THE problem of wild camping in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, ultimately derives from the model delivered by the Labour Party.

It was a model that was based on the failed English model. What was needed, bearing in mind the size and biogeography of our two national parks, was a model more akin to the Fennoscandian, European and North American systems.

In a sense and in this context, Scottish national parks are something of an oxymoron, being, surprisingly to a great many people, not actually owned by the nation, but by a varied grouping of quangos, non-governmental organisations and sectional private interests.

One would have thought that the Scottish National Party, with their origins in radical land reform, their continued lip service to it and their frequent analogies with Fennoscandia, might have perceived the Pythonesque "bleedin obvious" and argued for a Scottish National Park owned by the Scottish nation, rather meekly accept the failed Labour package. There is no better time than an election campaign for an explanation.

Ron Greer,

Armoury House, Blair Atholl.