Why Revive? When facing Scotland’s powerful landowning lobby the next Scottish Parliament must be brave and make the right choices for our people, wildlife and crucially, the environment.
ABOUT a year from now Scotland is due to go to the polls to decide on a new Scottish Government for a parliamentary term that could be the most important for decades to come. As we (hopefully) will have left one tragic crisis behind in the form of Covid 19 the world faces an ongoing environmental crisis that threatens our very existence as a species. The actions that this parliament takes, along with its counterparts around the world, could be decisive in determining how humanity survives and the Scottish Parliament must play its part by acting quickly and decisively.
Land is one of Scotland’s key assets – environmentally as well economically. Who owns our land, how they use it and how this might change has been debated for decades but it is clear that progress has not been swift enough.
Some estimates put land used for shooting interests in Scotland at 4.4 million hectares – that’s over half our landmass – while a significant proportion of that land is used for grouse moor management, one of Scotland’s worst and least regulated land uses.
A circle of destruction surrounds Scotland’s grouse moors in which the land is burnt, mass outdoor medication is left out in the open, tons of lead shot are spread across the countryside, bulldozed hilltracks scar the land and tens of thousands of foxes, stoats, weasels, crows and mountain hares are snared, trapped and killed – all so grouse can be maintained at unnaturally high numbers, so a few people can shoot them for sport.
Then there are the illegal practices which are often associated with grouse shooting as birds of prey like golden eagles, that are protected by law, are often found dead or ‘go missing’ in suspicious circumstances, in areas dominated by grouse moors.
In short, driven grouse shooting, the most intensively managed form of the blood sport, is inherently unsustainable and keeping the land managed as barren monocultures in this way will maintain a large area of Scotland’s land in an impoverished state. This is why the Revive coalition has proposed alternative visions for our moors and launched the manifesto we hope political parties will adopt into their own.
Read the Revive manifesto here
The manifesto makes three core propositions, that our moors should be transformed to protect the environment instead of damaging it, that we protect our wildlife instead of destroying it and that land reform should be back on top of the national agenda – and be tackled on a national scale at a national level. Grouse moors may be a bad use of land but therein lies the opportunity for our next Scottish Parliament.
For all the land managed for grouse shooting, possibly 12-18% of Scotland’s land, the industry contributes around £23 million pounds to Scotland’s economy. That might sound like a lot of money to most people reading this but as a percentage of Scotland’s economy that translates to about 0.02% of Scotland’s GVA. In other words, if Scotland’s economy was the size of Ben Nevis then grouse shooting’s contribution would be the size of a small banjo. Forestry alone provides about 30 times the economic impact and several times more jobs for a similar land size.
The environmental opportunity that reforming our moors offers at this time of climate crisis is crucial. Forty percent of the area of land burned for grouse in Scotland is on deep peat. Peatland in Scotland stores almost 25 times as much carbon as all trees and plants in the UK – in fact, if all the carbon stored by Scotland’s peatlands were released at once that would be the equivalent of over 140 years’ of Scotland’s current carbon emissions.
Burning on these habitats can damage the functioning of these bogs, potentially leading to peat loss, increased carbon emissions and a reduction in, or prevention of, peat formation and carbon sequestration. The Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Roseanna Cunningham, called the Government’s peat restoration fund a ‘game changer’ and this coupled with ending muirburn for grouse shooting absolutely would be - reducing carbon emissions and increase carbon sequestration.
Ending the cruel killing of Scotland’s wildlife just so there are more grouse available for sport shooting is an opportunity for the nation. Our iconic wildlife, including widely persecuted birds of prey, will be better protected and we would be ending the senseless killing at a time when the world faces a crisis in wildlife loss on a mass-scale. Protecting our wildlife instead of destroying it could also increase our wildlife tourism sector which already contributes over 5 times more than grouse shooting to the economy (£ 127 million a year according to Scottish National Heritage).
Of course, intrinsically linked with land use is the issue land ownership and land reform. It is estimated that over half of Scotland’s private land is owned by just 432 people. We have the most inequitable land ownership in all of Europe.
Transformational land reform is an opportunity for us all however, Scotland’s powerful landowning lobby have a strong vested interest in maintaining the status-quo. Grouse shooting is part of that status-quo.
These interests often maintain their power by telling us that there are no alternatives to their way of doing things, that what we have now is as good as it gets, then use their lobbying power to make brave initiatives mediocre. The next parliament will require the vision and bravery to stand up against those (currently) powerful vested interests.
In short, all the unsustainable things that happen to make sure there are more grouse available for sport shooting should end and if driven grouse shooting cannot survive without the unsustainable practices, then so be it. There are many other ways to manage our land much better.
Download the Revive manifesto here
Coupled with transformational land reform, enacted at a national level, ending the circle of destruction of grouse moors can benefit Scotland’s people, wildlife and crucially, the environment. If driven grouse shooting specifically, the most intensive form of management, was to end, there is a clear opportunity for not merely ending the environmental damage they cause but also an opportunity to diversify our uplands – to increase carbon sequestration and benefit biodiversity while improving job prospects.
In next year’s election, political parties will have to reflect the aspirations of Scotland’s people and commit to tackling the biggest issues while we still can. The people of Scotland will be asking themselves whether they want to live in a country where huge swathes of Scotland, owned by very few people, is used to kill countless animals so more animals can be killed for sport, where the land is abused and the environment is damaged or whether they want to vote for a party that will do something about it.
Revive urges Scotland’s political parties to commit to significantly reforming Scotland’s grouse moors as this will help to unlock our land’s true potential at this crucial time.
If you want to help revive our moors you can write to your MSP on this link and ask them to support our manifesto, linked below:
Revive manifesto readable link is HERE
