YOUR VIEWS: Employment has been lost in Badenoch due to rewilding of land
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Peter Cairns’ letter (Strathy, April 11) criticises Charlie Whelan (Strathy, April 4) for implying that Wildland Ltd. had forced communities off the land in Glenfeshie and that ‘green lairds are complicit in modern-day Clearances’.
Mr Whelan referred to Glenfeshie Estate “… where you can still see the remains of a one-time community …”.
If Mr Whelan is referring to the ruins of Tom Fad, the Clark family left Tom Fad and emigrated to Canada around 1838 following the collapse in cattle prices after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
This coincided with the Muckle Flood in August 1829 and adverse weather conditions around that time.
In Glenfeshie ‘local people’ were not ‘evicted to make way for sheep’.
They emigrated due to economic hardship and adverse weather conditions.
In 1953 the Forestry Commission purchased Invereshie Estate with the intention of planting trees for timber production.
This reduced continuous local employment compared with hill livestock farming, deer stalking and grouse shooting, with far less employment after planting until the trees were thinned.
Following complaints about a lack of local employment, the Forestry Commission sold off the in-bye farmland, planting much of the remaining land to trees.
Where the land is no longer used to produce raw materials for food, clothing or forest products, or to provide deer stalking, grouse shooting or fishing, there is less employment in production, downstream processing or to accommodate and feed these visitors.
Where rewilding reduces local production of food, forest products or visitor services, it can adversely impact on local employment and the rural economy.
Today Glenfeshie Estate employs around five full time equivalent staff on a land holding of 42,000 acres.
Nearby Alvie and Dalraddy Estates currently employs 29 staff plus over 20 staff employed by tenants on a land holding of 13,750 acres.
Alvie and Dalraddy Estates provide goods and services in demand, including raw materials for downstream processing.
The estates generate a financial surplus that is reinvested into the local economy, paying taxes to the Scottish and UK governments. Glenfeshie Estate runs at a substantial net deficit.
Is this the evidence that Peter Cairns seeks that “… green lairds are complicit in modern-day Clearances” or to refute his claim “… that rewilding equates to de-peopling is inaccurate and unhelpful”?
Jamie WIlliamson
Alvie Estate Office
Kincraig.
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Lights to go off at last bank in area but some hope...
Well it’s a few months since I spoke of the Banking Hub in the town of Brechin in Angus - and again, well done to Brechin!
It’s only a matter of a few more weeks, on May 21, when the last bank in Badenoch and Strathspey will close…
So what about the over 14000 permanent residents and the more than one million tourists that visit the area every year?
I suppose a 60-mile round trip to Inverness, if you manage to get an appointment, would be do-able.
Mind you, again that all depends on the internet signal, your computing skills, the usability of the bank’s website and of course time.
Whilst we will be left with the basic Link ATM services, sometimes this is just not enough.
The staff at the local Post Offices do a great job and we all appreciate this, but when the last bank closes their work will go through the roof.
We all need to remember that these postal services are provided on the back of other services, which are normally the mainstay and bread and butter of those businesses.
A couple of weeks ago I made reference to Aviemore and Vicinity Community Council’s article in the Strathy, “It’s Good To Talk” and, again, well done to AVCC.
That said, I decided to step out and “Do Something” so, this past week I have made an application to Link – British Banking Network to have a review of the provision of ATMs and the possibility of the provision of a Banking Hub to service the needs of Badenoch and Strathspey.
I have to add that it was not easy, as I have alluded to previously, it took four attempts to complete the online forms.
I just hope that someone is listening…
Mark Duncan
Aviemore.
* * *
A mound of misinformation on net zero
Charles Wardrop’s letter (Strathy, April 11) is a mound of misinformation about net zero.
He criticises scientific findings that CO2 is the main cause of the present climate change as ‘hotly disputed’ and ‘still unproven’.
But over 99% of peer reviewed scientific literature supports the conclusion that “there is no significant scientific debate among experts about whether or not climate change is human-caused”; we as the main cause is no “more in contention among scientists than is tectonic plates or evolution” (Lynas et al. 2021, Environmental Research Letters, (16) 11405).
Alternative hypotheses, such as the sun and natural fluctuations, fail to dissuade this overwhelming consensus.
With that failure, human cause of current climate change stands as proven scientific law, meeting the criterion of Popper’s ‘Logic of Scientific Discovery’.
We have done this with emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), particularly CO2, (IPCC 2023 ‘6 th Synthesis Report’).
Therefore, to stop global warming we must halt our GHG emissions, such as reaching net zero by 2050, contrary to Wardrop’s claim that net zero “cannot possibly make the global or local climate safer.”
The perils of climate change are fact, not unproven as Wardrop claims.
Of course, it is difficult to pinpoint an exact cause for individual weather events.
But they are becoming more frequent and severe with global warming. Examples include heat, floods, storms and drought, with consequences such as wildfires.
There were insurance claims for a record 37 such catastrophes, each costing more than $1 billion, in 2023 (Financial Times ‘The uninsurable world’, February 13).
Wardrop is incorrect to claim that there are no “opinions as to how the UK’s national authorities should be reacting to” climate change.
The 6th Carbon Budget shows how the UK can reach Net Zero by, among other steps, reducing waste, improving energy efficiency, increasing renewable energy, using carbon capture and storage, expanding woodlands and restoring peatland.
We have the means. The blockage is political.
Wardrop’s claim that reaching net zero will cost the UK at least £3 trillion by 2050 is meaningless.
His figure omits benefits from investing in energy efficiency, our infrastructure, insulation etcetera (Skidmore ‘Missions Zero’), and it assumes no future global warming. Swiss Re in ‘The economics of climate change’ estimates the effect of future global warming will reduce world GDP at between 11 per cent and 18 per cent.
Dermot Williamson
Kincraig.
* * *
Net zero is actually net positive for the economy
Charles Wardrop (letters, 11 April) seems to think that the idea that man made carbon dioxide has been the main contributor to global warming is ‘hotly contested’.
How wrong he is! There is consensus. The scientific data produced by the experts on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is acknowledged by all serious people as the basis for policy on controlling climate change.
Their data – and their conclusion – is stark: “climate change is an unequivocal threat that is already causing damage to well-being and planetary health.
The window of opportunity for a liveable future is closing fast.”
In his tendentious suggestion that achieving net zero will cost £3 trillion over the next 25 years, he quotes figures from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, an organisation set up, not to present the science behind climate change, but specifically to challenge governments’ policies for dealing with climate change caused by human activity.
The organisation is widely regarded as denying man-made climate change.
But it is futile to engage in a debate about how much it will cost to achieve net zero.
It should not surprise us that there is a cost attached to mitigating the current effects of climate change and redirecting future development towards becoming carbon neutral.
It is a cost we will have to pay and the longer we wait, the more expensive it will become to take the necessary action.
Yes, we will have to spend money – a lot of it – and we will initially be worse off than we are right now as we invest in the measures needed but compared to the disastrous counterfactual future if we take no action, we’ll be much better off.
There are many social benefits to be achieved as by-products of achieving net zero: warm houses, clean air, protected biosphere to name only a few.
But of course, the greatest benefit of all – survival of the species – will go unnoticed.
Paradoxically, success will never be visible because the climate disasters will have been averted and we will simply survive.
Like the Y2K computer bug, when people look back, it may seem as if it was all a false alarm – but that’s because we took the correct avoiding action and fixed the problem.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cost of achieving net zero will bring many benefits, delivering a net positive for the whole world.
Kay Caldwell
Carrbridge.
* * *
Turning up the heat
New building standards which came into force in Scotland on April 1 banned bioenergy heating systems including wood-burning stoves.
The ban on wood-burning stoves in new-built homes will adversely impact on rural areas.
However one of the far too numerous Scottish Government spin doctors said ‘there is no ban on wood-burning stoves and they can still be installed in new homes to provide emergency heating where required’. Confused?
So are we going to have an army of inspectors going around to make sure that people do not use wood-burning stoves for heating and cooking when there is no emergency?
Yet another SNP/Green stupid and unworkable idea to add to the ever growing list.
Clark Cross
Linlithgow.
* * *
Rising above the din on the CO2 climate change emergency
I suspect that the emotion involved is dragging the debate in directions that, while making little actual difference, are somewhat unlikely to move things forward much, given we need to get to a common set of attainable goals.
While I have no actual solution either way, nobody else really does either, perhaps least of all those with absolute belief that they do.
The maths and science are also questioned by those who’ve mastered neither to any great degree it seems.
I'd not be surprised if history proves the actual numbers were the average of the disputed claims made at this time, though many of us here today will not live to see that history.
There does appear to be a change in the weather so to speak as the earth adapts itself to reward our past technical and industrial success, I do suspect the claims made with such conviction will prove to be affected by the bias of seeing these 'facts' through rose coloured glasses, with the colour tainted by conviction based on emotion and what we wish to believe.
Sound familiar? How to tackle it, that's a loaded and multi-faceted question.
I believe we haven't much of a clue of how the net zero dream can be achieved.
My assessment suggests the Greens and their kin would want to destroy the industrial base of the UK and EU etc and grandstand their mighty win if it ever arrives.We’re seemingly going to store carbon in our dreams but not the actual real amounts we’d need to, or?
Hopefully our offspring won't allow them to realise this crazy suicidal lunacy.
Have we any idea how deep our anti CO2 desires will require us to go?
By way of example I have spent a fair amount of time in hospitals of late and have looked at the infrastructure and equipment etc and can see that, in these locations alone, we probably need to reinvent perhaps at least half of the technology and/or infrastructure to replace the plastics side of the problem.
How will we provide the power required? Has anybody noticed us building Hinckley in a record five years?
Believing some of the optimistic renewal energy media articles of the 'renewable will do it' variety won’t cut it, believe me.
We haven’t the money or what it takes to industrially and responsibly maintain this renewable infrastructure in areas other than water based power I suspect.
We will need to power our EVs and the entire infrastructure, at the same time cleaning up the detritus our esteemed private water companies’ pump into our rivers etc.
If we cannot even do this today what chance we will ever buckle down and sort out renewable revolution while also handling and effectively dealing with our mountains of trash, fixing the potholes and road network etc etc etc? The Highlands get all their inputs and economic product by road, rail and sea.
All these links will probably have to return to being oxen-and-cart type solutions if we're to go carbon neutral, net zero or whatever we wish to call it.
The truth of the matter is we are already too far down the road for lots of the perceived climate threats to be undone.
We need to adapt and yes, many areas on the globe will become untenable. We will no doubt also allow millions of unqualified folk to arrive by boat and be put up in hotels etc.
How many folk out there believe we can do this and the other myriad of politically correct things this most unlikely of unattainable future goal requires of us.
As an aside, a quiz question: Let’s say I have reliable 20 year old 3-cylinder car of Japanese origin with say 90,000 miles on the clock.
Will this car have a carbon footprint anywhere near that of a car replaced every four years with an EV being the latest new vehicle?I doubt it!
Just as we are where we are and cannot undo the past, so I think we need to start thinking holistically and not through our own biases and beliefs. The debate is sounding ever more like a run up to a religious conflict and far too much influenced by that limitation and nothing is provable til the history gets written.
Finally, does anyone out there still believe we will outlive the planet?
Paul Aarden
Aviemore.
* * *
A Palestinian state is only answer to lasting peace in Middle East
I’m not ever excusing the horrific Hamas attack on Israel last October, many months later tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops, including scores of charity aid workers.
With worldwide protests against Israel’s destructive military advance into Gaza, the danger is that without clear world leadership, the Middle East could explode into endless ethnic and religious violence.
The sadness is that the refusal of Israel to negotiate a Palestinian homeland, will again drive reasonable Palestinians into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.
The pain and misery of this hugely destructive war will only end when the extremist minority, on both sides gives way to the reasoned majority.
An independent Palistinian state could then come into being, if it in turn will accept the reality of Israel. From this mutual acceptance respect and peaceful coexistence would surely result, to the benefit of all in the region and be welcomed and celebrated throughout the world.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
Footnote: It was brought to attention by Dermot Williamson that the headline in the Strathy which accompanied his letter earlier this column referred to the wrong correspondence in print.
It should have been as follows:
Wrong correspondence
The letter, which appeared in the Strathy issue of April 18, had an incorrect heading and footer that it was signed by 96 people (93 from Badenoch and Strathspey).
They in fact had signed the following letter:
Charles Wardrop asks (Strathy letter, April 11) “Do Strathy readers support the UK and Scottish governments’ present ‘net zero’ policy …?”
“We strongly support the aim for the UK and Scotland to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050, so as to help save us and the world, its people and ecology, from unbearable global warming.”
The signatories can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/SustainableStrathspey/.
Dermot Williamson
Kincraig.
