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Camping beside a dark lochan under towering cliffs with stars sparkling
in the black sky. Sweet, juicy bilberries hanging from bushes deep
in the woods. Struggling through a blizzard on compass bearings
across a wintry plateau. The plaintive whistle of a golden plover
high on the moors. A vast skyscape stretching out to distant peaks.
A golden eagle soaring effortlessly over the cliffs.
The Cairngorms. A unique, extraordinary place. A special place.
A place deserving of care, thought and attention. A place I am passionate
about. A place due to become Scotland's second national park.
And what a park. Stretching from Blair Atholl to Grantown-on-Spey
and from Laggan to Tarfside, the proposed Cairngorms National Park
will be huge, 4,580 square kilometres. That's twice the size of
the Lake District, making it by far the largest national park in
the UK.
The core of the park will be the vast sweep of high ground running
from Drumochter Pass east to Glenshee and north east to Tomintoul,
an area uncrossed by metalled roads and containing the largest areas
over 900 and 1,000 metres in Britain.
A smaller though still large area of fine hill country lies between
Glenshee and Glenesk. In these wild lands lie some of the finest
walking and mountaineering country in Scotland, containing all the
wild high plateaus and mountains of the Cairngorms - Cairn Gorm-Ben
MacDui, Braeriach-Cairn Toul and the Moine Mhor, Glas Maol-Lochnagar,
Beinn a'Bhuird-Ben Avon, Beinn A'Ghlo, the Ring of Tarf, Mount Keen.
Fifty Munros lie inside the park with another seven on the eastern
boundary (the Monadh Liath and east of Drumochter). There are 28
Corbetts too, though some well-known ones on the fringes of the
Cairngorms - Ben Vrackie, Ben Tirran, Mount Battock - are outside
of the suggested park boundaries.
Then there are the great glens and high passes that make exciting
and adventurous through-routes - the Lairig Ghru, Lairig an Laoigh,
Glen Feshie, Glen Tilt, Jock's Road. And fringing the mountains
are magnificent forests of birch and Scots pine, including remnants
of the Great Wood of Caledon in Rothiemurchus, Glen More, Glen Lui
and Glen Feshie. Hidden in the trees are placid, beautiful pools
like Loch Garten and Loch an Eilein while deep in the mountain corries
lie wilder, more savage, cliff-rimmed lochs such as Loch Avon, Loch
Einich, Loch Etchachan, Loch nan Eun and Loch Brandy. And from the
high ground flow glorious rivers like the Spey and the Dee, the
Feshie, the Tilt, the Avon, the Gairn and more.
Mountain, corrie, moor, forest, loch, river - the spectacular world
of the Cairngorms is an elemental one of natural forces, still home
to much wildlife that has disappeared elsewhere - golden eagles,
red squirrels, capercaillie, osprey, pine marten, wildcat. Unsurprisingly
and happily much of the land is already in the hands of those who
love wild nature. One of the largest nature reserves in western
Europe is here in the RSPB's Abernethy Forest, which of course includes
the famous Loch Garten Osprey Centre, while the National Trust for
Scotland's vast Mar Lodge estate spreads west and north from Deeside
to encompass four of the five highest mountains in Scotland.
Both the RSPB and NTS are doing much to restore the landscape and
the natural environment, reducing grazing pressures so the forest
can return and removing bulldozed roads. The NTS have done a marvellous
job repairing the ugly slash of a road high on Beinn a'Bhuird. A
national park should make no difference here. However in many parts
of the Cairngorms damage is still being done and there is little
interest shown in restoring degraded land.
A national park must address this if there is to be any point to
it at all, planning for the Cairngorms as a whole. The watchwords
of the park should be protection, conservation and restoration and
there should be an end to bulldozed roads, monoblock forestry plantations
and overgrazing by deer and sheep. The purpose of a park should
be to conserve nature both for its own sake and the enjoyment of
people. Any proposed development or land management plan should
be judged on whether it damages or enhances the environment while
existing damage should be repaired. And, as befits the title "national",
access to open land, including forests and riverbanks, should be
a right.
The park should work to these ends but will it? That depends on
how it is run and who makes the decisions. The bureaucracy of the
park may be boring - and plodding through Scottish Natural Heritage's
"Report on the proposal for a National Park in the Cairngorms" not
that exciting - but the details will determine whether the park
is an effective force for conservation or just a talking shop and
a glorified tourist promotion. The latter is what those who only
see wild land in terms of short-term exploitation for a quick profit
would like. These are the people who see projects like the Cairngorm
Mountain Railway as the way to become rich and who aren't interested
in the majority of visitors to the area - the walkers, climbers,
birdwatchers - because they don't want or need big developments
that look good in a glossy prospectus and on the balance sheet of
a construction company.
Unfortunately SNH's proposals on planning powers for the park could
well result in the pro-development, anti-nature lobby holding undue
power. Ignoring the wishes of the majority of people who responded
to their public consultation SNH, following the preferences of the
Scottish Executive, have recommended that local authorities retain
planning powers for the park area. This will make any co-ordinated
planning for the Cairngorms - something the park should bring to
the area - very difficult. Can you imagine trying to get agreement
between five local councils and the park authority? Chances are
Ministers will end up running the park as they will have to sort
out any disagreements.
SNH's proposal also leaves planning powers in part with those whose
past pro-development activities suggest that they have no real understanding
of conservation nor any real belief in it. These people do not even
seem to realise that the landscape is the reason visitors come to
the Cairngorms not funicular railways, concrete block hotels or
other developments and that damaging it is not the way to encourage
them. Highland Council is a major backer of the disastrous Cairngorm
funicular. Removing this sordid eyesore should be one of the first
tasks of a national park. What chance of that if Highland Council
have planning powers?
The concept of a Cairngorm National Park is wonderful. The idea
that this magnificent wild area should be protected inside a park
is tremendous. But what will really matter is what the park does
- not the fact that it exists. Just setting up a park will attract
much attention and increase the number of visitors. That's inevitable.
How the park is promoted will determine the type and attitude of
those visitors however. Will it appeal to those seeking the mass
tourism attractions of theme parks and holiday resorts or will it
continue to appeal to walkers, mountaineers and others who love
the wild solitude and grandeur of the Cairngorms?
The next stage in the lengthy process of establishing the park
will be a draft designation order from the Executive. There will
then be the opportunity to comment on this, probably sometime early
in 2002. This will be the time to argue for the park to be a force
for conservation and not a tourist development.
Chris Townsend
28/11/2001
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