Cairngorms and Lomond & Trossachs National Parks
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I had wanted to climb Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia, ever since meeting some Slovenian climbers on a Mountaineering Council od Scotland many years ago. My interest was fanned by Mike Newbury, a stalwart of MCifS’ access and conservation committee, who went on holiday to Slovenia each year and whose privately published guide I... The post Postcards from the Triglav National Park (4) –…
At the time of writing (19th August( no map has been published showing the actual extent of the Abernethy – Glenmore wildfire. Given that such a map would be of wide public interest, I kept an eye on the Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A satellite imagery, and the one flown on 12/08/2026 was the first occasion when... The post Mapping the extent of the Abernethy – Glenmore wildfire appeared first on…
Walking up through the forest to our first hut below Debela Pec we had little idea if it’s extent until altitude started to stunt tree growth. Prompted by the Glenmore fire and Victor Clements post (see here) I wondered what would happen if a wildfire became established in a forest of this size and if it... The post Postcards from the Triglav National Park (3) – wildfire risk appeared first on…
An RSPB newsletter I read before leaving Scotland for Slovenia, referred to capercaillie as birds of the Caledonian pine forest. This may now be the case in Scotland but wasn’t always so, as when capercaillie inhabited the mixed woodland on the Loch Lomond islands. Capercaillie, while mainly found in the boreal zone, are also distributed... The post Postcards from the Triglav National Park (2) –…
My original plan for this summer was to start walking the Via Alpina, which traverses the arc if the Alps from Trieste to Nice or thereabouts. The first part through Slovenia, however, did not sound that much fun so I decided to spend a week instead wandering through the Triglav National Park. Having skirted the... The post Postcards from the Triglav National Park (1) appeared first on…
A previous article on this (see here) created a significant level of interest and useful feedback, including from BBC Rado Scotland Drivetime and Radio 4 researchers. The message from the post above was that the pinewoods will grow back. The recovery may not be uniform, and there may well be areas of contraction or wider... The post The Cairngorms wildfire and pinewood recovery- PART 2 appeared…
I was prompted to start Parkswatchscotland as a means of combatting the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s proposals to create camping byelaws. Having been involved, as President of the Mountaineering Scotland, in negotiating the agreement which was eventually enshrined in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 I believed there other ways to... The post Lies, damned lies and…
This very short post is concerned with pinewood recovery after wildfire, and based around a 10 minute video shot in the Forest of Birse on Deeside, 23 years after a big fire there in 2003. The video can be found viewed here. The context is the big fires taking place at Glenmore Forest and Abernethy... The post The Cairngorms wildfire and pinewood recovery appeared first on parkswatchscotland .
A month before large areas in Strath Nethy and Glenmore were consumed by fire, I went for a short walk to have a look at part of the Caledonian pinewood around Glen Brown which also lies within the Cairngorms National Park. This fragment of Caledonian pinewood is located on the Dorback Estate, which was purchased... The post Oxygen Conservation’s business model and the conservation of the Glen…
UPDATE 25/07/2026 08.30 This blog was written on Thursday 23rd July, when fire flare ups were first being reported. Police Scotland declared a major incident on the evening of the 24th, with residents of Nethybridge evacuated as a precaution. The current extent of the fire is unclear. There is (currently) no public access to the Glenmore... The post The potential ecological impacts of the fire in…
Walking back from Cook’s Cairn and Corryhabbie Hill in mid-June, I spotted shoeless hoof prints in Glen Suie and then a tepee and two horses in a field by the nearby estate bothy. I went over to have a look and got chatting to a woman minding the camp. She was with two companions and... The post Displacement, access rights and the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s fire byelaws appeared first on…
