The camping problem, nature and wild land: a perspective

The problems of so-called wild camping that I wrote about a month ago have not eased. The media is still full of stories and pictures of trashed campsites, abandoned gear, and damage to the environment. Whatever you call it (I’ll write another post about that) this type of camping is anti-social, unpleasant and upsetting. Maybe some of the perpetrators are doing it out of ignorance and could be educated. Some undoubtedly don’t care.

What I want to do here though is put all this in the context of conserving and restoring nature and wild land. Yes, this vandalism does do damage, especially when tree branches are hacked off and campfires are burnt into the ground. Clearing up the mess creates chores for rangers who could be doing other work. Trees take time to recover. But fire rings can be erased, and litter collected. The areas with these problems are not large, but they are very visible as they’re usually next to roads and often in popular beauty spots. Overall, the damage caused is limited. Of course, it’s to be condemned and everything possible should be done to reduce it (I don’t think complete prevention is possible) but in the overall picture of what is happening to wild land it’s not one of the big problems.

Let’s take campfires for a start. Mostly these create a small patch of burnt ground and perhaps some damage to nearby trees. Very occasionally one gets out of control and devastates a larger area, which is terrible. Certainly, such campfires should be banned and people heavily discouraged from lighting them. But far greater damage is caused by heather burning on grouse moors, which takes place on vast areas of high ground every year, killing wildlife and creating an ugly monoculture. Animals and birds can be killed by litter that isn’t cleared up, which again is terrible. But thousands are killed deliberately on those same grouse moors, all so a few people can blast small birds out of the sky. The devastated landscape of a driven grouse moor is vastly more damaging than some roadside campers leaving rubbish behind. (See Raptor Persecution UK and Mark Avery’s Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands).  

Those grouse moors mean roads too, bulldozed across the hills. In recent years there has been an increase in these and an increase in their size. I’m reminded of the late Edward Abbey who said about chucking his beer cans out of the car window “after all, it’s not the beer cans that are ugly; it’s the highway that is ugly.”. Now  I wouldn’t do that myself or condone anyone else doing so but I think the point he’s making is right. Roads into wild areas are ugly, damaging, and bring problems with them. (This is a good essay on Abbey and roads and beer cans). 

Then there’s over-grazing, monoculture spruce plantations, wind farms and hydro plants. The first two lead to biological deserts with little wildlife and poor vegetation. (For overgrazing see this report from Scottish Environment LINK, for plantations see this piece from the Scottish Wildlife Trust). 

When I walked through the Southern Uplands on my Scottish Watershed walk I was dismayed at how little wildlife there was, most of the hills consisting of sheep pasture interspersed with plantations and the occasional wind farm. Wind farms and hydro plants bring roads and further damage, both visually and to the land. Glen Etive is one of the areas that has suffered from inconsiderate roadside campers. However they’ve had minimal effect compared to the damage that will be done by planned hydro developments (see Save Glen Etive).

 

Industrialising wild places is the big threat, not roadside camping.