epicyclo
Senior Retro Guru
Rewilding is an attempt to create a mythical landscape, not what was there.jonthefish":2sirmt1p said:Lister and Alladale aside, there's no inevitable conflict between rewilding and right to roam. I agree with sentiments re toff landlords but at present we have a right to roam through a denuded, degraded and depopulated landscape run for deer, sheep and very few folk. Rewilding could ultimately increase the productivity of the landscape (think forests and smallholdings) and if we could get rid of our stupid feudal system of land ownership could help support more people in the glens. So for me it is yes to both rewilding and a right to roam. And more folk in more productive land.
Those hills were hooching with people at the same time as the animals. The hills were not wild, there was agriculture and pastoral activity, and humans kept the predators strictly in check. The wild animals weren't cuddly ornaments for the visiting wealthy to ooh and ah over.
Let me give an example.
Last Sunday Jamie and I were at Forsinard at the RSPB tower looking at the vast expanses of empty land. It couldn't get emptier. No signs of human habitation except at the very small village. At the top of a nearby hill is the remains of a decent sized fort with a good view over the landscape.
A fort takes a lot of human resources to build, and you don't build one unless there's something worth guarding. If you take the manning of a Roman fortlet as an example (purely because that's on record) you'd have about of 30-40 men at arms. They would have families. This fort is 400 metres from the local ground level and no easy approach so it's not some casual defence system like a village wall.
There also was a community in the area which created the wealth required to build a fort, supply it, and be the reason for its building. There are the remains of several hut circles next to Forsinard station, about 4 km from the fort. Suddenly that 'wild' land has a population of at least a few hundred just in its immediate vicinity and probably much much more.
You'll find remains of similar communities all over the desert that the Highlands have become, and no great distance between any of them. Duns, brochs, hut circles etc abound except where "Improvements' have ploughed them under or used the stone for dykes. I've dragged poor Jamie over all sorts of godawful country to see the remains, so he can back me up about the density of them.
That is what the landscape would have been like back then - people. Before that there was 2-3,000 feet of ice over it.
Supporting 'rewilding' is sharpening up the thin end of the wedge for the landowners to exclude non-paying users of the land and continue the effects of the Clearances.