YOUR VIEWS: Start to tax land not used for the benefit of people and the region
Last week the sounds of 'pop- popping' of shotguns were quite prominent in Kingussie.
Out on the bike later that day by Balavil we stopped to try to determine whether a biggish bird was a ring tail or just a buzzard.
Scuttling away through the nearby field were dozens of French red legged partridges, which along with imported pheasants are the principal targets of the popping guns.
Frequently I've read how fundamental field sports are for the rural economy. I've even been told by a long term SNP activist that 'there is no alternative'!
I have the impression that Fergus Ewing takes much the same view.
It was interesting, then, to read Mr Jamie Williamson's views on estate management.
One focus of his was on timber and surely he must be right in his call for greater production of commercial, usable material at home rather than relying so much on imports from abroad.
But surely, too,if locally there is to be more timber produced for construction, as a chemical food stock and maybe partly for biofuel then there needs to be more State control of how our national assets are managed. Alvie Estate may arguably use its available land appropriately but can that be said regarding even much of Badenoch never mind the Highlands as a whole. Many absentee lairds have little regard for the economics of their estates.Their financing is derived externally.
The land is their plaything or their personal vanity project.
As a local keeper informed me not so long ago,’some estates around here have more money than they know what to do with’. Hence their lack of need for economic activity.
Anyone knowing the area sees a very different approach from locally based landowners.
Alvie Estate hosts a diversity of enterprises encouraging employment and through its taxed economic activity helps support the public economy. But unfortunately this estate policy is rare.
How to make it less so?
I have read of a system whereby land inappropriately used is taxed, in contrast to appropriate development being supported from tax. In such a scenario it would be highly likely that an estate like Alvie would benefit at the expense of those who choose to ignore the importance of people in their rewilding plans or those who see no need to diversify from their sporting activities.
Top Stories
-
Cromdale businessman fondled 17 year old girl’s breasts and then forcefully kissed her mother
-
Growing Highlands hotel group makes some key new appointments
-
WATCH: Boxing champion Tyson Fury spotted strolling barechested and in kilt along Grantown’s High Street
-
Aviemore children ‘so impressive’ in walking the walk for world’s clean water
But somehow Mr Williamson like Mr Ewing is strong in criticism of the peat restoration programme, or those who believe in attempting to conserve certain birds and animals but seem never to direct even a modicum of that criticism towards the management and practices of sporting estates.
Can we in the Highlands not move forward from what are essentially the ways of the 19th Century?
Dick Webster
Kingussie.
* * * *
The A9 road is no different
From your own Tom Ramage....
"Like the width and length of its variously singled, dualled and occasionally even trebled carriageways, amid the bewildering plethora of speed limits for all those differing vehicles, the number of stories emanating about the road is every bit as bewildering". This applies to virtually every road other than motorways.
So why is the A9 proving so troublesome? I've been using it in its various forms since the mid 1970s util September, last year.
Roads are not the problem, it's ignorant and impatient drivers that are dangerous.
Peter Goddard
Email address supplied.
* * * *
Botched Budget
No country ever taxed its way to prosperity.
Malcolm Parkin
Kinross.
* * * *
Stop the Bonfire Night disorder
After violent fireworks-related attacks on police in Niddrie, Chief Superintendent David Robertson said the police would leave ‘no stone unturned’ to find those responsible.
A stock of fireworks and petrol was discovered by officers. Similar disorder took place in 2022 and 2023 where many of those rioting were from other parts of the city and its suburbs.
Other areas of Scotland have also been targeted.
The softly softly approach so beloved by politicians must be discarded and the police told "Do whatever it takes".
The Scottish Government must rush through legislation for mandatory jail sentences and instruct the judiciary to implement them regardless of age.
Those who throw dangerous missiles and plan to use petrol are old enough for jail time
Clark Cross
Linlithgow.
* * * *
Look closer to home to reduce CO2 emissions
Badenoch MSP Fergus Ewing questions some public spending.
He requested a reduction in the ‘massive public spending on rewilding, peatland restoration and on the continued futile attempts to ‘save’ capercaillie from extinction.” (Holyrood Letter, Strathy, October 10, 2024).
This is because there are doubts these activities are cost effective in reducing our nation’s contribution to net greenhouse gas emissions or maintaining biodiversity.
Roy Turnbull holds a different view (Strathy Letters, October 17 & 31).
Research by the James Hutton Institute and others has questioned the amount of net greenhouse gases claimed to be absorbed by planting native tree species in the Highlands.
Land managers in Badenoch disputed claims by then Scottish Natural Heritage that the Monadhliath blanket bog was in poor condition.
Subsequent research by Environment Systems in 2010 supported the evidence of residents that the blanket bog was revegetating without further reductions in herbivore grazing or funding excavators to intervene.
Replacing local production of food or forest products we consume with imports from elsewhere is likely to increase, not decrease our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity in the world.
Replacing local food and forest production with rewilding is unlikely to reduce our net greenhouse gas emissions. Capercaillie (pictured) became extinct in Scotland around 1770. They were reintroduced from Sweden in 1837.
By 1970 there was estimated to be more than 20,000 birds in the UK. By 1990 numbers had reduced to around 2,200, by 1999 to around 1,000 birds. By 2021 to 542 birds.
Forestry in Scotland expanded from 4.5% of Scotland’s land area in 1905 to around 19% today.
Much of this was achieved using deer fencing. Fencing was claimed to have been the reason for this significant decline in capercaillie numbers (Roy Turnbull, Strathy Letters, October 31, 2024.
This is unlikely. There is no correlation between the extent of deer fencing in Scotland or Badenoch and Strathspey and the decline in capercaillie numbers.
Research has since indicated the decline in capercaillie is the result of increased predation and disturbance during their nesting period.
To reduce our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity in the world, making our nation more self-sufficient in food, forest products and renewable energy is recommended.
Jamie Williamson
Alvie & Dalraddy Estates.
* * * *
Much more than future of capercaillie at stake
Charles Wardrop is entitled to his opinion that “capercaillie is far more deserving of our taxed money than is the climate” (Strathy, October 31).
But he is not entitled to state falsely that ‘dropping our greenhouse gas output by decarbonisation are not backed by any empirical evidence’.
Mainstream science based on empirical evidence is overwhelming that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are driving global warming (IPCC ‘AR6’, A.1; The Royal Society ‘The Basics of Climate Change’).
More specifically: Most GHG emissions are carbon dioxide (US Environmental Protection Agency ‘Overview of Greenhouse Gases);
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (NOAA ‘Trends in CO2’) closely tracks increasing temperatures since 1880 (https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/peak-co2-heat-trapping-emissions).
But he goes on to claim that there is no chance that we can ‘shame’ other countries into decarbonisation.
We should cajole other countries to increase action to reduce GHG emissions, so that the world can reach Paris Agreement targets of limiting global warming to 2 Centigrade, or better still just 1.5 C, above pre-industrial levels.
Doing nothing about global warming would only encourage others to slacken their action.
But, if he is correct that there is no hope that the world can decarbonise, then the UK and all other countries would face a dystopian future of up to 3 C of warming (UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024), or more with tipping points.
That would increase storms, floods, droughts, sea-level rise and loss of bio-diversity. It would threaten livelihoods in much of the world. With no ‘decarbonisation’, global warming would lead to extinction of not just Scotland’s capercaillie.
Dermot Williamson
Kincraig.
