Scenic Heritage

For any conservationists glowing with pride at the success of Scotland’s National Parks, a few well-placed words from one respected activist was enough to bring them back down to earth.
While the John Muir Conference in Perth, marking the centenary of ‘the Father of National Parks’, had seen praise heaped on the two parks in Scotland, it was for conservationist and activist George Monbiot to burst the bubble and bring people back down to earth.
He said these treasured areas of landscape across the UK and including those in Scotland were often indistinguishable from other areas with little or no protection; and he railed against the “sheep-wrecked deserts” – with “no sodding trees”.
While a National Park plays many roles, from tourist trap to a safe haven for wildlife, his intervention sought to remind those guardians of the countryside that the environment should come first.
While National Parks are now well entrenched in the public consciousness, the future is far from set in stone.
Considering its association with John Muir, born in Dunbar but moving to the USA, and now forever associated with the preservation of areas such as the Yosemite National Park, Scotland has had to wait a long time for its own.
England’s first was established in the 1950s but it was not until a new century and devolution that Loch Lomond and Trossachs and Cairngorms were given special status.
Since then, the two parks have attracted attention for the way they have combined the need to protect the wildlife and plantlife within their boundaries with the economic development aims to ensure the communities and businesses within the parks’ areas can thrive.
It was the reason that the conference included participants not just from among conservationists in Scotland, but from representatives of parks elsewhere, like the Lake District in England, keen to see what Scotland was doing right.
Grant Moir, chief executive of Cairngorms, who previously worked at Loch Lomond and Trossachs, said: “One of the interesting things for me is the amount of visits we get from Scandinavia and other places, to see how we’re doing and how they can learn from the Scottish experience.”
The establishment of a National Park – and Cairngorms is the largest in the UK – has seen investment in infrastructure such as path networks, better visitor facilities and ranger services and a drive for tourism as well as a brand that businesses have been quick to get behind.
Moir said across the two parks, there have been many conservation projects including the Spey Catchment Initiative, which has seen restoration of wetlands and control of non-native species along the river Spey, and protection of Black Grouse.
He added: “A National Park umbrella gives a lot of impetus to things and a geographical focus as well.
“It gives you a real drive and determination to make things better in that place.”
When the Scottish National Parks legislation was passed, economic development was included alongside conservation and accessibility to the public. 
This has meant a fine balancing act. An example of this was a bylaw banning camping along the east side of Loch Lomond as well as a ban on drinking – after a persistent problem with weekend campers leaving trails of litter and devastation, with discarded tents and that then requiring a massive clear-up operation. 
Monbiot, who advocates the process of rewilding, including reintroducing some large predators, has criticised the National Parks and the authorities that run them for not being bold enough in their conservation efforts.
However, Fiona Logan, chief executive of Loch Lomond and Trossachs, said: “We need conservationists like George Monbiot – controversial and challenging though they are – to create the space in which bodies work. That is what NGOs do for us and we want them to do for us.”
To highlight this, Logan points out the very conference where Monbiot was given the opportunity to criticise the Scottish National Parks, was at the invite of an organising committee including the two National Park Authorities.
The Scottish Government allocates nearly £13m of its budget to the National Park Authorities, although during 2013, the year of Natural Scotland, an extra £2.8m went across both parks to enhance visitor facilities and support tourism.
The success of the two parks, home to more than 24,000 people and encouraging more than 5 million visitors every year, reignites the question, why should things stop at two?
Although not on the agenda in Perth, the campaign to designate more parks was still in evidence. Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse in his keynote speech praised what the two parks had achieved but said there was no funding for further parks and copies of ‘Unfinished Business’, a joint report from the Scottish Campaign for National Parks and the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS) were being distributed – and backed by people including Monbiot.
They have proposed the creation of seven new parks, including: a coastal and marine National Park around Ben Nevis, Glen Coe and Black Mount; Mull, Coll and Tiree; the northern flanks of the Cheviot Hills; Galloway; Glen Affric; Harris and Wester Ross.
Harris, for example, proposes a plan for a self-contained park, which has gained public support, but without backing from the controlling council that could lend more weight to its case. 
Report author John Mayhew, director of APRS, said: “At no point has the Government specifically decided that the correct number is two. It just has avoided making that decision. It passed the National Parks Act in 2000, it set up one in 02 and one in 03 and then it’s just not done anything more at that point.
“In 2009 they held a National Parks Review – a review of the performance and management of the existing National Parks. Phase two was supposed to be looking at the future of the two existing ones and whether there should be any more.
“That phase was simply dropped.”
And even with the success of the two parks, he said it does not automatically follow that more will be created.
“I don’t think it’s inevitable and I think those of us who believe in it are going to have to argue the case for it.
“We need to carry on making that case loud and clear because for whatever reason the Government does seem reluctant.”
Campaigners have been told that setting up new parks would cost a considerable amount of money and so far, a strong enough business case has not been made.
But Mayhew adds: The fact that you only declare a National Park if there’s a business case for it I don’t follow.”
Scotland’s National Parks cover 7.2 per cent of its land area, compared to 9.3 per cent in England from its 10 parks and nearly 20 per cent of Wales covered by just three.
While there are subsidiary levels of protection afforded to areas not contained in National Parks, Mayhew said there were areas that needed more – a National Park being much more resistant to political changes such as funding cuts that other areas might see.
The next step for the campaign is to convince the politicians to take up the cause. While Mayhew said the SNP had not so far followed up its manifesto pledge from 2011 to explore more parks, he said he hoped parties would be including it in manifestos for the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2016.
Former Green MSP Robin Harper, who helped form the original National Parks legislation in Scotland, said the parks had been particularly successful at balancing the increasing number of visitors that have come into them.
“National Parks are not wilderness areas,” he said. “They are areas for people to visit. 
“I am content that every effort should be made on the social side of things to make them available to people while at the same time causing as little damage to the environment as possible.”
He says though that the original Act saw a “fudge” on one of the principal motivating factors behind the parks.
The 1974 review by Lord Sandford established the principle that in a conflict between economic and environmental concerns, the environmental would win out.
Although he was assured at the time by then Environment Minister Sarah Boyack that this was embodied in the Act, he wanted it to be featured more explicitly. 
But as for Monbiot’s concerns that he finds it difficult to see where the non-protected areas end and the parks begin, Harper says this is not necessarily a bad thing.
“The National Park’s influence should spread into the surrounding countryside.
“If we are managing National Parks the boundaries between them and farmland and wildland round about has to be blurred.”
However, he adds: “We should be putting money through modulation to farmers surrounding National Parks which will allow them to manage their land in more sustainable ways.
“That’s only going to come if the Government is prepared to work with farmers and subsidise farmers.
“Farmers, I think, are generally happy to work up their environmental behaviour performance as long as they are not going to lose commercially by doing it.”
As to what the next step for the country’s National Parks is, Harper believes the timing is perfect to help aid efforts to protect the sea life of Scotland’s coast.
“I am rather proud I got some words into the Bill. The one bit of wording I can claim responsibility for – along with the Marine Conservation Society, is one sentence saying the terms of the Act will apply to any marine national park people might set up in the future.
“I think the next park should be a marine one.”