A new map of the Wild Land Areas of Scotland was published today by Scottish Natural Heritage and will be used by the Scottish Government as part of its newly published national planning policy. The map covers 19 per cent of Scotland’s land area.
The recognition of the importance of wild land is underpinned by both the new National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Policy documents. The National Planning Framework 3 states ‘We also want to continue our strong protection for our wildest landscapes – wild land is a nationally important asset.’
The Scottish Planning Policy document states: ‘Wild land character is displayed in some of Scotland’s remoter upland, mountain and coastal areas, which are very sensitive to any form of intrusive human activity and have little or no capacity to accept new development. Plans should identify and safeguard the character of areas of wild land as identified on the 2014 SNH map of wild land areas.’
Stuart Brooks, Chief Executive of the John Muir Trust, said: “This recognition of Scotland’s wild land as a nationally important asset that needs to be safeguarded marks a historic breakthrough. Scotland’s landscapes are spectacular, contributing to our quality of life, our national identity and the visitor economy. The John Muir Trust has fought long and hard over many years with the support of many thousands of people to achieve official recognition for wild land and we welcome this commitment.’’
“Although this falls short of our request for the absolute protection of wild land from large scale developments, we applaud the Scottish Government for taking this bold step in the face of a sustained campaign to undermine wild land protection by powerful vested interests”.
The Mountaineering Council of Scotland – that represents the country’s hillwalkers and mountaineers – also broadly welcomed the announcement. Landscape and Access Director Dave Gordon said: “We welcome this confirmation that wind farms are incompatible with National Parks and National Scenic Areas.
“We also welcome the recognition of the importance of wild land, which includes most of Scotland’s mountain areas.
“However, we do regret the lack of stronger protection for wild land, which will lead to continued speculative attempts at unsuitable development.
“And it is unfortunate that there has been a reduction in the areas covered by the Wild Land Areas 2014 map, compared to Scottish Natural Heritage’s original 2013 map. The areas removed include a part of the Monadhliath where, just this month, the Scottish Government approved the massive Stronelairg wind farm.”
Helen Todd, Campaigns & Policy Manager at Ramblers Scotland said “We are very pleased that the Scottish Government has finally recognised in planning policy the importance of wild land for Scotland. Wild land is a key tourism asset and a magnificent setting for outdoor recreation, but it is also part of our natural heritage, even our fundamental sense of identity as a nation. We are pleased to see the confirmation that no wind farms will be built within National Parks or National Scenic Areas, and we hope that the adoption of Scottish Natural Heritage’s map of core areas of wild land within the Scottish Planning Policy will lead to a curtailment in the relentless march of giant onshore wind farms with the resulting attrition of our cherished wild areas.
“However, there are still large tracts of land which are exposed to these massive developments, and this will only be corrected by changes in the financial support regimes for wind farms to encourage them to be built offshore, not in fragile upland areas where they are totally out of scale with the landscape.”
Helen Todd also sounded a warning to the government:
“Given the Scottish Government’s recent approval of the Stronelairg 67-turbine windfarm in the Monadhliath mountains, right in the heart of one of these core areas of wild land, this doesn’t fill us with confidence that the new wild land policy will necessarily bring the proper protections we are looking for. We will be watching carefully to see whether the government is really serious about protecting wild land, or whether this policy can be ripped up whenever a big developer comes along with big promises and a massive new wind farm scheme.”
Stuart Brooks of the JMT added “Before commenting on the specific changes to the map, we will look more closely at the detailed explanations from SNH about the reasons for these removals. We will continue to defend those areas that we consider to be wild land from large scale development.”
The adoption of this policy and map should result in more consistent decision making by planners and government, and it should discourage energy companies from targeting the 42 areas that make up the wild land map. The larger areas removed from the previous map include the mountains and hills south of Loch Tay.
A recent survey by MCofS showed that the presence of wind farms was a disincentive for mountaineers to visit or revisit an area – a serious consideration when mountaineering tourism in Scotland has been valued at £600 million a year.