The Battle For Scotlands Wilds.
The Battle for The Wilds
Scotland, 30090 square miles in size smaller than most States in the U.S,
who would believe that this small country with its 790 islands would be such an
ecological battle ground that is so intense that conflict management is needed?
but it is and the sad fact is that the main reason for this is because no side
knows what the right thing is to do to fix what is such a global problem.
Lets get down to some questionable facts in why Scotland on its own is in
such a confusing ecological state. Firstly, Scotlands global carbon emissions
as an individual country is actually very low, where our problem lies is that
the global emissions are calculated for the UK as a whole which the UK accounts
for 1% of the global count. There is 67.97 million people in the UK, there is
approximately 5.4 million people in Scotland, 3.3 million people in Wales and
1.9 million people in Northern Ireland meaning approximately 58 million people
live in England alone. These figures alone confuse the global percentage of
global emissions because when taking the whole of the UK percentage into
account it does not represent the actual emission count for the individual
countries that make up the UK.
So in respect to these figures there is around 67 people per KM² in Scotland
, this figure gets a little bit more confusing because majority of the
population live in a relatively small area within the central belt and pocketed
areas of central Scotland, however in respect to this the population density
England is far more widespread which far stretches 1000’s per KM² to 50 per KM²
in places making Englands carbon footprint far higher than Scotlands. Why does
this matter when it comes to Scotlands ecological battles?
Having a note of the population impacts between Scotland and the rest of the
UK helps you understand the pressures that are on Scotland, as part of the UK,
when it comes to climate impact and in result maybe allows you to come to your
own conclusion why there seems to be a higher emphasis on ecological and
environmental impact policies that seem extreme coming from the Scottish
government.
Scotland lower population density and significant land mass resource is
looked upon to try offset the rest of the UK’s carbon emissions globally and
this increased pressure is what is the main cause of the environmental
conflicts that ensue between traditional land management and agriculture in
Scotland and the new phase of “Rewilding” policies that the Scottish
government has and those that want to capitalise on it. Although England and Wales
land mass is around 20 thousand square miles larger, carbon capture resources
due to less population is more viable in Scotland and it is this resource that
is deemed to be of value when offsetting the emissions of the UK.
So, to summarise the previous long winded explanation, Scotland has less
people and more viable land spare to allow for carbon capture and biodiverse
renewal than what the rest of the UK has. So how can this be capitalised upon
by the Scottish government and private rewilding programs? How does this equate
to money?
In Scotland traditional land management comprised of a few sectors,
Property Development and industry: heavily reduced sector that although has
increased due to a housing crisis but is also stumped by a decreasing Scottish
ageing population making large scale development challenging. However does not
help with carbon emission offsets.
Agriculture and crofting: This makes up majority of the land use with
approximately 70% of all land being used in some way for agriculture.
Sporting and wildlife management: often a subsidiary of farming and
agriculture with many estates running sporting alongside their agricultural
land use.
Forestry: This comprises of both private forestry that is managed as above
by landowners alongside their other land management practices and National
Forest network that is owned and managed by the government/taxpayer.
Rewilding and Nature Recovery: This is a new sector where private investment
is put into land for the collection of Biodiversity and carbon capture in the
hope of monetising into a credit scheme, this is also being heavily looked at
by the Scottish government in regard to meeting emissions target within their
environmental policies.
It is between these sectors where the conflict arises.
Property developers have often come into conflict with agriculture, this is
an old battle over land use but often able to be resolved, usually financially,
likewise Agriculture, Forestry and Sporting. These conflicts are usually local
conflicts between individuals or individual projects and often do not affect
the wider population nationally, however there is a new player in town in the
form of Nature recovery and Rewilding, this new player has changes that look
far beyond the local aspect of impact but is more radical, more national and
somewhat more global so has a far greater impact and albeit the intensions
being good in fact creates more conflict as it effects far more people at once
and is somewhat far more emotive.
The reason why Nature Recovery and Rewilding cause more conflict is because
it challenges and, in many ways, wants to change land use and the way land is
managed traditionally. This goes against the grain for many land managers and
challenges well known and proven practices that both benefit the land and the
land manager and their partnership. Progress is good you might say but many
feel that those in Nature Recovery are trying to reinvent the wheel and there
is little understanding on what the goal will be and most importantly who will
fund it and this is understandable. Land use over the last 200 years within the
UK as a whole has been studied over and over again from sustainable forestry to
sustainable agriculture, the government has portfolio after portfolio of
scientific research that governs land use in the UK the information and studies
are well documented, in fact the UK arguably has had the most extensive land
studies of any region on what can and cannot be grown here so challenging these
can cause problems. Another issue for land managers is when you look at the UK
emission figures and cross check that with the populations of each country
within the UK it is hard for Scottish land managers to see what difference
Scotland will make to the rest of the world when the estimation of its own
emissions equates to around 0.2% globally, which you kind of have to
understand.
Who pays for nature recovery is a huge question within the argument. Those
in the Nature Recovery sector are trying to form a process where they can sell
and buy carbon capture credits and biodiversity credits by the formation of
Natural Capital Banking. Now I am no financial genius, ia m probably the worst
when it comes to math and money but let me try to explain how I think this is
supposed to work.
{scenario} A land owner purchases a block of Peatland or Forestry, this
landowner then estimates the amount of dry biomass they have per tree, around
50% of this biomass is made up of carbon then the land owner counts how many
trees and then estimates how much they have stored between all the trees, you
can do this with organisms in the soil also, the landowner then looks at the
amount of ground they have for extra planting and peatland restoration and then
estimates with this how many trees they can plant, then works out how much
carbon storage they can offer and sell that to industry or government so they
can offset their footprint elsewhere, upon purchasing so many tonnes of carbon
storage the company or government can note that down against their current
carbon output into the environment and produce that when asked.{scenario end}
You can use this method as well with biodiversity credits, but a little more
complicated when it comes to value, nature moves and adapts to environmental
conditions so higher risk, for example one year you could have a rare bird that
nests on your land, next year the same bird might not return, this then would
have to be calculated within the credit scheme.
There is problems with both biodiversity and carbon capture credits as there
is no model or key to substantiate or regulate the data processes that are
needed to monetise it and this is the main confusion that traditional land
managers have.
Nature Recovery also has other challenges, how radical can you take it?
This is a key point to make, Nature Recovery and Rewilding is too broad a
term to be interpreted within the carbon capture and biodiversity credits
model, the way some more extreme views see, biodiversity credits especially, is
that there is bonus points if you are more radical in your nature recovery plans,
they don’t want to just stop at carbon capture credits or encouraging rare
birds/insects/reptiles that are already part of the ecology of the ground they
own but want to reintroduce Apex predators and wildlife that have not been part
of the landscape for a few hundred years and they want to this at ALL or ANY
cost and with little thought on the impacts it may have to their neighbours or
the wider population. It is this conflict that scares people, it challenges
people too quickly and makes it harder for traditional land managers to see the
benefits. I am not saying I agree or disagree with either sides beliefs, I have
the luxury of being very open minded to both sides feelings on this matter I am
just highlighting how I see things.
I am not saying there is not radicals at both sides of the fence in this
argument, on one side there is those that want to reintroduce everything no
matter the cost and on the other side there is those that want to stop any
change at all cost so you can see that this creates its own challenges.
The real problem it seems in regards to all of this is land, and who owns
the land. The land argument is the most challenging part of the argument, it is
not so much how rural land is used it is about actually who owns it in the
first place. Around 57% of the countryside is owned privately, 12.5% is owned
by public bodies, 3% owned by community ownership schemes and 2.5% by
charities. Around 430 people own 50% of all the rural land in Scotland with a
large portion of these not residing in Scotland and this really adds to the
debate, this figure has barely changed in the last 50 or 60 years, in a lot of
peoples eyes this is wrong even though it does provide occupations to a large
amount of people rurally. The other fact that needs to be highlighted here is
that this will see little change even if there is a change in the land use to
Nature Recovery.
What has been noticeable in the last decade is the attitude towards
traditional land management from the Scottish government, there has been a
clear bias by the government against Sporting estates in recent years against
management styles and practices and more powers of governance over land use has
been increasingly talked about and laws have been changed. There has been a
heavy bias on Nature recovery practices also with many policies edging their
ways towards wildlife management and control. We have seen this in recent law
changes and consultations, Grouse Moor Licensing, Deer Management Nature
Restoration Orders and new environmental and Forestry rules on planting etc.
all challenging traditional land management. None has more impacted more than
Grouse Moor licensing and Deer Management Nature Restoration Orders (DMNRO).
The Grouse Moor Licensing was originally brought in to stop raptor persecution
by commercial Grouse Estates but within it it also brought in a number of laws
and amendments that makes life harder for keepers and estate staff to operate,
but what it does do is makes the estates and the estate owners more liable for
the actions of their Keepers and Workers. A breach of the licence could heavily
affect the estate financially and legally.
The DMNRO (Deer Management Nature Restoration ORDER) will bring new powers
in for Nature Scot and the Scottish government to enforce every land owner and
land manager to cull more deer on their property and if they refuse to they
could find themselves with heavy fines or Jail. Many who rely on deer as a
business strongly disagree with large culling of deer.
These two pieces of legislations are seen to be direct attacks on the
traditional rural community and their land management and those looking to do
Rewilding and Nature Recovery seem to comply easily which draws a further wedge
between the two.
There is another point I have to make, and I have been leaving this until
the end of this article because it is a bit of a sore point for all. In the
rush to implement Environmental change and to fix global warming there has been
some real mistakes made by both sides of the argument. Those in Nature recovery
and Rewilding are afraid to admit that some of the practices that traditional
land management entails do work and does increase biodiversity of the landscape
and can be very beneficial to what they are trying to achieve and those in
traditional land management are worried if they give progress an inch they will
take a mile. I am going to highlight that both sides are wrong and should be
learning from each other and going on this journey together.
Here are my thoughts.
Traditional land management is not ALL bad, it does need to progress into
incorporating nature restoration as much as it can. They have to admit their
short comings, they have to admit they made mistakes in the past but for the
future to learn ways to work round and work harder with their planning on pest
control and sustainable management practices, limit muir burn, watch for
increased deer densities and manage accordingly and admit when too much is too
much and be more open to Nature Recovery whatever form it takes.
Nature Recovery and Rewilding is not ALL good either, projects have to
understand a clear plan of what they want to do, death by committee is all too
common, too many people wanting to have their own little projects and
forgetting the fundamentals that everything needs paid for. These projects
should embrace and acknowledge that their counterparts do have good results in
regard to biodiversity in areas, work a little less heart and more head
sometimes.
There is a reason why there is conflict and that is fear and lack of
understanding, both try to be so far from each other that both cannot work out
that is not what divides them that will fix this problem they all face but what
they have in common is what will be the solution, I am sure I never made that
up and someone far more intelligent than I am said those words but it is true.
What do both sides have in common.
They both manage land; they are custodial of land that should not belong to
any one person. They both have similar goals when it comes to conservation and
they both need money. That is a start.
The fact remains the landscape of Scotland will change, less and less people
want to get into shooting sports, in fact we should encourage more sustainable
hunting. Deer is a natural resource that produces the best and healthiest meat
we can provide, Venison. It is heavily produced in this country and under used.
it is a natural resource that all our children can benefit from, but that is a
debate for another day. We are going to see less traditionally managed land in
the future, deer culls will be heavier bringing it down to more sustainable
levels, introduction of long forgotten species but managed in a a way that
suits all and the right species for this country and not a substitute because
it suits an individual need. Scotland and the people of Scotland are trusting
you to get it right. Top fighting and work together for a better Scotland.
