YOUR VIEWS: Is park authority £42m initiative green-washing?
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The Cairngorms National Park Authority has been awarded £42.3 million to achieve the UK’s first net zero national park.
They will create 1,000 hectares (1,500 football pitches) of new woodland, restore 6,500 hectares of peatland, pioneer nature-friendly farming and green finance, also restore and enhance the Rivers Spey, Dee and Esk. (Strathy, February 8).
Is this sensible or just cynical green washing?
Additional funding increased the Cairngorms National Park Authority staff from 52 staff four years ago to 110 staff today.
For 2024 the Scottish Government agricultural budget has reduced by more than £33.2 million and forestry support by £33.6 million.
The Scottish Government is replacing support for farming and forestry producing goods and services we consume with expanding public sector employment.
Global warming caused by increasing levels of carbon in our atmosphere is a global not a local issue.
Producing less food, forest products or energy here in the Cairngorms National Park does not reduce our consumption.
It shifts production of these goods we consume overseas where we have less control over sustainability or security of the resource, biodiversity or net carbon emissions in production and transport.
Today the UK imports 39 per cent of the food and 81 per cent of the forest products we consume. UK’s net contribution globally to carbon in our atmosphere is governed more by the food and forest products we import than what we produce here in the Cairngorms National Park.
Shifting production of food and forestry products from the Cairngorms National Park to elsewhere in the world will increase not decrease our global contribution to carbon in our atmosphere.
Research by the James Hutton Institute and others found that planting native tree species at elevations where growth rates are less than 8 m3/hectare/year may take more than 50 years before the carbon absorbed is more than what is emitted.
To reduce our net carbon emissions, we need to increase our self-sufficiency in forest products.
The contribution to reducing carbon in our atmosphere by revegetating exposed peat using mechanical excavators burning fossil fuels is questionable.
Local farmers and gamekeepers claimed that on peatland in the Monadhliath Special Area of Conservation, exposed peatland was revegetating naturally.
This was because acid rain caused by coal fired power stations had reduced along with previous more intense grazing by domestic and feral livestock.
Scottish Natural Heritage disputed this.
In 2010 Environment Systems compared aerial photos of this peatland taken by the RAF in 1946 with aerial photos taken in 2005. They observed that over the period studied there had been a reduction in exposed peat surfaces of nearly 46 per cent.
If we want exposed peatland to recover and emit less carbon into the atmosphere, we can let most peatland recover naturally without mechanical intervention.
In Badenoch, due to the mountainous terrain, only around 2 per cent of the land area is considered suitable for cultivation.
Most of this suitable land is alongside the water courses, much of which has been protected since the 18th Century with flood embankments.
In December last year the Cairngorms National Park Authority introduced beavers.
Farmers were consulted on where they wanted them not if they wanted them.
There are now around 2,000 beavers in Tayside.
Damage to flood embankments, drains, farm crops and riparian trees in Tayside is significant.
The damage and beaver numbers keeps growing despite hundreds of beavers having been culled.
Nature Scot informed the Spey Fishery Board there would be no compensation for damage caused by beavers introduced. Beavers are now protected.
Damage of flood embankments and land suitable for cultivation on a scale experienced in Tayside could destroy farms in Badenoch.
What happens to our economy if we replace private sector production and employment with public sector expenditure?
We will not consume less food or forest products, as home-grown production declines we will import more.
Will the actions of the Cairngorms National Park Authority really reduce our net global emissions of carbon or is this an illusion?
Jamie Williamson
Alvie Estate Office
Kincraig.
* * *
Reasons to be proud of our national park
The potential for a new national park is generating some debate about the value of those we already have.
That’s to be welcomed but we need to judge their effectiveness on facts and evidence rather than hearsay and anecdote as happened in the letter of February 8th.
The work of Scotland’s national parks is determined in their Partnership Plans, which are produced every five years after lengthy consultation.
Our plan was discussed for over a year and had 1,500 responses – over half from people living and working in the national park.
Significant changes were made to reflect feedback, and the plan is all the stronger for that.
The park authority works closely with land managers across the national park.
On peatland restoration, there are 57,000 hectares of eroded peat in the Cairngorms, and we work with land managers and contractors – many based locally – to carry out restoration work to lock up carbon, hold back water to prevent flooding and restore nature.
We’ve also worked with 60 farms (40 farmers) over the past two years on goose management, dry stone dykes, mob grazing and other initiatives.
The 15 rangers that the park authority employs and the six other ranger services we grant-aid receive constant positive feedback from residents and visitors.
Last year alone they engaged with over 10,000 people and dealt with 219 fires. The park authority also does a lot of work to support the economy and address housing issues. Our local development plan focuses on the issues that matter most locally.
Hence the 45 per cent affordable home target in four key towns and villages (versus the national 25 per cent), which we are committed to increasing to 75 per cent by 2030.
Between 2016 and 2021, we granted permission for 216 affordable units, 175 of which were completed.
There is no extra layer of bureaucracy in planning: if we call it in, we deal with it. If not, the local authority does.
There are very few projects in the Cairngorms that don’t benefit from park authority funding. We’ve invested millions in facilities and paths. We grant-aid community development officers to help deliver community action plans.
We support Growbiz, the Cairngorms Business Partnership and Countryside Learning Scotland to deliver business development and rural skills.
Over the past two decades the park authority has levered in tens of millions on top of core funding to help the area.
Just last week, we received £10.7m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of a £42.3m package which will help communities, land managers and businesses across the Cairngorms.
Finally, we look to hire the best people for the jobs we have. The majority of our staff live locally and play an active part in their local communities.
At a time of rural depopulation, more jobs in rural Scotland that are attractive is surely a good thing?
I’m proud to live in a national park and, when you look at the facts, I hope many people reading this will be too.
Grant Moir
Chief executive
Cairngorms National Park Authority
Grantown.
* * *
Payment is an insult
Michael Matheson has now belatedly resigned from his £118,511 job over the £11,000 iPad data roaming bill.
However he will still remain as an MSP on a salary of £67,662 and insultingly be entitled to £12,000 from the Scottish taxpayers for loss of office.
In April 2022 the Conservatives at Holyrood presented a proposal to MSPs for a Removal from Office and Recall Bill. This would empower constituents by allowing them to recall their MSPs who have broken the law, undermined trust, or failed to contribute to parliamentary proceedings for an extended period.
In England The Recall of MPs Act (2015) has been used numerous times so why is it taking so long for MSPs to get this Scottish Recall Bill into law? Self-preservation?
Clark Cross
Linlithgow.
* * *
Highland Council had every chance and failed to tackle rise of STLs
Highland councillor Ken Gowans thinks Short Term Lets (STL) Control Areas might be rolled out across the Highlands to help avert the housing crisis.
That is most unlikely to help solve a problem that is entirely due to the council’s complete lack of action.
The local authority has always had the power to require planning consent for whole house conversions to STLs but has chosen not to use it.
In Badenoch and Strathspey we had 790 license applications up to the end of 2023. Just two years previously the council had estimated the number to be 666 which it then considered to be too high.
So the problem is more severe than anyone thought. However, not a single license has yet been turned down and it is unusual to see any conditions imposed.
However, if you read some of the licensing committee reports to see the reports of loss of housing, misery for residents and erosion of community that is caused by this trade you would weep.
I have read a good number and the same issues come up time and again so I can only conclude the licensing scheme is a rubber-stamping exercise that serves nobody.
Turning to STL Control Areas, Councillor Gowans should be well aware that Lord Braid declared the Control Area legislation is not retrospective. Therefore, existing STLs will not need planning permission unless there are ‘material planning matters’ that need to be considered.
I have asked the council’s chief STL solicitor how she proposes to assess materiality in the absence of a full planning process.
Her best answer so far is ‘Our current guidance will be reviewed and updated as required’. Translated into normal language this means ‘we don’t know’.
I suggest Highland Council needs to find out soon as the Control Area goes live in three weeks time.
In the meantime, the Association of Scottish Self Caterers is lobbying Edinburgh and Highland Council very hard to get an agreement that no existing STLs within Control Areas will need planning consent regardless of any material considerations.
I fully expect both councils to agree in order to avoid an expensive legal battle which the well funded ASSC can readily afford but local councils cannot.
So we are discussing legislation that has been diluted down to the edge of pointlessness and enforcement bodies which are broke and really could not care less about residents who pay the council tax.
So Councillor Gowans when Highland Council has closed down their first STL and got it back into residential use, then shattered communities might believe you.
Martin Johnson
Boat of Garten.
* * *
Investments needed in strath’s bus routes
Once again a proposed focus of the spending of the national park is the improvement of transport services.
Trains, sadly, seem less reliable these days. For a recent visit to Celtic Connections, when there were no trains from Kingussie, the best option seemed to be to drive down to Perth and from there to take the bus into Glasgow.
I was amazed to discover that there are over 60 buses per day from Broxden Park and Ride to central Glasgow. That journey took around an hour and five minutes.
Buchanan Street bus station was impressively busy with many shiny new buses in evidence. Is it possible that the bus is becoming less of the poor relation to rail?
But what of public transport serving Badenoch and Strathspey? Train services are not so good as they once were. Some communities are hardly served at all.
It would seem to me that updating the railway would involve huge disruption and amazing costs not to mention the energy usage required to move so much rock and earth (and peat).
Would not a proper upgrade of our bus services be the most effective, cheapest, and most environmentally friendly policy whether or not the A9 is ever dualled.
Arguably Aviemore is reasonably served with its bus links to the Central Belt but this is not true at all for any of the other national park communities by the A9.
Should it not be possible to have a series of stops actually on the A9 better serving our area? The little time lost through stopping might readily be recovered by Aviemore’s service not going through the town.
Could not the national park authority work with the bus operator – I think there is effectively only one relevant company now –to improve services? And locally?
The other day I took a walk from Aviemore via Loch an Eilean to Kincraig, first travelling by bus from Kingussie. The Traveline Scotland app gave 10.33am as the departure time. On the timetable at the stop there was no intimation of a bus at that time. But a fine modern bus did arrive on schedule – the app was correct.
This was repeated on the return journey from Kingussie to Kincraig. Traveline was again correct contrary to the bus stop displayed timetable. Getting simple stuff right might improve bus usage.
Lots of other questions. There are brilliant off road linear routes between communities for walking and even more so for mountain or gravel bikes. Why in our tourist area is there still little or no widespread bus cycle carriage?
I’m told there was a Badenoch-Lochaber bus service in the 1960s and 1970s. Why not now? The promotion of such a service would surely be a straightforward yet highly rewarding exercise.
Communities not on the A9 seem to be readily forgotten by the vehement advocacy of A9 dualling. Obviously buses have the flexibility to serve east and west of that main road.
Hopefully, the park authority can make use of its windfall of cash to improve bus services which is surely the key to getting us out of our cars.
Hopefully though there’s not funding for yet another survey.
Dick Webster
Kingussie.
