Filed for The Guardian, 30 October 1991
Nature conservation in Scotland is facing an unprecedented crisis of confidence because of a series of financial and political problems encountered by the government’s attempt to reorganise its environmental agencies.
The management of nature conservation areas and other environmental programmes are suffering, staff are demoralised and resources severely restricted. A number of senior officials have resigned or sought early retirement, while important vacancies have been left unfilled. The future, according to many insiders and observers, looks bleak.
The newly-formed Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland has been forced to make a series of cutbacks to fund a £1 million compensation payment to John Cameron, Europe’s largest sheep farmer and the chairman of British Rail in Scotland. He was awarded the money two months ago by the Scottish Lands Tribunal in exchange for not planting trees on two sites of special scientific interest on his 20,000-acre Glenlochay estate in Perthshire.
There are another 23 compensation claims in the pipeline, none of which are expected to be as high as Cameron’s, but which nevertheless will represent a substantial drain on the NCCS’s £19 million budget this year. The organisation has hence been obliged to cut back on recruitment, research and collaboration with voluntary groups.
NCCS has bid for an extra £600,000 this year so that some of the postponed projects can be reinstated - a request to which the Scottish Office is likely to respond positively. Ironically none of the compensation claims, which all go back more than two years, would be entertained now because of a change in the forestry compensation arrangements made by the government in 1989.
NCCS is due to be merged with the Countryside Commission for Scotland next April to form the Scottish Natural Heritage agency, one of the Scottish Office’s main claims to green credibility. The change, which meant breaking up the UK Nature Conservancy Council and has been opposed by most staff and conservation organisations, is still creating much chaos and confusion.
“People are concerned about what they will be able to achieve in terms of nature conservation and to be honest the future looks gloomy. They may not be able to achieve as much as they could under the old regime,” said John Gallacher, chairman of the NCCS trade unions.
Another difficulty is a new review procedure for sites of special scientific interest introduced as an eleventh-hour concession to landowners in the House of Lords. This only applies to Scotland and enables landowners who object to a site on their land to challenge the scientific validity of the designation.
Magnus Magnusson, chairman of NCCS and chairman-designate of Scottish Natural Heritage, has said he is “deeply unhappy” with the change. It also provoked the resignation of Sir Fred Holliday, chairman of the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee, who has subsequently been replaced by a Tory peer, the Earl of Selborne.
The key question of course is the resources that the Scottish Office will make available to Scottish Natural Heritage. It is expecting a minimum of £26 million - the total spent this year on NCCS (£19m) and the Countryside Commission for Scotland (£7m).
The Guardian can reveal that it has actually bid for £34 million, but been told by the Scottish Office to ask for less. Proposed staff numbers throughout the organisation are hence being cut back, sometimes almost halved. The Scottish Office will probably end up providing a budget somewhat closer to £26 million.
The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Scottish office is arguing that the new agency really needs £38 million to do its job properly. It is also suggesting that the agency’s core funding should be ring-fenced to protect it against the impact of the 23 pre-1989 compensation claims.
“At the moment the organisation is being penalised for doing its job. The government has landed this duty on them and the government should pick up the bill,” said WWF’s Martin Mathers. He also argued that the money for compensation payments was not being used positively for conservation, it was being used negatively to prevent sites being damaged.
One of the fiercest critics of the reorganisation, the UK Nature Conservancy Council’s former chief scientist, Dr Derek Ratcliffe, has pointed out how much positive conservation could have been achieved with the £1 million handed out to John Cameron. He has urged the government to think of a way of avoiding forking out for the other compensation claims.
Otherwise, he said, the government will “stand accused of contriving a policy which bleeds nature conservation of its already meagre funds while reinforcing an apparent contempt for social justice.”