planning-award-for-speyside-way-extension/): “The judges praised the Park Authority for its partnership working, community consultation and sheer determination over a decade to develop the best off road route to connect Aviemore…
Following my post on “How to protect wildlife in our national parks” I have been thinking about how the Cairngorms National Park could achieve its stated objected of landscape scale conservation on the Dinnet Estate where I walked in September. I have since used it to illustrate the connection between grouse moors and rural…
I was in Aberdeen on Tuesday night giving a talk to the North East Mountain Trust on “What is the Cairngorm National Park for?”. I have been a member for years, because of the excellent work they do and their magazine Mountain Views, which I regard as an essential source of information for anyone who…
I am up in the north-west Highlands for a week, staying near Gairloch, and yesterday walked into Beinn an Eoin from Loch Bad Scalaig. The first part of the track is through a native woodland scheme planted in 1998 and then leads on to the former bothy, Poca Buidhe, almost 12k in all. …
As readers will know, there are now several organisations trying to get the Cairngorms National Parks Authority to address the problems associated with grouse moors: destruction of habitats, destruction of the landscape, destruction of wildlife and destruction of the rural population. There have been several signs in the last couple of weeks that landowners…
A week ago, on the same day that the consultation on the new Park Partnership Plan closed, the Cairngorms National Park Authority approved the Cairngorm Glenmore Strategy (see here). This had been subject to public consultation earlier this year. All the detailed visitor management proposals which were in the consultation draft have been stripped…
The planning permission granted for the four Glen Falloch hydro schemes in 2010 agreed to some permanent new (short) tracks along the bottom of the glen to the powerhouses, some widening of existing tracks but stipulated that the tracks to the intake dams required for construction purposes were to be temporary. Once work was…