The GoG Blog

Today, 19th March 2021 has seen thousands of rural people join the rural workers protest online and share photos, videos and supportive messages calling for a recognition of their contribution to Scottish life. We are young and old, male and female, working in forestry, construction, haulage, hospitality, as ghillies, farmers, crofters, mechanics, taxi drivers, shepherds,

Mark Ewart of the Southern Uplands Moorland Group believes the proponents of rewilding should engage with the debate over translocation of mountain hare in order to safeguard the future of this iconic species There has been huge debate in recent years over the number of mountain hare in Scotland and reports that they are facing

Jim Goodlad, gamekeeping and wildlife management lecturer at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) Elmwood.  Moorland, peatland, and rough grass types make up over 50% of upland Scotland. This supports upland Scotland in many ways – conservation benefits, the economic impact to local communities through employment, total expenditure, and holistic capital expenditure, everyone gets a bite at

The Gift of Grouse has been working with a wide variety of people and organisations with grouse moors at heart to help highlight the importance of the sector. Many local and remote businesses rely on the industry for business trade and tourism, offering a lifeline to so many people living in rural communities throughout Scotland,

by Jenny McCallum, coordinator of Loch Ness Rural Communities First things first, grouse do not get Corona virus (well let’s hope not), but while we welcome the stories from around the country of those with sufficient numbers to celebrate the start of the shooting season, the Covid-19 armchair epidemiologists might consider why we are not

By Rebekah Strong, Scottish Land & Estates Black grouse were once a widespread, annually harvested species throughout southern Scotland. However, after the First World War black grouse populations began to decline and by the 1970’s few birds were shot. This coincided with the growth of conifer plantations, as government encouraged landowners to grow more trees

The following letter published in The Scottish Farmer offers an important insight into how farmers and gamekeepers have the knowledge and experience to really benefit ground-nesting birds. Mr Robertson makes an important point here. These arguments have also been made by other land managers but it is crucial to keep making our case – we

The Werritty Review included mountain hare culls as one of the topics for its detailed investigation. For those of us at the coal face, as it were, we feel very strongly that the approach adopted by land managers has been to prioritize sustainable management of hare numbers. Gamekeepers only cull when the numbers are disproportionately

The current environmental fashion is in favour of tree planting. Scottish Ministers have a target of 10,000 hectares of new forests per year, increasing to 15,000 hectares per year by 2024. This is a worthwhile initiative and Scotland is ahead of the rest of the UK, with 84% of all new planting happening in Scotland.

Don’t miss the latest issue of The Field which has our thoughts on the Werritty Review and our concerns over the potential for added restrictions on land management in Scotland. The full text of the article is below. All reviews commissioned by Governments can be regarded as political and the “Werritty” report (link) finally published