Any park must restore the ecosystem

Restore the ecosystem as the Borders Forest Trust have done. It's Scotland at its best - enhanced, more interesting, more beautiful, more Scottish. We have too many desolate dead glens. When the sheep (an Asiatic herbivore) go, and trees and plants come back areas get back their majesty.

The place needs to be accessible by public transport. If you have to drive there it has failed badly. It has to be more accessible than loch Lomond is from Glasgow. That can be disappointing from the train as its so hard to get deep into the park on foot after taking the train.

The park must be novel and include people. Can we repopulate our Highlands and allow people to live there if they agree to live in harmony with nature? Off grid homes? What a dream that would be!

Get rid of the grazers and bring back the people and the lost nature. Keep out the cars and bring in the trains and people on foot. Bring in the forest, lynx, wolf, beaver and bear...That is something people would come a long way to marvel at.



Why the contribution is important

This would be a radically different national park than the conservative, dull and stagnant parks of the 20th century. It would be alarm which reflects Scotland boldly moving forward, progressively, restoring the wrongs of the past, righting the mistakes, restoring people to the landscape and restoring our degraded environment

by Peakay81 on May 20, 2022 at 10:55PM

Current Rating

Average rating: 4.8
Based on: 17 votes

Comments

  • Posted by EleanorSW May 24, 2022 at 12:53

    As someone who loves being out in the current national parks and values the remote nature of them, the benefits to us all, and importance to so many species, both of plant and animal, I think safeguarding the ecosystems is essential. Having been wild camping and hiking for many years, I am really alarmed by the imbalances I have seen growing in the national parks. One particularly worrying development is the huge rise in the tick population in recent years - something that comes from too many grazing animals, particularly deer population numbers, and is really dangerous for people hiking/camping across Scotland, and shows something is out of balance here. In my last few trips I have had upwards of anything from 10 to 50 ticks, where getting one tick used to be a normal but guaranteed occurrence.

    I am also concerned about the culling of deer on the one hand, while also not controlling private hunting estates (where deer populations spiral and then defeat the purpose of culls, which feels wrong and creates a lot of unnecessary dear deaths). Creating and maintaining ecosystems is vital, and much of this depends on very careful thinking around how to do this (not introducing species without understanding of what this might do) and an understanding that if we continually destroy habitats through foresting/modern agriculture, then the natural processes that take hundreds of years to develop will not be able to take place, and this severely limits how strong and biodiverse ecosystems can be

  • Posted by NicBullivant May 31, 2022 at 11:31

    Most responsibility for environmental enhancement lies with landowners, many of whom prefer to stick with the status quo. National Parks have as one of their aims to enhance the environmental quality of their areas, so giving them more power and funding to follow this through would be welcome.

  • Posted by AndrewB June 02, 2022 at 10:40

    This links through to the other comments on biodiversity. A national park should be an area that shows as complete an ecosystem as possible - that is challenging and will take a great deal of discussion/consultation since there will inevitably be conflicting views from different sectors of interest - especially as soon as re-introductions/translocations of certain species (eg lynx and beaver) are raised.
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