A Park for All

1st September, 2003

Text of speech by Andrew Thin, Convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority, at the formal opening of the Park on Monday September 1, 2003, at 12.15 p.m.

Let me start by welcoming you to Scotland’s (and Britain’s) largest National Park. My apologies for the crush, but a great many people wanted to come. Indeed every second person that I have met over the last few weeks seems to have been offended by the lack of an invitation – although I am told that a handful of tickets have mysteriously turned up on the black market as well. An inability to please everybody all of the time seems to be a feature of this job.

In case you think that large numbers of people on Cairngorm are a recent phenomenon, let me quote to you from the Rev Hugh MacMillan’s book about the area published in 1907 – almost 100 years ago. “The ordinary road to Glenmore Lodge is crowded with vehicles and bicycles during the season…most visitors wish to ascend Cairngorm…At the lodge there gather visitors from all parts of the world, and parties can be traced…all the way up the mountain.”; He goes on to say: “There is room for all, and…it is to be hoped that the crowd of visitors take back with them to the busy haunts of man the visions and inspirations that come to them from the everlasting hills.”; Just as apt today I think.

This occasion has been planned for a very long time. The idea of a National Park in the Cairngorms was first mooted (so I am told) 59 years ago. My first (and slightly more recent) memory of this Park is of standing on the shores of Loch an Eilein with my mother while my father skied across the ice to visit the ruined castle on the island. To a small boy there was something simply wondrous in the way nature could bring about such circumstances. The crisp cold, the silence and the sheer beauty of the scene made a huge impression, even at such a very young age. I have many other memories of the Park that span the years since that January day. Camping one autumn during the rut at Derry Lodge, and lying in the dark listening to the stags roaring all around. Plunging into deep pools in the river below Feshiebridge, and then taking my eight-year-old daughter to do the same many years later. Meeting my wife (as she now is) at a ceilidh in Braemar Village Hall, and more recently taking our children for a meal at the Skiing Doo restaurant in Aviemore – a welcome refuge of idiosyncrasy and character in an increasingly uniform world. Only a few weeks ago, bivvying on the plateau above Loch Einich, listening to a sandpiper calling in the dusk, and wondering how on earth such a peaceful place could on occasions be the focus for so much ridiculous and unnecessary conflict.

This is a very special place. The mountains, forests, rivers, lochs and wildlife are quite extraordinary by any standards. 39 per cent of the Park (and it is a very big Park – twice the size of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs) is designated for its natural heritage interest. 25 per cent is identified as being of European importance. It is a place that people care passionately about, and it attracts visitors from all over the world.

It is not, however, a wilderness area like many National Parks in and elsewhere. People have lived here for thousands of years, and you will find ruined settlements and abandoned cultivations in areas of the Park that many people now regard as wild. 17,000 people still live in the Park, and many more would like to do so if they could find housing and employment here. There are villages, towns and communities scattered throughout, and these contain people for whom the Park is home, and who hope that it will be home for their children too. As with all communities there are people who are rich and poor, fortunate and unfortunate, happy and sad. For these people the creation of the National Park has been an uncertain process. What advantages and disadvantages will it bring? What problems will it solve, or cause? Perhaps most crucially, what say will local people have over the way in which it progresses, and to what extent will the Park become a licence through which outsiders may be able to impose their views? I have been told that I stand on a very unstable knife-edge.

I do not think that this need be so. This Park has an incredible range of potential benefits to offer all of us, and as a consequence the Park Authority is tasked through its founding legislation with looking after a remarkably diverse range of interests. We must make sure that the natural and cultural heritage are cared for, conserved, and in places enhanced, as they are unique assets that can never be replaced. We must promote sustainable use of the natural resources of the area, so that they can make a material and vital contribution to human welfare (and thereby be even more highly valued). We must promote understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the area, including (of course) helping to realise the huge and diverse recreational potential that is on offer here. This should be a place where people, both visitors and locals, have fun. Fourthly, and integral to making this a happy place, we must promote sustainable economic and social development of the communities that are such a vital part of this Park. There is no inherent conflict between any of these. We are all conservationists at heart, and we all need houses, services, incomes, and a future for our children. In an area such as this, environment and economy are inextricably interlinked.

I am, among other things, a mountaineer and a conservationist. There have been times in recent months when I have almost been ashamed to admit this, because a tiny minority of people who share the same interests as I do seem unable or unwilling to understand the priorities and interests of anyone else. I would ask you, however, to be patient. Passion can easily lead people astray, and the relationship that many of us have with the Cairngorms is a profoundly passionate one. I do not think that there is any deliberate intention here to be selfish or to ignore the democratic process. It is, however, important that we all take time to think about the process that we have gone through over the past few years in getting this National Park established. I have been told that people are now suffering from consultation fatigue, and that it is now up to the Park Authority to just get on with it, yet I have also been told that all the endless discussion has been very worthwhile. My view is that while there may well have been enough consultation by government agencies, there has been nothing like enough dialogue between the various interest groups in the Park, and in particular not enough constructive listening by the more vocal ones. I think it essential not only that the Park Authority continues to consult with all relevant interests over the coming months, but also that it demands of all those interests a degree of “other-centredness” that at the moment seems to come more easily to some than to others.

I inherited my love of this place. My grandfather was an early member of the Cairngorm Club. In a letter to his mother, smuggled out of a German prisoner of war camp in 1916, he said that he missed his beloved Cairngorms “more than anything else”. It has been a special place to a great many people for a very long time, and designating it a National Park in some senses changes very little.

We are at the start of a very lengthy process and there is a long way to go. We can only make progress at all through the actions of others. We are an enabling agency – the nearest thing there is to a connective system for delivering joined up government – and we need all of the public agencies (whose boundaries do not, of course, coincide with ours) to think and act in terms of the Park as a distinct and special entity. The public sector, however, is not along in making things happen on the ground. The private sector has a role, and plays its part very well. Delivering the changes that we all want to see in practice must therefore be the result of actions by a myriad of landowners, farmers, crofters, gamekeepers, accommodation providers, restaurateurs, retailers, manufacturers, visitor service providers, and many others. We want to work with all of them. They are the delivery mechanism for this Park, not us.

There are many issues and priorities on which we might focus, and it is important to recognise that we cannot do everything overnight, but there are perhaps four things about which the new Park Authority feels particularly strongly –

We believe that we must ensure vibrant, balanced and stable communities throughout the Park. This must be a Park where young people can see a good future for themselves, where they can find work, training, affordable housing, and where they wish to and are able to bring up their families.
We believe that we must ensure that everyone who comes to the Park can fully appreciate, understand and enjoy its special, and in many ways unique, natural and cultural heritage. In particular this must be a place where people from the more populous areas can literally re create themselves, and where they can find some of the physical, psychological and even spiritual sustenance that John Muir held so dear.
We believe that we must have structured and focused land stewardship schemes for the Park coupled with effective visitor management systems (paths, signposts, information, etc.) so that this wonderful landscape can be enjoyed by everyone and yet at the same time be managed in a way that provides for good local food production, traditional field sports where appropriate, and a diversity of habitats.
Above all we believe profoundly that this must be a Park for All. Not just a Park for the fit and the few; not just a Park for the better off; but a Park that is widely known about; that is welcoming and attractive to all; and that is accessible and enjoyable to everyone; whatever their age, ability or circumstances.
I notice a few wry, even sceptical, smiles around the room. I have listened carefully in recent weeks to what all sorts of people have had to say about the Park, and I have heard views ranging from the deeply cynical to the wildly optimistic. I think that the reality will depend on the actions, and reactions, of all of us. I try hard to be a good listener, but I have also spent much of my adult life sticking my neck out, regretting it, and then sticking it out again. Occasionally, however, I do not regret it – and it is a wonderful feeling. I am not afraid to take risks, or to say and do what I believe to be right. None of this will have much effect, however, without your support and cooperation. More than that the Park Authority will need your active help. We will also need your patience, your understanding, and at times, your courage. This is your opportunity as much as ours. It will be very easy to blow it, and if we do then I believe that our children and grandchildren will rightly curse us for fools.

Let me close, then, with this final thought. Many people seem to see the challenge of this National Park in terms of land management, conservation, planning control, recreation management, business development or visitor services. I do not believe that any of these things are inherently very difficult. The real challenge seems to me to lie in the way in which people locally and nationally think about this Park and their interests in it. There has been far too much of “what can I get out of this” and “how can I protect my interest here.” What we need is a different sort of mindset for the future, one that cares about the interests of others, one that cares about society as a whole, and one that is based on common vision and reasoned compromise. These are not exactly novel concepts.

I am delighted to welcome two very distinguished people to formally open the Park for us. One represents the vision, in the form of Liz Hannah – John Muir’s great great granddaughter. John Muir was a Scot who founded the whole idea of National Parks – but went to North America to do it, although of course the US President in office at the time (Ulysses Grant) came from very near here. Our other guest represents the political will to make things happen, in the form of Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Affairs. I am sure that the irony would not be lost on John Muir in the fact that we first had to get our own Scottish Parliament before we could get our first National Park.

To mark the opening of the Park, I am delighted to present Liz and Allan with paintings featuring different parts of the Cairngorms. To Liz and the John Muir family, this painting of Frazer’s Bridge on the old road to Braemar, painted by Arni Lancaster whose family have lived on Deeside for many generations. Her picture encapsulates, I think, much of the atmosphere of Glenshee. The painting that we have chosen for Allan is of the Lairig Ghru. Ann Vastano, brought up on Rothiemurchus and now living in Aviemore, has captured the splendour and the wildness of the Cairngorms in this picture, but in the past of course the Lairig was the equivalent of the A9 today. Thousands of cattle, men and boys must have passed through here on their way to markets in the east and south. Seton Gordon in one of his books talks about young women in groups of three or four carrying baskets of eggs through the Lairig to sell in Braemar. Economic links between west and east sides of the Park are not a new idea.

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