Scotland's Moorland Forum publishes a new vision for our moorlands

Scotland's collective voice for moorlands today (6 March 2020) launches Valuing Scotland's Moorlands - a unique and in many ways ground-breaking paper that for the first time offers a truly cross-sector consensual view on the future of Scotland's moorlands.

The twenty-seven organisations making up the Forum meet today in Perth to launch Valuing Scotland's Moorlands. In it the Forum sets out how moorland habitats – as part of a diverse uplands - can contribute to tackling the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis and continue their vital role in the rural economy of Scotland. It points the way towards integration of habitats and management and suggests policy reforms for land use and management support.

The Forum's Chairman, Hugh Raven, says –

"We've developed Valuing Scotland's Moorlands as our moorland managers are being ask to deliver many vital and diverse outcomes. Moorland has a crucial role in climate stability, flood regulation, water quality, wildlife abundance, and retaining a working population in upland and often very remote rural areas. This is a tough circle to square.

"The Forum focusses on the many issues that make such integration possible. Our latest publication brings those thoughts together, depicting a future where multiple benefits are supported by both public and private investment. We are now looking to work with government to realise our vision and to take forward our call to explore, trial and demonstrate fully integrated approaches and the options that might fund them".

He added -

"One of the things Scotland's Moorland Forum does well is to openly explore issues and build consensus. Valuing Scotland's Moorlands represents one important success of that approach. We hope it will provide government with a valuable and important contribution to developing future land use and management policy in Scotland."

A copy of Valuing Scotland's Moorlands can be found here.

Chairman Hugh Raven