The Cairngorms National Park suddenly got bigger. Today (4 Oct) the boundary of the National Park was extended to include Highland Perthshire including the settlements of Blair Atholl and Pitlochry.
Ramblers Scotland welcomed today’s ceremony. Ramblers Scotland Director, Dave Morris, said, “We are delighted that the Scottish Government has brought the southern boundary of the Park down to Blair Atholl. Outdoor groups have long campaigned for this extension so that the magnificent wild land of Perthshire will be better protected and the local economy of rural communities will be better sustained.””
Dave Morris also indicated how international support was an important part of the campaign, “In 2002, in International Year of the Mountains, the world famous Austrian mountaineer, Kurt Diemberger, stopped in Blair Atholl during his Scottish lecture tour and at a press conference made a plea, on behalf of all mountaineers worldwide, for this national park boundary extension. And only last week, a conference of 460 mountain scientists meeting in Perth, organised by the Centre for Mountain Studies, welcomed the progress being made in national park development in Scotland, including this Cairngorms extension.”
Looking to the future, Dave Morris identified two priorities, “We must build on this Cairngorms progress by seeking World Heritage Site status for the Cairngorms. Little progress has been made since this was first proposed over 30 years ago. But now, with the national park in place, with a proper boundary, we need to make the case to the international organisations (IUCN and UNESCO) for World Heritage status. Only then will the Cairngorms achieve its proper status in the global system that safeguards our finest landscapes and wildlife areas.
Secondly, we must now make rapid progress in securing national park status for Harris in the Western Isles. Local support for such a national park in the Isles is very strong and we must persuade all our politicians that Harris should be Scotland’s third national park. At today’s ceremony in Blair Atholl we will hear about studies in the Cairngorms which have demonstrated that national park status has brought substantial economic and social benefits for the Cairngorms which are better than in Scotland as a whole. The people of the Western Isles deserve the same opportunity. A national park on Harris will boost tourism levels, help transport services to and from the isles, create employment and safeguard a key environment on our western seaboard. Every politician elected to the Scottish Parliament next May should support early designation of Harris as a national park.”