Representing ecology and Highland tradition

Abstract

Summary Conservationists'proposals for the regeneration of Caledonian forest and the reduction of red deer populations in Scotland has aroused considerable debate. In this context, this paper examines ecological discourses and representations of nature, landscape and society as presenting alternatives to hegemonic place myths and traditions of the Highland estates. In the Scottish Highlands there is conflict over the competing claims of nature conservationists and the hunting estates. The conflict concerns two issues: regener ating the Caledonian forest, and reducing red deer numbers, these being seen by conservationists as the main danger to forest regeneration. Among those who have advocated these objectives are Scottish Natural Heritage (the state nature conser vation organisation), Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link (Wightman 1992), and the Government appointed Working Party into the future management of the Cairngorms. Moreover, the Forestry Commission has set up an advisory panel on Native Woodlands in the Highlands. It gives Native Pinewood planting grants and also aims to create fifteen ' Caledonian Forest Reserves'. Even the Prince of Wales was brought in to unveil the RSPB's campaign for restoration entitled Time for Pine. Apart from the overarching concern over Scottish nationhood and political self determination, the debate is also concurrent, and arguably linked to, other widely contested issues largely or partly concerned with the land. These include debates over the economic and cultural effects of English ' settlers ' and the rise of such organisations as Scottish Watch and Settler Watch. The right to roam and the law of trespass (or lack of one) in Scotland is also a topic which is hardly ever out of the news nowadays. A third debate concerns the attempts of local crofting communities to buy their land from their lairds (with publicly acclaimed success at Assynt) (McIntosh, Wightman and Morgan 1994). Additionally, the Scottish media has reported and given voice to the large public concern over the ongoing sales of sporting estates, such as Mar Lodge and Glenfeshie. Scotland seemed held in suspense waiting to see if the efforts of conservation organisations to outbid private buyers and secure these large areas of land for conservation, and (ostensibly) the Scottish nation, would be successful1. The argument of conservationists is that red deer graze and kill regenerating trees, can overgraze open-hill habitats and also can cause soil erosion. Many argue that there are too many deer for the carrying capacity of the Highlands and that deer numbers might crash heavily2. A widely proposed solution would cut deer numbers beyond the current annual cull of about fifteen percent, some advocating a reduction to half the present population of 300,000, thus allowing the whole system to flourish3. This state of balance is argued to be in the national interest as the current situation is unsustainable. Conversely, estate owners and managers dispute forest restoration as a primary objective. They claim that their management is best for the land, economy and

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 13 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.