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<\/a>The Forsinard Flows (\u00a9Lorne Gill\/SNH\/2020VISION)<\/p><\/div>The John Muir Trust\u2019s \u201cKeep It Wild\u201d campaign calls on the Scottish Government to use the forthcoming Planning Bill to give Wild Land Areas protection from industrial-scale development, similar to the protection already in place for windfarms in National Parks and NSAs.<\/p>\n
The campaign comes as the Court of Session in Edinburgh is set to decide a judicial review of a decision to approve Creag Riabhach wind farm in Altnaharra that would allow the development of 22-turbines up to 125m tall, including five within Wild Land Area 37.<\/p>\n
The court case highlights that the Scottish Government said in June 2014 that they intended to give strengthened protection for Wild Land Areas. However, the recent government approval for the Creag Riabhach development has cast doubt on this, as the permission granted to the developers was the first to encroach the boundaries of a designated Wild Land Area.<\/p>\n
To mark the launch of the Keep it Wild campaign, the Trust has released a new YouGov poll which reveals 80% backed the proposition that Scotland\u2019s Wild Land Areas should receive continued protection from large-scale infrastructure development.<\/p>\n
An absolute majority \u2013 52 per cent \u2013 \u2018strongly agree\u2019 that \u201cWild Land Areas should continue to be protected from large-scale infrastructure, such as industrial-scale wind farms, major electricity transmission and super-quarries\u201d, while a further 28 per cent \u2018tend to agree\u2019. Just five per cent \u2018tend to disagree\u2019 with this wild land protection, while the number who \u2018strongly disagree\u2018 is negligible, registering zero per cent in the YouGov poll.<\/p>\n
Of the remainder, 12 per cent \u2018neither agree nor disagree\u2019 with the proposals, with three per cent undecided.<\/p>\n
Support for wild land protection is overwhelming among all age groups and geographical regions. The Highlands and Islands, where most of Scotland\u2019s wild land is located, has the highest proportion of people (60 per cent) who strongly agree with the protection of Wild Land Areas.<\/p>\n
Helen McDade, Head of Policy for the John Muir Trust said: \u201cScotland is united in wishing to keep our wild landscapes free from large-scale wind farms, giant pylons, super quarries and other inappropriate commercial developments. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe forthcoming Planning Bill provides a unique opportunity to provide the protection that\u2019s currently missing, which means that cases like Creag Riabhach wind farm currently have to be challenged in the courts. That\u2019s why we\u2019re launching the Keep it Wild campaign, to persuade the Scottish Government that protection for Wild Land Areas must be enshrined in legislation before they are lost for good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWild land is a key part of Scotland\u2019s natural heritage and national identity. It is also a major driver of the Scottish economy, attracting tourists from all over the world to visit, spend money and support jobs in some our most fragile local communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd with support for wild protection outweighing opposition by 16 to 1, it\u2019s hard to think of any other public issue which commands such a universal consensus across age groups, geographical regions and social classes.\u201d<\/p>\n
A similar YouGov poll run in 2013 found 40% of respondents strongly supported the Scottish Government\u2019s proposals that Scotland\u2019s Wild Land should be given special protection from inappropriate development, for example wind farms. With the current finding that 52% strongly agree Wild Land Areas should continue to be protected from large scale infrastructure, this would suggest a rise in strong support for the proposal.<\/p>\n
The Keep It Wild campaign urges people to show their support for Scotland\u2019s Wild Land Areas to be protected as a unique natural legacy for future generations by writing to their MSP and\/or Scotland\u2019s Planning Minister, and getting involved on social media using the hashtag #keepitwild. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the UK’s leading conservation bodies has today launched a new national campaign for greater protection of Scotland\u2019s Wild Land Areas, amid concern that a significant legal case will threaten the future of Scotland’s unique landscapes. A recent YouGov poll found 4 in 5 Scots back greater protection for Wild Land Areas. The John Muir Trust\u2019s \u201cKeep It Wild\u201d campaign calls on the Scottish Government to use the forthcoming Planning Bill to give Wild Land Areas protection from industrial-scale development, similar to the protection already in place for windfarms in National Parks and NSAs. The campaign comes as the…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16512"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16517,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions\/16517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}