When conservation and community work together
Rheannon Ayley is a young US volunteer at the Creag Meagaidh nature reserve
Written by Rhiannon Ayley
Creag Meagaidh NNR – Conservation and Community
Conservation, rewilding, sustainability, carbon capture, environmentalism. These are words which, at this point, are probably very familiar to us. The headlines blare out sensational stories about climate breakdown and impending catastrophe, and we certainly are at a crisis point in human history. Things are changing faster now than they have ever done, and often not for the better.
But what do people really mean when they use these words? What does a utopian future look like to those of us hoping to avoid a calamitous fate for our children? Scotland is seen by many as a trailblazer, leading the way towards a greener future, and a reversal of the environmental destruction the last few centuries have witnessed. But what does this look like on the ground, amongst the lives of everyday people, in a countryside that many see as ripe for the revelation of rewilding?
Over the past six months I have been working as a volunteer at Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve on the shores of Loch Laggan. I have had an opportunity to participate in the work that goes into environmental restoration, and to hear numerous perspectives on the conservation question. Despite the clear-cut consensus of many a conservation publication or newsreel, the reality of work on the ground is much more messy, both figuratively and literally.
How do we balance the need for land regeneration and the safeguarding of biodiversity with the lives and practices in Scotland on which people have come to depend? Creag Meagaidh is a unique example of a nature reserve which actively tackles these questions on a daily basis.
“We have a long way to go to convince local people that conservation is the way forward”, says Rory Richardson, the reserve manager at Creag Meagaidh. When he began working at Creag Meagaidh, over 20 years ago, he was skeptical of conservation ideas:
“I was very anti-conservation because basically the industries that the locals had been trained in was forestry, farming and deerstalking, and we felt that conservation was going to change the way that we lived and survived in the Highlands for many years successfully. And when they first started conservation, they didn’t employ any local people at all, and the jobs all went out of the area.”
This is an issue in many parts of the Highlands. Many people see conservation as a negative, the last nail in the coffin of rural communities which are already struggling to survive. In many cases, the result is an attitude of either/or, where people see a scenario in which only one of the two, conservation or community, can survive. The policies and projects at Creag Meagaidh however, are attempting to bridge that gap, and create an environment where rural communities can flourish alongside, and as a result of, conservation and land regeneration efforts.
There is a real emphasis here on creating a nature reserve which is sustainable and community-oriented. Creag Meagaidh hosts education days for local kids and teens, teaching them the skills and principles they will need to find work in a countryside beset with changes. Young people preparing to go into land management are taught the Best Practice guidelines for deer management here on the reserve.
Creag Meagaidh also provides a place for people to train and qualify for their DSC1 (Deer Stalking Certification 1). The goal always being to create a place where not only can nature flourish, but people in the area can benefit from the opportunities the reserve can offer them.
In order to allow the vegetation on the reserve to grow back and the woodland and blanket bog to regenerate, the staff at Creag Meagaidh cull the deer down to acceptable numbers. This allows for regeneration of the land without fencing being required. Due to the overabundance of deer, Creag Meagaidh has a community stalking scheme which allows local people, with the proper training, to come and shoot deer on the reserve, process them onsite, and take the venison home with them, all for free. This aids in the deer cull on the reserve, and provides people in the area with a free supply of meat for themselves and their families.
Venison is also sold onsite at Creag Meagaidh, to visitors and locals alike. The meat is processed and packaged by the trained staff and volunteers, and sold at a very reasonable price. This is a very recent addition to the reserve, as Rory tells us:
“The venison was going to a big company called Highland Game or Bestwick, big companies that export to Europe. During the Covid period, the price of venison went down from £2.26 to £1, that means that our budget for running the NNR went down substantially. So we then decided we would process it ourselves and try selling it from the farmhouse, which means that we can make up to three times as much value, [or something] very close to it, by processing the venison ourselves. Plus, it does promote venison to members of the public that probably wouldn’t ever buy it. It’s wild, it’s organic, very healthy, and I think people who are buying it will then continue to buy venison, which will help the whole industry.”
Once again the goal is to create a balance between conservation goals and support for rural communities and industries.
Whilst to some people, conservation and sustainability are seen as going hand in hand, a complaint which is often put against conservation initiatives is that they have to be heavily funded from outside the area in order to succeed, and are therefore not financially sustainable. At first, Creag Meagaidh certainly seemed to be living up to that expectation. Initially, the energy for the reserve buildings was all run off diesel generators, which not only had a very heavy carbon footprint, but were also very expensive to maintain.
So the decision was made to put in a hydro scheme to supply all the electricity for operations on the reserve, which has been a great success. Now, all the electricity comes straight from the hydro dam, and is more than enough for all the day-to-day needs for the staff and volunteers onsite. The energy is far more environmentally clean, with a substantially smaller carbon footprint.
Highland cattle also feature at Creag Meagaidh. They are sent up on the hill during the summer and used to break up the new growth on the hillsides and allow a greater mix of plants to regenerate under the young birch and rowan which are coming back to the land. They also fertilise the soil with their dung. At other times, the cattle stay in the lower fields and attract many visitors, many of whom come just to see the ‘hairy coos’ of the Highlands.
As of a week ago, we just finished bailing hay from some of the lower fields to feed the cattle over the winter. All of this is done side-by-side with the regeneration of the wild land surrounding the farmed areas. Despite the common conception that the two are incompatible, the reserve manager maintains that, “there doesn’t need to be a conflict between conservation and farming”, and here at Creag Meagaidh there certainly isn’t.
Creag Meagaidh is a nature reserve which prioritises both conservation and community. All the paid staff come from the local area. Community members are encouraged to visit, buy venison and walk the trails. Visitors and tourists who come to see the highland cattle, or to walk the munros are also very welcome.
Visitor numbers have grown dramatically, and yet this has placed no strain on the continued regeneration of the landscape. Most visitors stick to the paths and low ground in the immediate vicinity of the carpark. The litter left behind, even by large tour buses, is minimal. I would know; as a volunteer worker, one of my jobs is to do a regular litter pick, so I’d be the first to complain if there was a problem.
Ultimately, what I have taken away from my time on Creag Meagaidh is that conservation, like everything else, can’t happen in a bubble. If you want something to survive, you have to make sure it is valued, especially by the people who drive past it every day on their way to work. After decades of change and development, “Creag Meagaidh is an example” says Rory, “a lot of the conservation bodies...they’ve got this vision that we should all be covered in woodland and everything else, but we need people, and we can have both.”
The dichotomy of conservation and community is not an insurmountable obstacle, but rather an opportunity to move beyond old ways of thinking, and hopefully, into a more prosperous future, for the land, and for the people who call it home.