A Link with the Land - Galson Estate Trust, Isle of Lewis
John Muir Trust Journal, October 2007.
Latha Mòr Ghabhsainn, Galson's Great Day, came on 12 January this year, when the Galson Estate Trust achieved community ownership of the estate's 55,000 acres, the greater part of North Lewis. We spoke to Agnes Rennie, vice-chair of the trust, and to countryside ranger Julie Sievewright.
THINK OF NORTH LEWIS and you may imagine miles and miles of low, drab moorland. The area in fact has plenty of scenic diversity, and on a sunny day vivid colours too: its dynamic Atlantic coastline has dark cliffs, rocky shores, shingle and gleaming sands; along the road, the white houses of its 22 townships stand out from the green of the machair and grassland; the rolling miles of peatlands are certainly vast, but they are not trackless and are rich in human and natural heritage.
Agnes Rennie believes the rural economy, and therefore the landscape, are at a crossroads because of changes in the support systems for crofting, market forces and the effect this has on stock rearing. "The challenge" she says, "is to maintain the link with the land and do something worthwhile with the crofts. People are grappling with how to manage the land so it isn't abandoned on the pretext of becoming a wilderness - something very different from a landscape managed for its biodiversity". The trust has a vision of what the future landscape might be; one that Agnes summed up as: "The land looking managed and cared for; stock around - and also corncrakes and peewits and skylarks and bonxies and eagles". The best chance of a good outcome is if everyone works together and the Trust is beginning to build good relations with the township grazings committees.
The buyout was prepared during a wave of renewable energy schemes in the highlands and islands, and the new trust inherited the lease granted by the previous owner to Lewis Windpower Ltd for part of Europe"s largest wind farm, 181 giant turbines with a blade-top height of 140 m.
The coincidence of this windpower project, Agnes says, gave people the wrong impression of the whole venture. The buyout did not hang on revenues from the developers; it was simply "the right thing to do at the time". Agnes puts her own concerns about the Lewis Windpower scheme down as "the numbers, the scale, questionable economic and environmental returns… and the tearing up of the moor". Galson Estate Trust plans its own community-scale farm of up to three turbines and believes it can make a real contribution to the local economy. Large windfarms are not planned only for Galson or for North Lewis: the latest application, at Pairc in the quiet south east of the island, opens the cumulative prospect of a 40-mile chain of turbines, visible from all over Lewis. Three major windfarms are being opposed by the John Muir Trust, but the JMT is actively supporting smaller community schemes, such as those being put forward in Galson and North Harris.
For all its acres Galson Estate Trust has just one employee: not a land manager, or a factor, or a surveyor, but a countryside ranger. "It's no accident that we took on a ranger first", says Agnes. "We did it to help us engage, and build relationships. Twenty years ago, relationships between crofters and conservation bodies were terrible; no one would have dreamed a ranger would be a first hire for a community trust!"
Relationships - bridge-building - promoting a part of the Western Isles that has been "left out a bit" - these are the core of what ranger Julie Sievewright does. She's based at Habost in Ness, a few miles from Butt of Lewis, and just along the road from Comunn Eachdraidh Nis (Ness Historical Society). The only countryside ranger in the Western Isles, she promotes the natural heritage of the area at all sorts of local venues and events, from a school biodiversity week to guided walks, a carnival and an historical exhibition. With a background working with visitors to Scotland, she also has her eyes on the coachloads from cruise ships putting in at Stornoway. Visitors who make it to North Lewis often just go to the lighthouse at Butt of Lewis and head back. Julie would like them to see, and understand, more of its riches, and is working with the Western Isles Tour Guides Association to help that happen.
Galson Estate has its share of national designations for scenery and wildlife, and its own local nature reserve at Loch Stiapabhat in Ness, a trough of land that may have been used to take ships between the west and east coasts. Julie posts wildlife sightings and the progress of the seasons in an "Urras Ranger" blog, and is bringing out a leaflet on the natural and cultural heritage with JMT partnerships manager Mick Blunt.
Galson's human heritage is all around you. Almost all of the moor is common grazings; it's a cultural as well as a physical landscape whose features are now being written down and digitised. There are 5000 years of history being investigated, and Julie keeps in touch with archaeological teams. Knowledge emerges about monoliths, Viking cemeteries revealed by the advancing sea, churches and cells, the buildings of the governors of Ness; it all enables people - as one historian put it - to feel "at the centre of their own world, rather than at the very periphery of someone else's".