SUSTAINABLE economic growth is on the agenda for the SNP spring conference. Given Scotland’s geography, land management plays a crucial role in this.

Around 10% of Scotland’s eight million hectares is now used for some sort of grouse shooting. Well-managed moorlands provide habitats for at least 57 bird species as well as mountain hares, as evidenced by recent Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust research. Without shooting interests these areas would be managed differently, harming wildlife and biodiversity.

It has also been estimated that moorland management supports the equivalent of 2,640 full-time jobs and £30 million in wages for the Scottish economy, mainly in remote rural communities.

Visitors come from within the UK and across the world to shoot grouse and it is a significant tourism sector for Scotland, benefiting a wide range of people in moorland areas. The best estimate is that there are more than 6,000 participants each year in Scottish grouse shooting.

Land managers also make a major contribution to tackling wildlife crime, which is at an all-time low. They could help even more if there was early and open sharing of satellite tagging data to search for missing birds and gather vital evidence about what has happened to them.

Finally, it is worth noting that muirburn (the controlled burning of heather) improves the habitat for wildlife and is carried out in line with a recently updated code of practice. Done correctly, it avoids damaging peat and does not impact carbon storage. Furthermore, controlled burning will reduce the risk of wildfires. There have been very few wildfires as a result of grouse muirburn, and trained keepers are of huge help to Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in combatting wildfires.

There is simply no other unsubsidised use of moorland that would be practical and generate the same economic and environmental benefits.

Tim Baynes
Scottish Land & Estates Moorland Group

UNLIKE Andrew Hughes Hallett, I am no expert, but I thoroughly enjoyed his article yesterday on the various methodologies of managing a country’s currency (Stability and flexibility are at the heart of the currency debate, April 26).

What I have is a memory, longer than most and long enough to recall the energy price shocks of the 1970s.

When North Sea oil was first produced and landed in the UK in 1975, the pound sterling was considered to be a petro-currency and the pound gained strength against most other currencies. When OPEC coordinated higher oil prices, the pound got stronger and this was a major factor in the deindustrialisation of the UK economy during the 70s and 80s.

Now that the UK is more of a service-based economy, with oil and gas being a much smaller component, energy price fluctuations have less of an impact today. However, when Scotland becomes an independent nation, one can still imagine that the loss of oil revenue to the UK Treasury will have a negative impact on the pound. A lower pound usually causes inflationary pressure but is normally good for exports.

I think we would be mad, therefore, to be operating our own currency from the first day of independence; when instead we can be building up our reserves, and an export-based economy, on the back of a weaker pound.

Our own currency can be launched as soon as we are ready; preferably with a stronger and broader-based economy, which by then has an impressive track record.

Alan Adair
Blairgowrie

MICHAEL Fry claims to be a climate convert (April 23) having witnessed the disappearance of a glacier in the Valais canton of Switzerland during his lifetime.

But he assures us we shouldn’t be alarmed. We should be fine until around 2050 or 2060, by which time he and most of his readers will be dead. What’s to worry about? After all, haven’t we all enjoyed an Easter holiday with wonderful warm weather?

Tell that to the citizens of Mozambique or neighbouring countries that have had to endure not one cyclone but two in the past few weeks, the second, ongoing one having no precedent in that part of east Africa. I have recently received a letter telling me that a little to the west, in Zambia, there has been a disastrous crop failure in parts of the country.

Has Mr Fry not heard of the thousands of peasant farmers and their families fleeing countries like Guatemala because of drought and joining caravans of desperate people heading for the USA border? Climate change? No need to worry? Well, at least not here in Scotland. We’re all right, Jack!

According to Mr Fry, one reason why we don’t have to fear extinction is because 12000 years ago our distant forefathers survived the last Ice Age. And why? Because they fled to north Africa to escape the ice sheets that covered most of Europe. See any present day parallels? How about the thousands fleeing from the drought-threatened countries in the south to find land and a living in the countries of the north?

We may not be facing extinction, Mr Fry, but as sure as the effects on people of the last Ice Age, a lot of folks are going to be seriously disadvantaged in the coming decades.

But don’t worry, we’ll be able to have picnics in Bellahouston Park under cloudless skies!

Malcolm Christie
via email