Re-wilding

[silvergirl]

It does mean that any relocation of people from a proposed wilderness area would have to be done very sensitively.

Whoa!!!
Removing people from a wild area?
Has that got to be a stipulation that no-one lives there.
I know the US definition of wilderness is a certain distance from roads etc, but we really do have less space.
Sure infrastructure issues mean that you may want to remove transport links etc. but are humans now so removed from nature that we cannot even live in it?

OK, maybe that sounds harsh

And I have visited many, 'wild' lands and been slightly dissapointed by how many signs off human habitation I found; but one of the main reasons that Scotland in particular has so little of it original ecosystems left is because people were not allowed to have an intimate connection with 'their' land. A single landowner with lots of land can have a much larger effect on a region and its landscape than many people with a little land each under their stewardship.
This can been seen in a positive or negative light, but then it starts to come down to value judgements about what society, cultures and individauls value more.


I would love to have more wild land everywhere.
I am lucky enough to be able to walk out my back door and walk over 50 km before I hit a road, that ofcourse doesn't mean there aren't tracks and roads that get close to this route. Generally the landscape will be very similar the whole way, heather, millinia and the odd plantaition of trees, I will only cross the boundaries of 4 (possibly 5) landowners on the way and there will be no significant difference in any of the properties.
I will see red deer (lots of them), a few sheep, perhaps grouse and if I'm very lucky a golden eagle that has been hanging around a bit. I will see some native trees but only in the high crags that are inaccessible.

The area I pass through, had I made the journey even 200 years ago, would have held dozens of farm touns, small communities and pockets of mixed woodlands that held many birds, mammals and provided a source of extra income for people and no doubt a place for kids to play.

It wasn't perfect, there were still few 'natural' habitats but, people and land should be able to work together not apart?

Having said all that I know exactly where you are coming from.

Re-wilding would be good, I'd just like to be part of it

 

[CheeseMonster]

There are some wild places in England still Doc. Friday and Saturday evenings in West Street, Brighton are reminiscent of the "Little Bighorn". :swordfigh

On a more serious note with regard to the re-introduction of 'wild' animals. I recall when wild boar were first coming to public attention in areas near where I live ( I believe they were initially escapees from commercial farms) there was uproar. That seems to have largely subsided now, so hopefully with any future plans for animals destined for more remote areas the programme, once underway would become generally accepted, barring of course the odd occasion when some dozy tourist got munched by a peckish Timber Wolf.

They are introducing (or trying out) new measures to control them via an injection which makes them infertile so I don't think they are going to allow that for much longer (well 1 boar lifetime, however long that is)

On topic: I'd love to see a totally wild place in Britain but:
1. Space. To have a big enough place wild on such a small island - money will always get in the way.
2. If there is one place that is totally wild and away from it.. you just know everyone will want to go there. Yes, with no road you will just get a lot of people on the edges but to make the middle of the area unaccessable we are talking a massive area. And that brings back to part 1. Me, I'm going to save and go to Canada. If I happen to stay there.. Bonus

 

[gregorach]

Alladale appartently has a fully fenced in 500 acres

There's the problem I have with Paul Lister's project - it's not really re-wilding (IMHO), it's just a safari park with delusions of grandeur. I caught one episode of the TV show about it, where he went to meet people doing proper re-wilding in South America. They'd done umpteen thousand square miles, and when he said "we've fenced off 500 acres"... Well, they didn't say anything, but the looks on their faces said enough. I simply don't believe that 500 acres is anything like enough to form a complete, stable ecosystem. Even his full-scale plan for 56,000 acres probably isn't big enough.

I have to admit, my cynical side isn't convinced by his professed motivations. I suspect that he's really trying to set up a large commercial estate that simply wouldn't be allowed if he didn't cloak it in this "re-wilding" talk. I hope I'm wrong...

I'm not opposed to re-wilding in principle, but the practicalities of it are very difficult on such a small, overcrowded island as ours. And then there's the question of what exactly you mean by "wild"... There hasn't been a truly wild landscape in Scotland for the last 3000 years or so, and just to get back to the ecosystems we had 500 years ago would probably take a couple of thousand years - mature oak forest doesn't spring up overnight.

 

[Doc]

All good points.

Is it worth going to all the trouble of re-wilding? After all, what is wilderness 'for'?

The question itself is anthropocentric. We tend to regard man as the chief user and beneficiary of the land, rather than as just another member of the ecosystem.

In the US they see things differently. Wilderness areas are defined as 'where man himself is a visitor and does not remain' and currently there are arguments about whether to allow mountain bikes in wilderness areas. Even backpacking is controlled with permit systems. There is even talk of having 'no rescue' zones where hikers getting in to trouble would have to self-rescue or die.

I don't think it's necessary to go to these extremes but I can see real benefit in large scale ecological restoration. For one thing it would give us knowledge on how to restore damaged ecosystems - and that's certainly knowledge we need. I believe wilderness is good for people - folks visiting wild country often describe strong feelings of peace, harmony, contentment, awe and connectedness and the wilder the land the stronger this experience.

If we still had some pristine wilderness, with the odd wolf etc, left in Scotland, there would be no argument - it would be protected and preserved without question. But because we lost it so long ago, recovering wilderness is very controversial.

I'm not sure I understand the logic. In medicine we do everything we can to prevent tissue damage - for example we treat unstable angina aggressively to prevent the death of part of the heart muscle. But if that happens, we don't just give up - we shift our attention to limiting and then repairing the damage as best we can, with just as much passion and energy as we did in trying to prevent the damage in the first place.

 

[Husky]

What is the conflict of landuse and re-wilding in scotland?
Is all the heathland used for grazing so regenerating forests or reintroducing beaver, whos dams would flood certain areas, would exclude other landuse?

 

[Doc]

It's pretty complicated.

Most of the highlands are owned by a fairly small number of landowners ('lairds'). The laird may own an estate of tens or even hundreds of thousands of acres. Some moorland is managed for grouse shooting - visiting sportsmen pay a lot of money for this. Red deer stalking is another source of income. The hinds also have to be culled but as the lack of trophy and worse weather in the hind season means this is often done by the professional stalker rather than a paying guest.

There has also been a lot of non-native sitka spruce plantations. In some of these, the value of the timber is less than the cost of harvesting.

Salmon fishing is another income stream for the estate. There are often salmon farms on coastal lochs.

Hill sheep farming is marginal and mostly dependent on subsidies.

The other main industry is of course tourism.

Recently there have been a lot of windfarms built too.

Many estates are not profitable and actually cost the laird money.

I think the main opposition to the beaver reintroductions has been from angling concerns.

 

[maddave]

sounds cool, i always wanted to have a go at beaver trapping.

(that were a joke. . . before the hate mail starts)

Ya funny sod !!

 

[Chips]

Personally, what I would do, is try and prevent "family estates" continuing. This is where the family just passes the estate down through the family. I would do this by raising inheritance tax to 100%, and remove the option to put it in trust to bypass inheritance tax.

In my experience, some of the large landowners tend to try and prevent access to the land. I've had a couple of guys be pretty rude to me when I was obeying the law.

People who earn money and buy an estate, I respect. People who get one simply because of there family, I do not.


I have a plan that later in my life, I'm going to buy a number of estates, probably an area of about 500000 acres (roughly 2000 sq km) in total, more if I can, fence the lot, with stiles every 100m, reforest most of it and introduce all kinds of native species into it. Then, I'll get it all into a big charity, and make sure it's wrapped up watertight and never going to be destroyed for logging etc. Walkers would be encouraged. For revenue, people could come and shoot the big game when populations reached sustainable levels. Fishing and hunting of small animals would be free, but operated on a permit system randomly allocated. Might have a few lodges for additional income. I anticipate this idea is going to require a massive investment, and never going to recoup the initial investment by me.

Rough figures, I estimate land is going to cost £70 million in todays standards. Fencing required will probably be about 300km, at about £100 a metre, that's another £30 million. Replanting is going to be another £200 milllion. Importing animals is going to be about £50 million approximately. So the amount of money I need to earn is not far off 1/2 a billion. A big target I know, but I am extremely ambitious.

 

[BigShot]

I really do disagree with the 100% inheritance tax idea.
Granted, I don't like the fact that a handful of people "own" about a quarter of Scotland, but kicking an entire family out of their home just because the title owner dies is utterly wrong. You'd have, in a sinlge death, an entire family with nothing at all.

Going by your logic, it's wrong for a person to work hard to give their kids a better life than they had. Or would you put a cap on how much one can earn through hard work and graft to pass onto their children? Or can they earn as much as they like just as long as the wealth disappears with the the death of first recipients of it and all the hard work starts again with the first person's Grandkids? I'm sorry but that whole line of thinking is flawed at best.

"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"No Billy, when you're older our home will be taken off us, demolished and turned into a forest that won't mature until you and your children have been dead for many years."
"So where will I live, Grandad?"
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have nothing and will have to rent a house in an inner city area and work your way to the top, you'll be able to buy somewhere if you're a very hard worker, but you'll never be able to live where you grew up, because that will be wilderness."
"Oh."

That out of the way - I agree with the prevention of access issue you mention. Especially when the access is legal, preventing access to open land is fundamentally wrong in my book. Cultivated land may be a different issue, but when we're talking huge meadows, woodland and so on it's a problem to me. Again, I think there should be respect for the domestic space, so noone's going to have a group of anoraks marching across their lawn and past their windows, but there's no way that domestic space should number tens of thousands of acres.

 

[Chips]

I really do disagree with the 100% inheritance tax idea.
Granted, I don't like the fact that a handful of people "own" about a quarter of Scotland, but kicking an entire family out of their home just because the title owner dies is utterly wrong. You'd have, in a sinlge death, an entire family with nothing at all.

Going by your logic, it's wrong for a person to work hard to give their kids a better life than they had. Or would you put a cap on how much one can earn through hard work and graft to pass onto their children? Or can they earn as much as they like just as long as the wealth disappears with the the death of first recipients of it and all the hard work starts again with the first person's Grandkids? I'm sorry but that whole line of thinking is flawed at best.

"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"No Billy, when you're older our home will be taken off us, demolished and turned into a forest that won't mature until you and your children have been dead for many years."
"So where will I live, Grandad?"
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have nothing and will have to rent a house in an inner city area and work your way to the top, you'll be able to buy somewhere if you're a very hard worker, but you'll never be able to live where you grew up, because that will be wilderness."
"Oh."

That out of the way - I agree with the prevention of access issue you mention. Especially when the access is legal, preventing access to open land is fundamentally wrong in my book. Cultivated land may be a different issue, but when we're talking huge meadows, woodland and so on it's a problem to me. Again, I think there should be respect for the domestic space, so noone's going to have a group of anoraks marching across their lawn and past their windows, but there's no way that domestic space should number tens of thousands of acres.

I will respond to your first part, but I fear I may be straying too close to politics for the moderators. If this is true moderators, please edit this post. My apologies if it is.

Why do you believe my idea is flawed? I don't believe your richness and success should depend on which family you are born in, I believe it should depend on your ability and how hard you work.

Why should a person just recieve their parent's home if they do nothing? Such an opinion just keeps the rich families rich and the poor families poor.

I would ideally reduce the amount passed down to zero. However, I am not sure if this is feasible in practice, so perhaps a small amount ( for example £5000) would be allowed. Failing this, I would like a large step up in inheritance tax, and for the tax rates to be gradual, not just 0% up to £255000 and 40% after that.

Someone working hard can still give their children a better life than they had. They can provide better education, a house, food, and not have to have the child working 60 hours a week in addition to school.

Your arguement about the child not being able to live where they grow up is flawed. I am not planning to compulsarily purchase land, or force them off it, even though that ironically is what many of the laird's families did in the past. I would merely offer them money for it.

"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"Perhaps, if you work hard at school and try your best you may be able to live somewhere like this"
"So where will I live, Grandad?"
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have everything that you have earned, and nothing that you did not."


I agree entirely with you in that everyone should have a reasonable private space of a garden, but not hundreds or more of acres.

 

[BigShot]

I don't even know where to start.

Where do you get the money to buy their land off them?
Are you saying you buy the land off them for your token £5000? Or do you pay them full whack for it and then tax them back down to £5000 (or your "ideal" £0 with the "ideal" 100% inheritence tax)?
This entire concept would mean "the state" own absolutely everything,

You say you're not after compulsary purchase or forced removal of the land... yet your intention is to prevent family wealth (which be all legal definitions and most personal ones INCLUDES land) passing on - that would require either forced removal or compulsary purchase.
You make a slight nod to a more amicable way of approaching it when you say you would "offer some money" for everything they've ever known - but if they turned down that offer (and let's face it - even the most ardent communists have a chronic track record for turning such offers down - see the leaders of pretty much every communist revolution ever) where would that lead? Do they get to keep the land? Or do they get kicked off? If the former, it makes a mockery of the whole ideal you describe. If the latter your comment about not clearing or compulsarily purchasing is misleading.

Your definition of a better life for kids basically extends to getting them through school and turfing them out on their ear with nothing but qualifications.

Why should a person recieve their parents home?
The exact reason they should recieve a car, a watch, an allotment, money, an heirloom gun, knife or jewel - because they own that thing and they want to pass it on.

The ONLY thing your ideal world would achieve is keeping everyone equally poor. Some spark would work his guts out for 30 years, buy a load of land, die and (presumably) the state get the lot. He can't help his kids, grandkids or anyone else with his hard gotten gains - so what's the point?
The only point there can possibly be in working that hard, is what you can provide for your family - by the time you're wealthy enough to stop and enjoy the fruits of your labour, you're getting towards the end of your life anyway - it would be entirely futile. But working like that to benefit yourself to some extent and your offspring to a greater extent is not only a sensible thing to do, but completely and utterly in line with human nature.

I find the entire thought process and logic behind your comments so fundamentally bizarre that I'm having a hard time putting it into words.


If you succeed in managing to gather up half a billion, and buying a pile of land at a fair market price just in order to re wild it and stick it in trust forever, more power to you. It's a wonderful ambition, but that isn't my objection. My objection is to your points about taking everything someone has put together off them at the moment of death and leaving their family with nothing (or a measly £5000).


"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"Perhaps, if you work hard at school and try your best you may be able to live somewhere like this"
"But Grandad, I don't want to live somewhere LIKE this - I want to live HERE."
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have everything that you have earned, and nothing that you did not. We'd like to help you, but we're not allowed. You won't be able to live where you've grown up, because by then the state will have taken it away from us and someone else will have it."

This, of course, completely ignores the fact that most youngsters who live on (say) farms, help out from an early age and have put a lot of work in there too. It's not as cut and dry as you make it seem. You'd actually be taking land off someone who's worked it - not just someone who has put their hands out and waited. Some will get it like that - but in order to stop it you have to take it off people with a legitimate claim to it too.


Maybe we should just give everyone a tennis court and have done with it. Some can club together and join their lands up and have communal housing - but if we're going to be fair - it's a tennis court each and that's the lot.

 

[WoodWhite]

Re-wilding would be great I think, but very unlikely to happen on a large scale.
If in doubt, move to Canada : )

Has anyone read rainbow six? note the gang of scientists who attempt to kill everyone with a super-virus called Shiva, so the earth can return to its natural state... to deal with the lack of wilderness you must first deal with over-population, Without killing everyone!!!

Another problem is that you couldn't just buy up fields and plant trees on them, there are laws against the conversion of agricultural land which is why there might be a problem with where I want to build my log hut

 

[Chips]

I don't even know where to start.

Where do you get the money to buy their land off them?
Are you saying you buy the land off them for your token £5000? Or do you pay them full whack for it and then tax them back down to £5000 (or your "ideal" £0 with the "ideal" 100% inheritence tax)?
This entire concept would mean "the state" own absolutely everything,

You say you're not after compulsary purchase or forced removal of the land... yet your intention is to prevent family wealth (which be all legal definitions and most personal ones INCLUDES land) passing on - that would require either forced removal or compulsary purchase.
You make a slight nod to a more amicable way of approaching it when you say you would "offer some money" for everything they've ever known - but if they turned down that offer (and let's face it - even the most ardent communists have a chronic track record for turning such offers down - see the leaders of pretty much every communist revolution ever) where would that lead? Do they get to keep the land? Or do they get kicked off? If the former, it makes a mockery of the whole ideal you describe. If the latter your comment about not clearing or compulsarily purchasing is misleading.

Your definition of a better life for kids basically extends to getting them through school and turfing them out on their ear with nothing but qualifications.

Why should a person recieve their parents home?
The exact reason they should recieve a car, a watch, an allotment, money, an heirloom gun, knife or jewel - because they own that thing and they want to pass it on.

The ONLY thing your ideal world would achieve is keeping everyone equally poor. Some spark would work his guts out for 30 years, buy a load of land, die and (presumably) the state get the lot. He can't help his kids, grandkids or anyone else with his hard gotten gains - so what's the point?
The only point there can possibly be in working that hard, is what you can provide for your family - by the time you're wealthy enough to stop and enjoy the fruits of your labour, you're getting towards the end of your life anyway - it would be entirely futile. But working like that to benefit yourself to some extent and your offspring to a greater extent is not only a sensible thing to do, but completely and utterly in line with human nature.

I find the entire thought process and logic behind your comments so fundamentally bizarre that I'm having a hard time putting it into words.


If you succeed in managing to gather up half a billion, and buying a pile of land at a fair market price just in order to re wild it and stick it in trust forever, more power to you. It's a wonderful ambition, but that isn't my objection. My objection is to your points about taking everything someone has put together off them at the moment of death and leaving their family with nothing (or a measly £5000).


"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"Perhaps, if you work hard at school and try your best you may be able to live somewhere like this"
"But Grandad, I don't want to live somewhere LIKE this - I want to live HERE."
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have everything that you have earned, and nothing that you did not. We'd like to help you, but we're not allowed. You won't be able to live where you've grown up, because by then the state will have taken it away from us and someone else will have it."

This, of course, completely ignores the fact that most youngsters who live on (say) farms, help out from an early age and have put a lot of work in there too. It's not as cut and dry as you make it seem. You'd actually be taking land off someone who's worked it - not just someone who has put their hands out and waited. Some will get it like that - but in order to stop it you have to take it off people with a legitimate claim to it too.


Maybe we should just give everyone a tennis court and have done with it. Some can club together and join their lands up and have communal housing - but if we're going to be fair - it's a tennis court each and that's the lot.

OK, we have some misunderstandings. I believe this stems from you thinking that my views on inheritance tax were connected to my plans to build a large wilderness area out of my own pocket. I did not intend for you to think this, my apologies if you have misunderstood.


Which "you" are you refering to? Me, or the government?

What I intended to say: I will buy a few estates later in life and create wilderness there. I will not evict families from it. I will offer them good money to sell. I will look for estates up for sale as well.

Then, completely seperately:

I believe that inheritance tax should be raised to 100%, maybe with a £5000 tax free allowance.

I would suggest that when someone dies, their assets would be auctioned off. If a younger family member wished to buy the person who had died's house, it could be bought at auction. Auctioning is used only as an example, any other method could be used. It could not just be sold to another family member at a knockdown price. The profits from the sale would go to the government funds. No money would go to the decease's family, unless there was a £5000 tax free allowance.

The state would not own every property this way. All properties would remain the same as now, they just would be sold to someone else on death of the owner rather than automatically passed down. If a family member is still living in the decease's house, then they would be removed, after the house was sold, unless that family member bought the house. Obviously, in circumstances with children having their parents assisinated, the children would not just be chucked on the streets.

When I said I would not force compulsary purchases of land, I thought you were refering to my idea of building a large wilderness, not after death inheritance tax. We're talking about two different things at the same time, which is leading to confusion. From now on, I will be talking about inheritance tax and not my plans for a wilderness reserve, unless I mention otherwise.

I suppose you could say, the land is compulsarily purchased from the deceased by the government and then immediately auctioned.


I was trying to illustrate how you can give your children advantages with money other than just handing down the family house, for example with good food, good education, not having to work all the time when studying etc.


I think we have another misunderstanding. I am not a communist. I believe that every child should be given as equal a start to life as possible. If a child from a poor family works harder, tries better, I believe they should be more successful financially than the one who is lazy, and doesn't try, but is born into a rich family. But I have nothing against the accumulation of wealth provided you earn it yourself.

"Grandad, I love this place, will I be able to live here when I'm older?"
"Perhaps, if you work hard at school and try your best you may be able to live somewhere like this"
"But Grandad, I don't want to live somewhere LIKE this - I want to live HERE."
"Well, when you're a big man, and your mum and dad have died, you'll have everything that you have earned, and nothing that you did not. We'd like to help you, but we're not allowed. You may be able to buy the house you grew up in if you work hard."


I helped out in the house I grew up in, I worked every day doing things, but I did not expect this to mean I owned some of the house, I did the jobs because I was getting free food and accomodation and it was the least I could.

In your example, with a farm, a guy working on the farm could expect some kind of wage. If he worked hard, he could save enough money to buy it off his parents when they die.


And as a last point, I am not a communist! I am not proposing we all live on equal patches of land.


Bigshot, I quite enjoy talking with you, you strike me as one of the more intellegent BCUK members in that you argue, but you don't insult.

 

[Chips]

laws against the conversion of agricultural land

The typical land an estate up here owns is not agricultural. All there is typically is heather, berries, mushrooms, bog plants, heather, heather, and some small birch trees.

 

[Mr Adoby]

Chips.

I think there are a few minor wrinkles on your plan. Sympathic idea otherwise, but perhaps not quite ready for the harsh reality...

Suppose that you get the 100% inheritence tax. And the ban to use trust funds or other legal constructs to pass stuff on to the next generation. And further suppose you buy a lot of estates later in your life and starts to rewild them.

Since you are unable to pass your property on, especially(?) as direct land ownership but also indirectly via a trust fund and similar schemes, then all your land will go to the government when you die. Remember that 100% inheretence tax? If you or the government decides to sell it, then it should be on the open market to ensure a fair price.

So all those newly planted trees and sappling may very well be bulldozed away to make room for housing projects, supermalls and strip mining. How old are you? And just when in your life did you intend to start rewilding in a large scale?

If you find some way to prevent this 100% inheritence tax, and ensure that future generations inherit and safeguard your achivement in rewilding, what is there to stop others to use the same methods for their own purposes?

You'd need some very specific laws that only allows inheritence when it is in the purpose of rewilding? Or how else do you mean to make this possible? Should just you have some smart way of passing your inheritance and impose your will on to the coming generations, without taxing 100% as the rest of the people would have to? And even without these taxes, how do you intend to make sure that the land remains wild?

To create a private company to manage the rewilding project is just another weaker form of trust fond. As the owner(s) die the ownership goes to 100% inheritence taxes, remember?

The way to go should be to make it worth something to allow public access. For instance landowners who restrict public access should be exempt from all goverment and EU subsidies and projects. And those that allow or even encourage public access could get paid for it and perhaps recieve tax benefits. Perhaps you could even pay landowners enough to make them want to rewild on their own?

A.

 

[Mr Adoby]

Another question:

Could rewilded land really be freely used for recreational purposes? Or should there be some restrictions to enter to prevent hordes of people from disturbing the few animals and cause severe erosion and littering along popular footpaths?

Perhaps a managed park-landscape that looks a little wild would be better for recreational purposes? With toilets, fireplaces, firewood and materials for bushcraft purposes to be bought in stores.

How much land does the average bushcrafter need to have access to, in order to be able to use it as he/she wish without doing excessive damage?

A.

 

[Doc]

I don't really think the idea about inheritance is hugely relevant to the re-wilding debate. It's true that some estates have been in the same family for centuries, and are therefore unlikely to come up for sale. But other estates often do come up for sale (you seem them advertised in 'The Field') and there is no reason why they could not be purchased by the state. After all, the state has already bought rather a lot of banks and banking shares. A large enough area of land would cost a tiny fraction of that expenditure.

It's also worth remembering that the concept of 'owning' land, in the same way you own an axe or knife simply did not exist in many cultures, for example the Inuit. Todays attitude to land depends much on your culture and history - look at the difference between Scottish and English access laws.

Although there have been access is issues in the past, an awful lot of estate owners have been pretty good stewards of the land they own. As I said, they often lose money. Grouse moorland is a rare habitat and whatever your views on shooting, it has been a good thing for the grouse.

I think public access is essential - my idea had been that with no motorised access, the 'long walk in' would be sufficient to reduce numbers. Now I am not so sure. This year I went to Knoydart, by canoe and on foot, and I saw a great many people there, even in areas where everybody had walked or paddled more than 10 miles to be there. And of course, the Caledonian Forest Wilderness Reserve (TM) would draw visitors from all over Europe. It's just possible a system of free permits would be needed.

 

[silvergirl]

It's true that some estates have been in the same family for centuries, and are therefore unlikely to come up for sale. But other estates often do come up for sale (you seem them advertised in 'The Field') and there is no reason why they could not be purchased by the state.

Quotes from Land & Power, by Andy Whightman (hes a well known land reform advocate)

p.37. At least 1/5th of all private land in Scotland is now held in private trusts. These protect the land from, amongst other things inheritance tax.

p.75. Most private land in Scotland has never been exposed for sale in over 100yrs.

p.90. There appears to be a broad consensus that the extremely concentrated pattern of land ownership in Scotland is not in the public interest.

p.97. 30% of farms are tenanted under agricultural leases. The rest of Europe abolished tenanted farming centuries ago.

Most people who live in the country are landless. They may well have lived there for many, many generations, but they are tennants able to be sent away on the whim of the current owner of the land. Increasingly land owners are offshore holding companies, and how do you build up a relationship with them? Two estates round here have been sold recently at prices so ridiculous that no locals could afford to even consider buying their own homes.


The state does own quite a lot of land, either directly often as Nature Reserves or as MOD land often the best for wild life because apart from occasional bombardments it is left pretty wild.

However the government agencies who run these lands are often controlled by Lairds (and farmers) who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and often think that the way the country looks now is the way it is supposed to be. You will often hear statements about our historic landscape under threat. This historic landscape is a product of 165 yrs of shooting estates. Muirburn for instance is held up as an example of encourageing young heather growth which is benificial for moorland birds. However it also removes the seed bed preventing anything else from regenerating and is only benificial for some moorland birds that are profitible to shoot.

One particular reserve that is state owned is ideal for restoring a wild landscape, in fact that was why it was made a nature reserve. But current thinking is to run it as a shooting estate (cause we don't have enough already:aargh4: ) or restore farming, plans for reforestatition seem to have been shelved. Sorry but this particular case makes me mad.

Again conservation bodies that own large tracts of land have their own agendas for how to manage it.

Although there have been access is issues in the past, an awful lot of estate owners have been pretty good stewards of the land they own. As I said, they often lose money. Grouse moorland is a rare habitat and whatever your views on shooting, it has been a good thing for the grouse.

They are NOT rare in Scotland, they have become the dominant landscape feature that was not here before. They are rare accross europe and because they are listed as an natura habitat, policy makers have decided that they take precededence over native woodland regeneration because this encroaces on moorland. This is called succession, dynamic habitats do it all the time. They don't in Scotland because we don't let them.

Grouse bags are generally declining and have been for many years, because of the lack of dynamisim in habitats, disease and invertabrate pests are building up and causing problems to the few animals that do live in these areas. An average moor will have up to 20 plant species, an average woodland will have 200.


I don't know what the answer is. I wish I did. But the current system is not benificial for the ecosystem or people. I think Wilderness is important for people.

I know that a propossed scheme in North America was to have wild lands that people were only visitors too, but I'm not sure what the propossed visiting times (regulations were).

Do we really want a world that humans are only allowed to visit nature on days off. Corralled in cities till we get the chance to go look at someting untouched.

We are animals, what ever way you look at it. We are part of nature, even though our history shows that we are not very good for the rest of it. It is a change in the way we veiw our place in the world we need. Not to look at it but to interact with it in a possitive way and put right some of the damage we have cause in the past.

 

[Husky]

I see the problem with the land being privately owned but I am absolutely positive that there is a lot of money to be had from the EU for these kind of actions. I see it a lot in my work. If the government would also chip in, don't you belive it is likely to be able to persuade some of the lairds to make a profit as well as common good?

 

[Doc]

I did say it was complicated.

Ideally I'd like to see land for wilderness being purchased voluntarily rather than compulsorily. I believe it could be achieved without resorting to compulsory purchase. Having said that, if it is right to use compulsory purchase to build airport runways, I don't see why it shouldn't be used to build forests.

It's true much of the highlands has been managed for shooting, since Victorian times, anyway.. In lowland environments shooting improves biodiversity. I'm not sure this claim can be made in the highlands. In the highlands I guess land is often managed for shooting out of necessity, in that nothing else will generate the same income in what is a loss-making proposition anyway.

Red grouse are suffering from parasitic problems. There is also the question of raptors and grouse numbers, and it's interesting to see gamekeepers and the RSPB discuss this one. Usually gets pretty heated. There are trials on diversionary feeding of raptors underway. One experienced keeper I know feels raptors are often blamed for grouse losses caused by ground predators. He might have a point as you see plenty of harriers and plenty of grouse on his patch.

I guess what I'm wanting to see is an area where there won't be arguments about management, because there won't be any management - the idea is a wilderness ecosystem which works and is stable without human intervention.

People in cities of course need green spaces - I have a particular love for the Peak district as it is a breathing space for several big cities. For most people a highland wilderness area would be somewhere they see only on holidays or weekends, but I guess that is inevitable with the distance. In any case, I think we benefit from having wilderness in say, Alaska, even though it is far away and we might never see it. We still know there are wild places on the map.