Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
National Parks
Scotland has two national parks - Loch Lomond & the Trossachs (
Click here
)
and the
Cairngorms (
Click here
)
. But national parks are only part of the story. There's a huge
range of protected areas with a bewildering array of 25 distinct classifications. Forty-sev-
en National Nature Reserves
(
www.nnr-scotland.org.uk
)
span the country, and there are
also marine areas under various levels of protection.
Environmental Issues
Scotland's abundance of wind and water means the government hasn't had to look far for
sources of renewable energy. The grand plan is to generate 100% of the country's energy
needs from renewable sources by 2020, and things look to be on track. Scotland has been
a European leader in the development of wind technology - wind farms now dot the hills
and firths (estuaries), and the near-constant breeze in some areas means record-breaking
output from some turbines.
The problem is, although everyone agrees
that wind power is clean and economical,
there's a powerful NIMBY (not in my back
yard) element who don't want the windmills
spoiling their view. And it's not just the whirr-
ing blades, of course. A remote Highland wind
farm is all very well, but the power lines trail-
ing all the way down to the south have a signi-
A beautifully written book about Scotland's wild-
life, penned by a man who lived and breathed
alongside the country's critters in a remote part of
the Highlands, is
A Last Wild Place
by Mike
Tomkies.
ficant visual and environmental impact.
One of Scotland's major goals over the last
decade or so has been to halt a worrying de-
cline in biodiversity on land, in the air and in
the sea. You can see progress reports on the
Scottish Natural Heritage website
(
www.snh.gov.uk
)
but a huge threat to existing
species is, of course, climate change. A rise of
a few degrees across the north would leave plenty of mountain plants and creatures with
no place to go; it's already been speculated that the steady decline in Scotland's seabird
population since the early '90s has been partly caused by a temperature-induced decrease
in certain plankton species.
Scottish Natural Heritage
(
www.snh.gov.uk
)
is the
government agency responsible for the conserva-
tion of Scotland's wildlife, habitats and landscapes.
A key initiative is to reverse biodiversity loss.
