The wild land charity, the John Muir Trust has just appointed a new Chair, Peter Pearson, to replace the outgoing John Hutchison. Peter, who lives in the shadows of the Ochils, has for decades explored Scotland’s hills and mountains. He has also travelled further afield to the Himalayas, Karakorum, Greenland and Spitsbergen – where anyone travelling outside the island’s settlements is required to carry a rifle as a last line of defence against polar bear attacks. Peter rose to national prominence in the mid-2000s as a pivotal figure in Stirling Before Pylons, the campaigning group which helped spearhead the fight…

Mountaineers and conservation groups have written to a Dutch firm calling for it to respect Scotland’s most precious wild lands and abandon plans for an industrial scale wind farm. Eventus BV, through a wholly-owned UK subsidiary Talladh a Bheithe Wind Farm Ltd, has applied to build 24 wind turbines, each 125m tall, together with 12.8km of wide access tracks, buildings and infrastructure, in Rannoch, Perthshire, in one of the most celebrated and beautiful areas of the Scottish Highlands. The application was made the very day the Scottish Government declared that such areas, formally recognised as Wild Lands by Scottish Natural…

New research on the spread of squirrelpox has revealed both good and bad news for the ability of the Scottish red squirrel population to survive the deadly virus. The report, commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) suggests that the pox will continue to spread and possibly wipe out red squirrels in areas where grey squirrels already live but that the disease could be kept out of areas where reds dominate and there are no, or very few greys. These areas include the Highlands, parts of Tayside, Argyll, Moray and Aberdeenshire. However in order to contain the virus in Southern Scotland…

Plans to protect and restore one of Scotland’s most iconic and beautiful glens, alongside wildlife such as golden eagles, Scottish wildcats and red squirrels, received a double boost last week when charity Trees for Life won funding of almost £80,000 for new forest conservation projects in Glen Affric near Loch Ness. The initiatives will involve the planting of 20,000 trees, opportunities for hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds to gain health benefits and conservation training, and the creation of an eco-friendly wilderness base at a remote mountain bothy. Shona Robison, Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games and Sport, announced…