QUESTIONS must be asked about Keep it Wild, the latest John Muir Trust (JMT) campaign to put the arbitrary boundaries of “wild land” into statute (“Fresh push to protect wild areas from industrial plans”, The Herald, June 13.
When Scottish NH proposed 42 core “wild land” areas in 2014 we were not told that it failed to consult local people on the final boundaries. This is at best poor public relations, as appropriate economic development is needed for fragile areas. Also it has played a part in planning appeals when onshore wind farms can be seen from core “wild land”.
As for JMT, its not-so-hidden agenda is to “protect” these 42 areas of wet desert in a devastated terrain from a suspect plea on behalf of Scottish identity and heritage. What it ignores, in its headlong drive for depopulation and maintaining the disastrous monoculture any visitor can plainly see there, is that local people can live happily with wildlife and did so before the clearances.
Today biodiversity and climate change demand long-term landscape planning, not a subjective fetish draped in a twisted misappropriation of John Muir who saved some of the Sierra. Its application in a small nation like Scotland requires repopulation and rewilding to go hand in hand.
Rob Gibson,
Tir nan Oran, 8 Culcairn Road, Evanton, Ross-shire.
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