It is difficult to overestimate the profundity and import of the comments of, the now sadly departed Dick Balharry, in terms of the ongoing iniquitous anachronism of the so-called traditional Highland estates (Leading conservationist: 'traditional sporting estates embody selfish greed of a Victorian era, News, April 19).
He hit every nail on the head and I hope the ringing tones will be heard in the deepest corridors of a reticent Holyrood. I hope, too, that these nails will be the ones in the coffin of an atavistic sub-culture that is a living insult to a purportedly modern democratic nation. Rural Scotland deserves better than the quasi-feudal Victorian-Edwardian nightmare world run for the indulgence of external sectional vested interests that it presently constitutes.
Dick Balharry's brave statement came as no surprise to those who knew him or are aware of his work over decades. This statement may become his epitaph, but he left behind a yet living monument of his life. His is a generation that paved the way for much of the modern conservation movement and I personally owe him much in the way of inspiration in my own sphere of interests.
In his pioneering journey, he was well aware of the iniquities of the system and detested them, but being the professional he was, worked to the best effect in dealing with a visionless dead-hand bureaucracy, idiosyncratic private landowning interests, bereft of ecological knowledge, and politicians who did not have the courage of their own convictions. Most importantly he reached out to those more enlightened, progressive landowners to assist them to do better things for the Highland environment.
Those of us who survive him should honour his work by continuing it, building upon it and bringing the strongest pressure to bear upon those politicians who have paid decades of lip service to land tenure reform, but stymied it or procrastinated about it for most of their political lives. Some of the worst culprits are currently in government and opposition at Holyrood. I hope their shame will be as intense as the grief many feel at the ebbed life of a man who actually did what he said he would do.
Ron Greer
Blair Atholl
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