Experience shows privatising national park is not an option
ANDREW McKie seems surprised at the reaction to the suggestion by the chief executive of Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park that the park explores the option of privatisation (“Ownership a red herring when it comes to our national parks”, The Herald, June 24). Perhaps the reaction reflects a kind of collective hostility fashioned by the experience of 30 years of such privatisations.
Driven by an ideology alien to most people in Scotland and by commercial interests which recognise lucrative contracts when they see them, the experience is one where public interest is sacrificed to private greed and key sectors of the economy are left worse off. Are the public better served today by privatised energy companies than when these companies operated in the public sector? Are Scotland’s cities better served by the private bus operators or hospitals cleaner after their cleaning services where franchised out? As for the railways, let’s not go there.
The response also reflects historic concerns over land ownership in Scotland, whether it be the Clearances when sheep were regarded as more valuable than people, huge landed estates which hoover up huge subsidies from the taxpayer while managing to avoid paying tax themselves or a concentration of private land ownership, particularly in the Highlands, which distorts the economy and acts as a barrier to sustainable economic growth.
The above experiences have made people hostile to any new proposal for privatisation and protective of the public realm. As for the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park, keeping it firmly within the public realm must be the starting point for any development proposal. William Bonnar, 129 Ardmory Avenue, Glasgow.
THE pro-privatisation pronouncements of Fiona Logan regarding the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park will likely invoke incredulity in anyone familiar with the tenure and management of true national parks such as are found in North America, Fennoscandia, continental Europe and indeed in most countries furth of the UK.
From their inception, Scottish so-called national parks have been nothing more than an oxymoron. With this latest proposed intensification of their already largely-private land tenure, a strong element of farce has been introduced. I would like to challenge those in the chattering classes who favour the neo-tribal kibbutzim of community ownership, backed up with public funds, to explain why they will not support the national community in attaining ownership of their own national parks.
However, I more rigorously challenge the Scottish Government to explain why it will not support Scottish national parks being owned by the Scottish nation and managed by a Scottish National Parks and Wildlife Service. Ron Greer, Armoury House, Blair Atholl, Perthshire.
IF critics continue to carp at Fiona Logan’s ambitious plans for Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park she may be forced into seeking a path of full privatisation, opening up the prospect of moving the lochs and mountains concerned offshore. I’m sure that’s how it works. Alistair Richardson, Pelstream Avenue, Stirling.
ANDREW McKie’s article on ownership of national parks misrepresented the Forestry Commission. He paints the Forestry Commission as a failing organisation to support the argument for private land ownership. This is not the case. The underlying management of the National Forest Estate is funded entirely through commercial income and as a public body Forestry Commission Scotland receives around £20m a year of support from the Scottish Government to deliver recreation, community and environmental benefits over an area equivalent to 9% of Scotland.
Far from being an “unmitigated environmental disaster”, this public estate is certified as sustainably managed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – the commission being the first state service in the world to achieve this accolade. The Forestry Commission has also been awarded the WWF Gift to the Earth award for its environmental work.
We supply more than three million tonnes of sustainably produced timber to the wood processing sector each year, providing the confidence for the investment that has brought 13,000 timber jobs to Scotland. Simon Hodge Chief executive, Forest Enterprise Scotland , 1 Highlander Way, Inverness.