{"id":19219,"date":"2019-01-26T16:03:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T16:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/?p=19219"},"modified":"2021-01-19T13:38:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T13:38:39","slug":"tribute-to-adam-watson-1930-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/tribute-to-adam-watson-1930-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to Adam Watson 1930-2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in the John Muir Trust Journal in 2005 to mark Adam Watson becoming only the second person after Tom Weir to receive the John Muir Trust Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr\nAdam Watson was the quintessential guru of the Cairngorms; his\nknowledge of the hills and his authority across the spectrum of their\necological values unparalleled. He even looked the part, with his\nfull white beard giving him an undeniable touch of Gandalf quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam was one of the founding trustees of the John Muir Trust<\/a>, serving from 1984 to 1997 and then becoming an Honorary Adviser till 2003. He brought to the Trust immense expertise and authority from a lifetime’s scientific work on the ecology of the Cairngorms, and intense personal commitment to the special qualities of the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dr Adam Watson. Photo: ronofcam via wikimedia, CCSA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Born\nin 1930, raised in the North-East of Scotland, and trained at the\nUniversity of Aberdeen, Adam worked for the Nature Conservancy and\nInstitute of Terrestrial Ecology for 40 years, mainly in Scotland,\nbut also in Ireland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America. He was\nin charge of the NC’s Mountain and Moorland Research Station,\n1968-71, and Senior Principal Scientific Officer at ITE Banchory from\n1971 to 1990. He retired from ITE in 1990, but continued to work\nthere as an Emeritus Scientist. His writings include more than 30\nbooks, over 500 other publications and over 170 technical reports. \nThese mostly present the fruits of his scientific research, but in\nlater years he published several autobiographical and reflective\nbooks drawing on his wealth of varied experience in the Cairngorms\nand beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam took to the Cairngorms<\/a> as a schoolboy, inspired first by the writings and then by the avuncular encouragement of Seton Gordon. From the outset he made the wide-ranging field observations that laid the foundations for his scientific career. His meticulously detailed field notebook records extending over more than 70 years provide a lesson in the outmoded virtues of systematic observation and recording. Thus in the 1940s he began the systematic monitoring of long-lasting snow patches in the Cairngorms, which in recent years he extended in collaboration with Iain Cameron. This work, and his long-term monitoring of animal populations, are highly relevant to the current issues in global warming and impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam’s\nscientific work earned worldwide respect for its exceptional\ngeographical concentration on a single range, but also for its\nexceptional diversity of subject matter. 40 years ago I acquired\nundeserved status at a conference in New Zealand simply because I\nknew Adam Watson. He undertook pioneering studies of animal\npopulation dynamics and behaviour \u2013 in particular, his research\ninto the behaviour of red grouse and ptarmigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam’s\nfield knowledge of the Cairngorms was unmatched. I well remember\nhow, having come across a lone Scots pine seedling high on Derry\nCairngorm, I asked Adam if he knew of other seedlings well above the\nnormal treeline. He had a long mental list of examples, including\nthe one I’d seen, and another that easily capped mine for altitude. \nHe was a field ecologist of exceptional insight and understanding;\nanyone who ever had the good fortune to share a day in the field with\nAdam will testify to his capacity to analyse and dissect a habitat\nbefore your eyes, disaggregating its component elements and processes\nand then reassembling them so that you would never again be able to\nlook at the land without that enhanced understanding of its layers\nand interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nAdam’s enthusiasm for the Cairngorms went far beyond his work in\necology. In the decades after the War he was part of the Golden Age\nof Cairngorms mountaineering when Aberdonians still had the scene\nvery much to themselves, and Bob Scott’s bothy at Derry was the focal\npoint of weekend activity. At that time he did a great deal of\nrock-climbing, notably with Tom Patey who was checking routes for the\nlong-awaited first Climber’s Guide to the Cairngorms. It was at\nDerry too that Adam met Tom Weir, who shared many of his interests\nand became a life-long friend. Adam was a pioneer of Cairngorm\nlanglauf ski-ing, including the first ski traverse of the Big Six in\n1962, a marathon so modestly recorded in the Scottish\nMountaineering Club Journal<\/em>\nthat it is easy to overlook the scale of the achievement. He joined\nthe Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1954, compiling successive\nmagisterial editions of its District Guide to the Cairngorms which\ndemonstrate his unrivalled field knowledge of the hills as well as\nhis passionate attachment to them. He was elected an Honorary Member\nof the Cairngorm Club in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never a passive ivory-tower scientist, Adam also became a central figure in Scottish mountain conservation. He played a key role during the campaign against the Lurcher\u2019s Gully ski development in the early 1980s, and particularly at the Public Inquiry in 1982, where his intimate knowledge of the mountains, his decades of detailed records, and his huge commitment of time and effort were major factors in the ultimate success of the conservation case. The story goes that the late Bob Clyde, manager of the Cairn Gorm ski centre at that time, was heard to complain bitterly in the pub that “Adam’s up there counting the bloody boulders !”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The North Corries of the Cairngorms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He\nserved as a Commissioner of the Countryside Commission for Scotland\nin 1990-92, and was a member of the Cairngorms Partnership from\n1995-97. He was scientific advisor to the Mar Lodge Consortium\nincluding the JMT which planned to buy that estate before the\nNational Trust for Scotland stepped in; and he carried out monitoring\non all three ski areas in the Cairngorms as a consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam\nalways scorned conventional career paths and establishment honours,\nbut as well as his John Muir Lifetime Achievement Award and many\nother distinctions, he was awarded honorary Doctorates from Stirling\nand Aberdeen Universities, while his portrait now hangs in the\nScottish National Portrait Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam\nhad an easy rapport with all kinds of folk. He had the admirable\nvirtue of plain speaking, which he could do very effectively in the\nNorth-East Doric ‘spik’; he had a wonderful store of scurrilous and\nhumorous tales from farmers and ghillies that he could put over in\nthat characterful dialect. He also learned Gaelic to allow him to\nrecord the dying vestiges of Braemar Gaelic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nhe also had a very deep feeling for the natural environment. When\nAdam talked of “Mother Nature” you felt that he was voicing\na personal relationship; when he talked of the Cairngorms his passion\nwas evident:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“I have\ntravelled the globe widely \u2013 Arctic Canada, the United States,\nScandinavia, the Alps in Italy and Switzerland and many more\noutstanding places \u2013 but every time I return I still think that the\nCairngorms are the most wonderful place on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\u201cThey are certainly not the most\nimpressive peaks but they have a beauty and mystery all of their own\nand I feel at home among them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in the John Muir Trust Journal in 2005 to mark Adam Watson becoming only the second person after Tom Weir to receive the John Muir Trust Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr Adam Watson was the quintessential guru of the Cairngorms; his knowledge of the hills and his authority across the spectrum of their ecological values unparalleled. He even looked the part, with his full white beard giving him an undeniable touch of Gandalf quality. Adam was one of the founding trustees of the John Muir Trust, serving from…<\/span> <\/p>\n

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