GORDON DAVIDSON

SHOOTING and angling help to create youth opportunities and keep families living in Scottish glens which would otherwise run the risk of depopulation and falling school rolls, it was claimed this week.

Scottish Gamekeepers Association Chairman Alex Hogg hailed the fieldsports industry – which is worth over £300million annually – as ‘indispensable’ to the nation’s remote economies and employment figures. Mr Hogg, himself a gamekeeper for over 40 years, was speaking to around 150 land managers at the organisation’s 18th AGM in Inverness, where he also stressed that Scotland’s much-lauded environment would suffer if the industry was "made unviable".

Hanging over the whole event was the threatened end to the exemption on business rates that has been enjoyed by shootings and deer forests since 1994, and which remains a central plank of the Scottish Government's land reform bill, having survived all attempts by the game industry to have the clause removed.

Thus the SGA chairman was keen to cite examples of where grouse and deer shooting was helping to keep skilled employment in fragile areas without help from tax payers.

“One thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the amount of investment, conservation and employment which is being created from fields sports and fishing,” said Mr Hogg. “This cannot be understated, particularly when we have problems in oil, challenges in farming and job losses and dropping margins in aquaculture.

“That is why we are continuing with our Year of the Rural Worker programme, which we introduced last year. Not only is our work providing economic benefits, it is keeping the landscape and rivers in such a way that brings people to Scotland. It keep jobs in our hills, glens and straths. Each year, new children and families are being brought up in these places and skilled opportunities are keeping those families there.

“Last year, in five scattered Glens in Angus, one grouse season saw £1million going directly to households in wages," he claimed. "It created 57 full-time jobs, seasonal work for 512 beaters, 30 full-time employees were under the age of 25 and seven students were given opportunities over the year.

"At the same time over 900 businesses benefitted from trade directly with estates, to the tune of £4.7 million. That was in only six of 20 estates surveyed in one region. What other type of business at 1000ft, and above, could generate that for Scotland?”

Other speakers at the event included MSP Fergus Ewing, Sutherland estate owner Michael Wigan, independent woodland advisor Victor Clements, Chief Inspector Fraser Lamb of Police Scotland, ecologist Dr James Fenton, Gordon Brown’s former adviser Charlie Whelan, and scientist Josephine Pemberton, who spoke on her work researching deer on Rum.

For in-depth news and views on Scottish agriculture, see this Friday’s issue of The Scottish Farmer or visit www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk