BY CALUM CAMPBELL
There is a particular strain of environmentalist for whom the Scottish Highlands represent nothing less than a crime scene. They gaze upon the heather-clad hills and see a “devastated countryside” — a forest felled by human wickedness, kept treeless only by the tyranny of deer and sheep.
There is only one problem. They are talking rot.
Dr James Fenton, a retired ecologist, has had the audacity to say so in print. His peer-reviewed paper argues that much of the Highland landscape is naturally open — because young trees, in the presence of large herbivores, need protection the Highlands largely do not provide (thorny scrub, winter snow cover, or exceptionally rich soils). The moorland, he concludes, is not a wound but a climax.
The response from the Rewilding Scotland brigade on Facebook has been instructive. Not because it offers any substantive rebuttal — one searches in vain for engagement with Fenton’s trophic-level calculations or his analysis of the Roy Military Maps (which show 96% of the Highlands already treeless by 1750). But because it reveals the intellectual poverty of those who have elevated tree-planting to a secular religion.
“He’s a dick,” writes Gus Hunter. “Mind boggles,” marvels Ruby Alba. “Listening to old white guys is unsustainable,” announces Megan Crawford — a contribution so devoid of content it hardly qualifies as thought.
When they are not being rude, they are being conspiratorial. Harley Mathieson declares Fenton “a paid shill for the SGA”. Alan Tytler suggests he must work for “the shooting fraternity”. The fact that Fenton was formerly the ecologist for the National Trust for Scotland, and that his argument rests on soil science and plant succession rather than lobbyist talking points, is airbrushed from history. A man disagrees with them, therefore he is corrupt.
One commentator, Aöalsteinn Sigurgeirsson, helpfully provides a link to a list of logical fallacies. He does not say which fallacy Fenton has committed, nor explain how. He simply gestures, as if mere proximity to the word “fallacy” might contaminate an argument he cannot actually refute.
This is what passes for debate in the Rewilding comment section. Not evidence, but abuse. Not science, but sanctimony. And it matters, because these people shape conservation policy and direct public money on the basis of a founding myth.
Dr Fenton’s paper demonstrates, patiently and with copious references, that the myth is unsustainable. The Highlands are not a deforested wasteland awaiting redemption. They are a natural landscape, shaped by deep history, poor soils, wet climate, and the red deer who have always been there.
Noone in their right mind can oppose tree planting in the right space. All should oppose dogma. And all should oppose the degradation of public discourse to the level of “he’s a dick”. The Rewilding faithful have answered a scientific argument with name-calling and gossip. They have embarrassed themselves, their movement, and the cause of intelligent environmentalism.
Perhaps they should spend less time on Facebook and more time on the hill. Preferably in the rain. They might learn something.
Share this if you believe conservation discourse should be rooted in evidence, not exaggeration.
Calum Campbell is a commentator on rural and environmental issues in Scotland.