Below, we suggest how the high recreational, educational, scientific and wildlife values of the Cairngorms might be conserved for maximum benefit to future generations. This, at the same time, would give a sound base for the local economy, and moreover one that would last in the long term and provide for the area's children and grandchildren.
The gradual deterioration of the area has been evident for some two hundred years, with a substantial acceleration in the last thirty {to 1982}. There comes a time when a decision has to be made as to whether a resource of this scale and value is to be managed for the long-term benefit of the community and the conservation of wildlife, or whether it is to be allowed to continue to decline under the impact of short-term commercial expedience. In the view of many who are long familiar with the area, that time is long overdue. An overall management plan has become essential before irreversible damage proceeds further.
It is the ideal of many mountaineers and hill-walkers that mountains should simply be left alone. To them the very idea of "managing" mountains seems abhorrent. However, this has never been a realistic option in Scotland. Whether as clan cattle grazings, or cleared of people to make way for sheep or deer, denuded of forests for wood, or used as sporting estates for deer stalking and grouse shooting, the Scottish mountains within recorded history have always been managed. The choice lies solely between good management or continued bad management. Indeed, since the main aim of good wilderness management is to leave such an area alone as far as possible, and protect it from "development", it is this option, promising minimal human intervention, that is nearest to the mountaineer's ideal. But there can be no adequate protection from development without a nationally-backed plan.
Some define "conservation" as "the careful management of a limited, valuable, or natural resource so as to ensure maximum efficiency of use and continuity of supply", or more broadly as "the total management of rural areas for the fair and equal use of all groups which have a direct interest in their use". Whichever definition one takes, conservation cannot be achieved by allowing the planning and development of an area to be continued in a fragmented way amidst constant conflict. Our present structures for local planning were not designed to solve complex conflicts where several local authorities share an area with common problems, and where no central government body has produced overall guidance. The mass public use of such a valuable and fragile tract aggravates these problems. Only a national management plan for the Cairngorms can chart a way our of these difficulties, and provide a sound basis for future action.
Although such a management plan cannot be given here, we suggest certain guiding principles.
It is now generally accepted in all continents of the world that areas of very high quality should be protected to high, internationally agreed standards. This is part of any national government's responsibility towards the safeguarding of the earth's resources. Even developing countries with far less wealth than Britain have done this, and have raised standards in recent years. By internationally agreed standards, as testified by resolution and other authoritative sources, the Cairngorms clearly rank as worthy of high protection. Equally clearly, they receive poor protection at present. However, the accepted international criteria for National Parks or reserves of equivalent standing could be met in the Cairngorms, given a stronger commitment to the conservation of this area by Britain.
In principle, this could hardly be disputed. Objection may be raised because the realisation of national priorities may be at the expense of some short-term local interest, where it involves for example the refusal of particular development proposals, but let two things be considered. Firstly, all local communities face restrictions from time to time in the national interest and benefit in turn from this principle being applied country-wide. Secondly, in the particular case of the Cairngorms, the long-term local interest and the national interest in fact coincide.
As developments of all kinds steadily destroy the world's wilderness areas, simultaneously people's appreciation of them and numbers wishing to use them are rising rapidly. Unfortunately the value of the Cairngorms as an accessible wilderness also makes them particularly vulnerable to overuse. We should therefore assess these areas not just according to their present value but their likely future value, as we would for any other asset. This entails laying down firmer protection now to meet the greater pressures of the future, as experience in North America and elsewhere has clearly shown to be necessary.
A particular long-term danger is the nibbling away of an area by successive developments. It has been said that objections to developments that use only a small percentage of an area, leaving the vast majority intact are unreasonable. Indeed, some have put this very argument in support of the proposed skiing development in the northern corries. It is faulty reasoning here. If a resource will always be needed, and cannot be substituted for, then it must be conserved in the very long term. If we allow it to be gradually encroached on, we will not have preserved it for posterity; we will merely have delayed its extinction.
This can be achieved by zoning the parts according to their prime land uses and allocating to each zone the developments or land-use practices regarded as permissible within them. Such zoning works widely and successfully in similar areas abroad, has been introduced in some National Parks in England, and in the Loch Lomond area, and has been authoritatively stated as relevant to Scottish tourism. Zoning for the Cairngorms could involve a completely protected class I core zone in the centre including the National Nature Reserve, a class II "buffer" zone of high value around it, a partly developed class III zone in places such as the Glen More woods and Loch Morlich where new buildings might be prohibited, and a class IV zone of small areas beside existing houses and hotels, open to new buildings but under tighter planning control than usual elsewhere. Both the 1974 Cairngorms survey and the international survey "Nature Conservation in Northern and Western Europe", published in 1980, stated that zoning would be particularly valuable in the Cairngorms.
To protect remote sensitive areas by zoning, long experience of wilderness management has shown that ease of access must be controlled. This is best and most cheaply done by having a buffer zone between road's end and the wilderness boundary. A major objection to the proposed skiing development in the northern corries was that it would remove them as a natural buffer zone, essential for protecting the core of the Cairngorms, by greatly increasing the ease of access.
Again, experience elsewhere has shown that, without the participation and co-operation of the recreational users and the voluntary wildlife conservation groups, no plan can be made to work.
This would damage one of the area's chief assets and attractions for the recreational users themselves. It would also lower the area's educational and scientific value, and show insufficient respect for the right of other species to share the land with us.
Here we refer to the regeneration and extension of the surviving remnants of the ancient Caledonian Forest. If the surviving remnants of the Old Caledonian Forest on private and public land are to regenerate and extend successfully, then Forestry Commission schemes and policy must be drastically revised, and the red deer population substantially reduced as the Red Deer Commission has repeatedly recommended in its Annual Report. Also patches of small windswept trees and bushes above the tree line - an interesting type of landscape common in other northern countries but wiped out here by burning and by overgrazing of deer and sheep - could be encouraged in the Cairngorms, to the benefit of wildlife, education and tourism.
Even a national management plan for the Cairngorms would not be sufficient unless this balance were maintained. Many problems in the core of the massif stem from the impact of harmful developments and land-use practices outside it. In 1981, the Countryside Commission for Scotland chose a number of areas of outstanding scenery in Scotland, and designated them as National Scenic Areas to help protect their beauty; one of them was in the Cairngorms. Certain proposed developments there, such as tall new farm buildings and bulldozed tracks on open ground above 300m altitude, will now have to be notified to planning authorities. Cases where the planning authority decides to allow a development, despite the Commission's advice to refuse it, will have to be referred to the Secretary of State.
However, these improvements are far from sufficient. New bulldozed tracks below 300m and forestry plantations are unaffected by these controls and hence can continue to damage the area. As measures they are piecemeal, negative in approach, and do not deal with the more fundamental aspects of the problem.
The Cairngorms Scenic Area excludes the villages in Speyside, and so developments there would be under no tighter planning control than in the country as a whole. Hence the Cairngorms and the outlying human communities could suffer from pressures generated by further development of Aviemore. Planning for the Cairngorms massif needs to be integrated far better with planning for the straths, so that tourist developments and land-use practices accord with what the area's quality can withstand in the long term.
Having stated the essential guiding principles, we now consider currently proposed solutions in the light of them.
In 1974 the Countryside Commission for Scotland proposed "Special Parks" for several outstanding areas of Scotland such as the Cairngorms, but these have never been designated and would not meet several of the guiding principles listed above. The majority of those running a Special Park would represent local government and other local interests, and so those appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland to represent national interests could be outvoted. The Scottish Wildlife Trust and other organisations have expressed their concern about this. The SWT support the idea of parks with more authority, but wanted a preponderance of national rather than local members in the committees running such parks. Even if local government were to favour conservation, Grampian Regional Council does admirably with the Cairngorms at present, this does not guarantee that this view will always prevail. For example, a future set of councillors might reverse the policy. Also, a review of the new local government system appears likely and may result in the abolition of the Regional Councils.
Furthermore, international experience shows decisively that areas of outstanding national value require central government control to safeguard national interests, and that local control in the log term is inadequate. Lastly , a number of strong and vocal voluntary bodies of hill walkers, other major recreational users, and conservation groups firmly reject a "Special Park" for the Cairngorms. The Lurcher's Gully Public Inquiry forced the voluntary bodies to combine and organise, and their new-found confidence and experience have made them a force to be reckoned with in future. No scheme for the Cairngorms will work unless they are properly consulted and give their backing , and any scheme that receives their support in this way will thereby have its chance of success immeasurably strengthened.
An obvious solution might seem to be a National Park, run by a board with a majority representing national interests. Unfortunately the term "National Park" means different things to different people in different countries. In England and Wales, National Parks give poor protection, perhaps no better than the inadequate protection that the Cairngorms have at present. The park boards lack the power to control inappropriate land uses and developments such as mining. By the generally accepted international criteria for national Parks and reserves of equivalent high standing, National Parks in England and Wales have such poor protection that some do not even qualify for the lowest category of park. There would therefore be no point in importing the English or Welsh models of National Parks to the Cairngorms.
Furthermore, National Parks can have the very substantial disadvantage of publicising the product so much that too many people are attracted, and this leads to unacceptable pressure and damage, especially to the wildlife. The measures that then become necessary to control this damage then restrict the freedom of those who use the area. Over-publicity, damage and restrictions need not follow from designation of a National Park, Nature Reserve, or Wildlife Reserve, but they often do, because of lack of forethought and over-zealous promotion by those in the parent organisation. As the Cairngorms are so sensitive to damage and as curbs on freedom are the very antithesis of wilderness recreation, the recreational users and wildlife enthusiasts might be worse off with some kinds of National Park than at present.
A national management plan would take time to finalise, but certain other decision that would help could be made in the meantime.
Existing planning controls have not been supervised as well as the area's high quality justifies. For instance, people erected a metal bothy in the middle of the Cairn Gorm plateau in 1967 without planning permission, and it stayed up for years. A {more} recent example was that the Cairngorm Chairlift Company enlarged its car parks considerably in 1981 without planning permission, but the planning authority did not order reinstatement.
The reserve would be better protected if the Nature Conservancy Council {SNH} could own more than 12% of it. The priorities for this should obviously be the most endangered areas - the natural pine and birch woods and nearby ground threatened by commercial afforestation on Speyside and Deeside, and the Cairn Gorm plateau damaged as a result of too easy access from road and chair lifts. In the rest of the reserve, the lack of regeneration of the old forest needs to tackled urgently by fencing off larger areas and reducing high deer stocks.
It would also help if the reserve could be enlarged in several places to include the full range of wildlife habitats in the Cairngorms, and to protect some outstanding features which lie outside the present boundary. The priority extensions should be the most valuable ground now under serious threat. An obvious case is the mountainous part of the Forest Park which was proposed for the Lurcher's Gully skiing development. A valuable part worthy of being in a reserve in its own right, this would also act as a "buffer" to the unique and more fragile ground to the south and south-west, in the core of both reserve and massif. As the main use of this part is walking, climbing and cross-country skiing, these interests would have to be fully consulted and preferably represented in the management.
We would emphasise that throughout we have not simply considered outside minority interests, or even wildlife, at the expense of the local human community. On the contrary, we hope we have shown that it is only by careful planning and protection of the three assets on which the major local industry of tourism rests - unspoiled scenery, wildlife, and variety of outdoor recreation - that the long-term prosperity of the tourist industry and local community can be assured.
At the end of this booklet, we leave things deliberately in the air. The problems and conflicts of the Cairngorms are now so great and complex that it would be presumptuous of us to give an ideal solution. Even if we had such a solution to suggest, we have already said that no scheme will work unless the voluntary bodies support it. Hence it would be pointless for us to propose any full solution here. Instant remedies by private individuals or bureaucrats, no matter how great their knowledge of the Cairngorms or their experience of such problems internationally, will have little guarantee of success, for this crucial reason. The most we have done is suggest some essential guiding principles, which have had as their inspiration the central idea that:
"We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we have borrowed it from our children"
The problem of the Cairngorms are pressing, and will not go away if ignored. Meanwhile the environmental damage and conflicts become worse, and the likelihood of major clashes in future increases. Some of the recreational users and other voluntary bodies will soon themselves be discussing these matters and trying to agree on what would meet the needs of the area. The politicians and central and local government officials who carry the grave and ultimate responsibility for decisions that will determine what the Cairngorms will be like after the year 2000 must also discuss these matters urgently.
If, after reading this booklet, you want to do something for the
Cairngorms, write to the Secretary of State for Scotland {now First
Minister}, St Andrews House, Edinburgh urging him to give the Cairngorms
proper protection.
Top
The Future of the Cairngorms was published in 1982 by the North East Mountain Trust. It describes one of Britain's foremost natural resources and last great wilderness areas, and tells of their increasing degradation through unwise land use and bad planning. We hope that the book will stir the reader to a concern over the threatened future of these grand old hills that have meant so much to so many over the years.
Please let the webmaster know if there are problems viewing these pages or with the links they contain.
SCIO Scottish Charity No SC 008783