RSPB backs hill farming

01 October 1998

RSPB backs hill farming

STRONG support for hill farming came from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at a meeting in Oban on Tuesday night which drew an audience of 300.

Speaking from the floor, RSPB conservation officer Paul Walton said: “The environment of Scotland is agriculture. The hill farming crisis is also a crisis for the environment.

“If the rural population declines even further it is the environment which will suffer.”

But Fort William farmers wife Kirsty McLeod was unimpressed. “They say they support hill farming but have spent years publicly criticising hill and upland sheep farmers for spoiling the environment by overgrazing.

“Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I would like to hear the support voiced on radio and television as well as at a farmers meeting like this one,” she said.

Mr Walton said any blame for spoiling the environment did not lie with farmers, but with the economic systems within which they had to work:

“The key is to develop a system which keeps farmers farming but also delivers environmental benefits. If consumers can link buying Scottish food to a pleasing Scottish environment then you will have their support. Rural depopulation strikes a chord with urban people.”

Mike Gibson from the Scottish Landowners Federation said a real government commitment was needed to link farming and the environment. “The current Scottish Countryside Premium scheme is no more than a glossy brochure and I am very worried that farmers and landowners will switch from farming to forestry in a big way. Will tourists want to visit Scotlands forest park?”
he asked.

The Oban meeting was the second in a series of a three hill farming roadshows organised by the Scottish NFU and eight other organisations.