On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:01.2)
Hello and welcome to On Landscape. I'm here with James McGurk and Joe Cornish on another issue of Any Questions. We've been having chats myself, Joe and a few other people about what photography does for the environment, both good and bad historically. And there's very good examples on both sides. And I think recently having seen some of the abuse that the Instagrammers have been instigating. And in this case, it wasn't the...

the influence of the Instagrammers that did some damage. It was the actual Instagrammer himself. Elmell this guy triggered a little chat about, let's discuss it and see what's happening. So welcome James and hello again Joe. What I'd like to ask first is, who are you James? What do do? What's your job? I know you're from the National Trust and I know what you do because you live around the corner from us. But if you could tell everybody who's online.

James (01:03.553)
Hi, so yes, I am James and I'm one of the National Tourist for Scotland ranger team for Glencoe National Nature Reserve. So we have a fairly large area of mountains here. look after much of Anarki, Beech and Nambiarn and all of Bucholettiveberg and Bucholettive Moor. So a very big patch of Melmoor as well, another big hill in the area. So it's a big patch, which is biologically fascinating.

It's kind of going from near to sea level up to some very high mountain tops with just about every habitat that you can fit into that from some amazing remnants of ancient woodland to incredibly rare Arctic alpine plants on the summits, heathland, lochs, grasslands, things that have been created by humans and things that have survived quite pristine without so much human influence. And so we're looking after this for the natural heritage and for the historic heritage.

and to the beauty of the landscape and attempting to do that in a way that kind of benefits everybody who comes here overall. So yes, I think there might be about two million cars go through the middle of the nature reserve each year because we have the 82 and the main route up to Fort William and Skye and slightly fewer than that. Actually, going out in the hills, I think there's a huge number of people around the roadsides and yet some of my favourite spots in the mountains

Tim Parkin (02:10.916)
Yeah, lot of people come there, don't they?

James (02:31.98)
There's a handful of climbers and botanists and it doesn't really feel like anybody else has ever stepped into them.

Tim Parkin (02:38.288)
And to give people who don't know Scotland or the Highlands, the area you're covering really is, if you look at the central belt, which is where the cities are, it's about two hours from the central belt. And the visitors from the cities have caused that much damage in the past that I suppose the first hour outside of Glasgow, which is the biggest city, has banned camping completely because it's whether you agree with that choice or not, that's what they've done. And they've pushed visitors further north as it happens. I think...

with the area around Lenco is like you say, it's on the motorway up north essentially, isn't it? It's not really a motorway, but it's used as one almost.

Joe (03:19.064)
Yeah, still a one lane in each direction road that one and you know, many of us know it extremely well. So I'm very familiar with with the territory that you cover, James and so many questions sort of spring to mind. You mentioned two million cars. actually really fascinated to whether you do have figures for their number of people who actually leave the car park and head out into the hills or is that a kind of impossible figure to

to count.

James (03:51.575)
It's an impossible figure to get precisely now we've just renewed some people counters on the footpaths so that we can monitor that more precisely. We had some in the past they did a good stint and I think one was lost to vandalism a couple have been lost to age. So if we renewed them we're going to be able to get some more up-to-date figures and I think the estimates are sort of around between 60,000 and 150,000 people potentially each year.

sort of walking a little distance away from the car parks. But some of those cantas are quite close to them still. So fewer once you get up to the mountaintops, but still definitely vast numbers for somewhere so mountainous.

Joe (04:35.982)
Yeah, and it's obviously fragile ecosystems abound, partly because of the steepness of the land and the nature of the vegetation is by no means always that robust. But in particular, the steepness of the ground makes it quite loose and any of us who've spent any time walking and climbing there know just how important it is to respect it.

to try wherever possible to avoid damage. And of course it is difficult often, especially if you were to walk off path. And it's also true to say that although there are numerous paths, many of them, or most of them indeed are not engineered. So that further exacerbates the situation, I guess.

James (05:23.511)
Yeah, yeah, and I think those ecosystems, they're very fragile in some ways and can be quite easily damaged, but incredibly resilient in others as well, because obviously we have things that are growing on the summit of Beijing at 1150 meters altitude and specialize to the places where the snow is lying really late in the air and they can survive pretty much anything that weather and altitude can throw at them. But yes, then some of them much more sensitive to big human changes like extra

nutrient loads or a trampling or anything like that. There's been a huge amount of work here on maintaining footpaths to where people are walking, building that lens so that people can step on it without causing any damage. And yeah, lot of ongoing work.

Tim Parkin (06:08.08)
What would you say? I I know where I think some of the busiest places are, but that's probably from as a photographer. There's a viewpoint in front of the Bucklehtive Moor, next to a waterfall that's on the Glen Etive Road that is, as far as I'm aware, probably the most used bit of landscape photography, real estate in the area. It's a bit of a quagmire, I think, now.

James (06:32.31)
Yeah, another spot you mean. I think I have been told, I don't quite know where the statistics came from, but that Bicholet of Moor from that spot is the most photographed mountain in Scotland. And there's that spot. And then there's a big car park in front of the Three Sisters of Glencoe as well. Certainly for people staying close to roads, I think those are the places that get the biggest numbers.

Joe (06:54.284)
Yeah, that all makes sense. I guess we're kind of eventually heading relentlessly towards this rather horrible question, which is, do photographers do more harm than good? But before I ask that question, Tim, forgive me if I'm taking over here just on the stage, but a bit of background to my own experience working for the National Trust because I've been a National Trust freelance photographer since 1988.

And I still work and associate with the National Trust quite a lot, including this year. And for me, it's been a fantastic opportunity to be involved with a great conservation organization. And I'm hugely grateful for that. And I do feel personally, kind of element of my career, at least, has been in part very much supported and helped by working for a conservation organization.

And you kind of want to believe that you're on the right side of history and that you're there to help as much as you possibly can. So it's been very disturbing to realize that we collectively as photographers may not always be achieving what we might like to in that regard. And I do remember just finally on this point, having a conversation in fact with a National Trust estate manager probably back in 1989.

who said that the constant conflict National Trust has to manage is the one between access and conservation. And in that battle, access always won. So discuss.

James (08:41.111)
I start working with the National Trust South of the border or with the National Trust for Scotland. Both of them, OK, yeah.

Joe (08:47.512)
Both, fact, predominantly South's border, yeah.

James (08:53.111)
Yeah, so I think here, mean, so I think some of states like Glencoe first were given to the National Trust of Scotland by the Scottish Mountaineering Club in the 1930s. And we sort of had a set of principles that came from them with which we were meant to look after the land, the principles that are talking about, yeah, trying to balance that access and conservation. And I think, I know...

Certainly Persuina was very, very keen on avoiding having signs in places, avoiding making anything easier for people to access and more just dealing with that. And again, the situation has changed a lot and heading towards a hundred years since that point, but I think still trying to guide, use those principles. I think it's maybe, I'm not so familiar with how things are south of the border as separate organization, obviously. I think here there has been,

There have been quite a few places, I think, where we have still been maybe managing to limit the access and more, well, so not limit the access, but preserve the conservation over the top of it. Sorry, that's him.

Tim Parkin (09:59.152)
redirecting people. Yeah. Is it redirecting people rather than limiting access?

James (10:06.027)
Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of conversations with a footpath manager here about what to do about all these circumstances where people are going to the place and a lot of the footpath work we're doing, it's where people are walking. We are making sure that line can sustain them rather than creating something to walk in the mountains. And there's quite a difference for us between the mountains and the lowlands. So some of our, maybe the area around the visitor center in Glencoe, we're managing a trail there to help people go into that patch of wood around the visitor center and come into this place and enjoy it.

Whereas on the high mountains here, we are purely working to make sure whoever is going there causes as little damage as possible and we aren't going to do anything to kind of promote them accessing it. And it is a hard balance to do and yeah, while those principles are all very well in good practice, when you have, again, over 100,000 people potentially walking onto the mountains here,

There's a Scottish Outdoor Access Code, yeah, there is a write which is very good for people to be able to access and enjoy land in Scotland if they do it responsibly. And I guess we do everything we can to try and get that balance. I think we do the best as possible, but I would really... It's a shame sometimes that it's never easy.

Tim Parkin (11:04.013)
think it's Percy.

Tim Parkin (11:26.618)
Yeah, because Percy on his principles basically said, don't do anything. Don't change the land at all. And obviously by saying that, you probably damage the land more. So interventions, I presume, are just judged on how much they rip the balance of trade-offs between, for instance, paths destroying the land versus putting a stepped path in.

James (11:50.379)
Yeah, I think the... Yeah, things like the paths, I mean, guess where there's some very good pictures that have been taken of some of these places before the path lines got put in, and you can have a 20 metre or more wide scar of erosion coming down a hill, and certainly if you leave some place in the Lake District going up, which have now been repaired actually, you can see from miles away the lines people are walking on. And when the step path been put in, when you get close up to the step path, it can look a little bit unnatural, but...

when you stand a mile away in many of these places, you can't even see that there's a path there. So again, it's a frustrating one. I would love to be able to just leave the hillsides and not have a single step on them. But in practice, actually, where we've got that stone petting going up the hill for areas that being walked a lot, you are seeing from a distance, you are seeing a much lower impact on the landscape. And again, where we've got these really fascinating and incredibly rare Arctic plants growing high up on the mountain sides.

that is the way to stop them from being trampled and the way to maintain that habitat.

Joe (12:56.014)
I must say that I think that that argument, the, you know, cause Tim, you kind of pose the question is probably, there's so many good examples of how well engineered footpaths, I mean engineered just in the sense of, of well designed and laid out and planned to do a tremendous amount to protect the adjacent areas of, landscape, which otherwise, as you know, just get wider and wider and wider, you know, as people try to avoid getting muddy feet or wet feet or whatever. And,

And if you do have have a even at times just segments, they do a really good job in creating a route that people will happily take. on stone, you can have literally hundreds of thousands of people walking and it doesn't do any harm as opposed to what happens if it's it's bare earth. So, know, it is really it's a difficult one because the idea of preserving

The wild experience is very precious, I think, to many of us. But the reality is that with popular areas, it's almost impossible. A good example would be the Scarfell Pike in the Lake District, which is the highest mountain in England. And inevitably, a result of that, it's enormously popular. And that popularity makes it...

particularly prone to erosion and it faces southwest. So, you it's also very exposed to the wind and rain. And the work that the trust did there, I remember photographing the path pitching process back in the early 1990s, but I'm pretty sure it's been highly successful and it was, you know, it's responsible for protecting the land since then. And we also have the Cleveland Way at the back of

you know, just up on the hill above our house here, which is, you know, big slabs of Yorkstone and they're nice to walk on at all times of the year and so people do. So as a result of that, yeah, the land has been well preserved.

Tim Parkin (15:06.7)
I'm interested, James, in terms of, for example, the viewpoint that looks at the buckle from the Glenassier Road. It isn't actually on the National Trust land. It's on the other side of the river. And it is a quagmire. It's been completely denuded of vegetation. If that was National Trust land, there a... What do you think would be the trade-off there? Do you think it would be some sort of boardwalk would be put in or...

or would the decision be fairly straightforward or?

James (15:38.364)
Yeah, I mean, I think I guess I suppose I wouldn't be willing to make the final decision. I'd probably be a better referent to that and passing up the chain and getting people's opinions on that. I think it would be a case of there is actually a similar spot that has been talked about at the moment where it's going to be, I think, trying to get people who are local stakeholders into just check in before a final decision is made. I think for that, yeah, like you like to say, is a quagmire and it's really heavily trampled along way along this length of a very boggy area.

Tim Parkin (15:43.502)
Yeah.

James (16:07.964)
I suppose what looking at for something like that is... So people are going to walk to that viewpoint and if nothing is done it is the quagmire is going to probably keep on spreading. So maybe be finding some way of having some probably an aggregate surface that could go through that, that could take one line through it, that's not going to take people anywhere new, that they aren't going already, but for that spot where they are going, looking at something like an aggregate surface that...

people can then stand somewhere and take the photos that they're taking there and contain them on that and then I think we do some quite subtle landscaping work with the edges of that to just raise up the vegetation and again just quite subtly without making it obvious where it's been done but it takes quite a lot of work to do that and yeah just discouraging people from stepping off that and then you probably get that best balance you can get of where people are going you're going to leave much of a mark.

and a big area of that book can then be detected. And sometimes it works and sometimes we might need to just keep an eye on that and review that.

Tim Parkin (17:10.488)
And yeah.

Well, I was going to mention this because we'll come to a couple of the questions soon, but the idea of whether the photography is beneficial on the side of that is how much damage it actually causes. And it compared with other land uses in areas on the National Trust Park. Do you think the photography or people taking pictures causes a substantial amount of damage or other activities more detrimental?

James (17:42.63)
Yeah, I mean, it was a hard one to answer. did think my colleagues brains on this area. think certainly a huge proportion, I think, those visitors, particularly the ones staying quite close to the roads in Glencoe, are coming with a photo that they found maybe on somewhere like Instagram and seem to be getting to that spot, taking that photo and moving off. Now, quite often that will be next to those car parks at that point, because more that point in Three Sisters View. And I guess it feels

Tim Parkin (18:08.132)
Yeah.

James (18:12.378)
somewhat different to a lot of, I guess, if your podcast is going more to the professional length and landscape photographers. I've seen some incredible photos around of people getting to some really quite obscure and interesting places in Glencoe and getting pictures with the cloud and the light looking very good. And that sort of photo doesn't, it doesn't seem to be a big crowd of people coming to try and retake that. It can't be done. But I think very much the same view you're getting on.

postcards everywhere, that one viewer for Three Sisters of Lenco. Very much a lot of people are coming to do that. So it seems to be the way that a lot of tourists are interacting with the islands. it seems to be there is a set of almost a set list, it seems, a particular point. So we'll go to that point and you'll see the thing that is there. You'll do the thing that is there. And then you will just move on. And I think where we're getting these big numbers of people trampling them on base, that area you mentioned, that's a bit of

quagmire just off our land or where we might be doing some more work to again contain erosion elsewhere. It seems to be that particular mindset and I'm not sure how much it is tied to photography or how much just to the way I guess tourists are coming through the highlands often on quite a big road trip with a lot of very brief stops on it. So it's hard to really disentangle the photography.

Tim Parkin (19:31.929)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (19:39.866)
So this is different sorts of photography in many ways. It's trading off the professionals trying to get something original and the snapshots that are social media influencing people to visit certain places.

James (19:51.238)
Yeah.

Joe (19:53.25)
Tim, can I jump in? Because I think one of the things that definitely informs this conversation is Matt Payne's article, which you alerted our community to in an earlier post before we spoke to James. And I previously, I think I'd skimmed it. And then so then I read it word for word, a week or so ago. And I found it. I mean, Matt writes really well and it's such a it's a really heartfelt piece of writing.

James (19:53.723)
Yeah.

Joe (20:22.466)
be interested to know if James has read it, but if not, then maybe we should just talk a little bit about that.

Tim Parkin (20:27.546)
that's too easy. Can you summarise it because you read it more recently than I have as well?

Joe (20:33.35)
I think it's really the main issue here is to do with the so-called perception of gatekeepers in social media terms. So Matt, as an experienced professional photographer, he has a social media presence and he had this experience, and I'm guessing now we're talking eight or nine years ago, where he went to a wonderful viewpoint, let's say somewhere in Colorado.

made a picture and geotagged it. I think he did anyway. then as a result of that, on his next visit, and I may be confusing it with further storytellers, you know, he discovered that thousands of people had been and the destruction in the area was enormous. similar, he told friends of his who'd had similar experiences. And so as a result of that, and partly as at least as a response to that, they started the

the network of photographers, Nature First, which has been quite well publicized on landscape, which proposes a set of principles of essentially leave no trace, do no harm, as certainly as working photographers, which I would imagine the vast majority of aware and professional, or non-professional, but at least aware landscape photographers would want to abide by.

But the problem is that I think for Matt, as somebody of his age and generation, needs or feels he needs to use social media. I suppose that in itself is a conversation to add. And so then now if he puts up a picture of a wonderful place, let's say again in Colorado, his home state, and he doesn't geotag it, then he gets accused of being an elitist.

and all sorts of negative commentaries appear on his post. And I think this is obviously highly disturbing for him. And then it makes it a much more difficult process.

Tim Parkin (22:27.866)
gatekeeping.

Tim Parkin (22:41.966)
I think the sort of situation might be, a similar situation might happen. Let's say, you know, we were talking about some wildflower locations or plant locations in the upper Randstov-Cronan beef or whatever. If you found a lovely patch of flowers altogether in one place and that got posted in Geotagged, that would invite a lot of people. are enough people that are willing to walk up a hill to access something like that to cause damage. Have you encountered anything like that in the Glencoe area?

James (23:12.581)
well, funnily enough, so before I was working at Glencoe, I worked again for NTS at Ben Lowers. And Ben Lowers has got an incredibly special, well, I guess, like Glencoe, with even some more of the rare things, yeah, mountain, abject, alpine, plant community right near the summit, some amazing things there. And they were really badly harmed in the Victorian era by plant collectors. So before photography, I think...

could really have reached that mountain top. People were going up there and collecting some of these rare plants. And I think a lot of populations were, yeah, really pushed to the brink as a result of that. So it's kind of interesting, I think, some of this. It's interesting to talk about with photography. think a lot of what's coming to my mind in this discussion is just the, suppose there's a general dilemma with conservation. think Joe mentioned earlier that balancing access and conservation. And it's the same as the places where we've got.

grandesting seabirds on shores, on beaches that are really important recreational areas for people and you've also got some other things that are on and how do you balance the need for people to actually get outdoors and enjoy these places for their health and things that live there. And yeah again I suppose it's interesting I think because I think for Glencoe certainly the places I'm thinking of where the guess the plank community is really quite visually spectacular

They're often in the most difficult to access places and actually some spots where there's, it really is a, there's a real physical barrier to getting into, particularly in some of the deep gills. Gills, think is a very crumbly in terms of where grew up, the ravines on the hills. But also I think some of these more rare and fragile things actually can tend to be a lot smaller. And while they are fascinating in their own rights, they get specialist botanists very excited.

It takes quite a bit to actually work out what they are and where they are. Whereas I suppose we've got the tall herd communities, I'd call them technically, some of very big and colourful wildflowers that are really visually spectacular without knowing anything about them. It can be a bit more common. There's something actually we are hoping to see spread a lot further. They should be much more widespread on the hills than they are. And grazing's been a huge impact and a huge reason as to

James (25:34.428)
why they are much lesser abundant than they were. And so, I guess, of them will be capable of sustaining much more human interaction nearby. They'll probably still suffer from too much trampling, but maybe slightly less rare and precious and from where they are, easier for people to view from outside of that ravine they're growing in looking into it. So yeah, it could, I think I'm losing track of the question here to be honest, it could definitely happen. I think that somebody is...

but yeah, showing a photo that's someone go to place. But I suppose the flip side of that is that somebody can take an amazing photo of these incredibly beautiful plant communities that are surviving in Curranby here in Glencoe. Actually just raising that awareness of how special and how beautiful the natural mountain flora is could be really good in motivating people to support trying to restore.

these places as an entire landscape with natural processes running and with often a lot of the kind of plants that tend to be more suppressed by grazing and actually letting them kind of spread back over the hills. Again, because they're in quite hard to get at locations, there is a very little awareness, think, of certainly over the course of this job, I've learnt about a whole load of stuff I'd never seen before, despite having spent quite a lot of time in the hills.

and that now are, I guess, my favourite places in the Psycho 2.

Joe (27:08.814)
That's really interesting, it? I I think there's so, you know, the stories that we tell and how people can be inspired to care about these landscapes is part of what we want to do and certainly would feel we'd love to do as landscape photographers and as lovers of nature. And there's a parallel here and I'm gonna return to America because I'm thinking, James, as you're talking, the examples that Matt mentioned are of.

was very, very spectacular alpine meadows with enormously colorful American style abundances of wildflowers and some of these that have been spotted, at least in the short term, by too much love, as it were, by humans. But there's another good example of that in the desert southwest of the US. There's a phenomena you may have heard of, which is cryptobiotic soils, which is the type of

Soil that develops in rocky desert or semi-arid landscapes, which sustain an extraordinary web of life just very close to the surface. And of course, they're very, very thin, very, very fragile soils. And you only have to really literally step on them. And that's the end of the evolution of that soil for the next 100 years. And the local, certainly when I used to go more frequently,

The national parks used photography as a huge kind of awareness raiser of the value and the vulnerability, fragility of these soils. And I think the fact that photography was used to display the beauty of plants that could grow there, you know, was really, really important. And hopefully it has helped them. I think it has to preserve these...

precious environments or ecosystems for longer. But of course, it's very hard to measure the effects of photography in that respect. But hopefully it's a positive.

James (29:13.596)
Yeah, it is really interesting and yeah, it is just trying to get that balance of...

Yeah, actually raising awareness of these places and how interested they are and how to motivate people to protect them and also trying to stop them from being harmed in process. I think the place I'm more worried about, Chris, that maybe some photos would make some places take a lot more kind of trampling and visiting than they could sustain, particular waterfalls. I think with swimming becoming increasingly popular and popular as a thing for people to share photos of on social media.

and certain waterfall locations I think a few small number can very suddenly become honey pots and everybody will funnel to the one particular one that's been I guess hyped up from beyond social media with photos being a big part of that so I suppose there's some places there's one area in England Co where we have seen a huge surge in just the last couple of years in visitors reaching which is

It's the Laddegildj waterfall, is referred to on many online places as the meeting of three waters, which is actually a different location entirely on maps. But the name has been taken and moved in the course of the, from the site of this place, the internet. And so there's a very spectacular waterfall right beside the main road. And there's two absolutely spectacular pools. At the bottom one direct plunge pool of this waterfall and one just pass that into a gorge. And there's a sort of

shallow couple of slightly deeper, I guess, slightly persections of the stream that runs into this waterfall. And so above the waterfall in that just patch of stream, it's now massively, massively trampled, massively, massively visited for people swimming, taking photos, putting it online. And weirdly enough, there's two really spectacular spots beneath it, although people can get that just as easily. Aren't really, aren't really touched. So that's an odd one, but it is, that's the place where we have got a bit of a...

James (31:16.356)
something we need to work out what to do about this place now because the strip of trampled and churned up ground is about 30 meters wide from just the surge of people going through it in the wet weather particularly last August.

Tim Parkin (31:27.588)
And that took off almost overnight, it? It seemed to go from nothing to huge numbers of visitors.

James (31:30.491)
yet.

Yes, and I think the infuriating thing with that even is just we've got a sweepstake in the office now for how many pairs of underwear we're going to find, underwear by the side of that, because people are dipping, taking their photo, suddenly realising that it's a bit cold to walk back to the car. And it's that sort of complete lack of respect with some, and tiny minority of our visitors. But I think that underpins where people cause damage, just this tiny minority.

Joe (31:43.702)
Thank

James (32:01.072)
strange lack of respect and then the rest I guess you're very hopeful but with just some good education as to how to visit without causing any damage and how much these places matter we'll enjoy it without leaving any harm but and that's interesting but there were again there were there are more waterfalls than that one waterfall in Glencoe there's quite a lot more and and some of them aren't particularly visited some of them are and again I suppose a photographer could look it could be quite easy for somebody to make a new honeypot in Glencoe

and then wish you somewhere else like that would happen. And that's think the main place where they worry about people finding a place that are photo being shared around because you've got places that might be quite close to a road and easy for lots of people to access. And although aside from that, I guess most of the places I suppose I hope that you can start feeling more around sharing how special it is without causing any extra damage.

Tim Parkin (32:54.608)
Well, a good example of probably landscape photographers doing the same thing with popularity is the actual meeting of the waters, which is incredibly popular with photographers, landscape photographers. Do you see any damage down there when you've looked around? Literally just in one spot looking at Gehranek.

James (33:14.748)
Not really, again, I'm not sure. Well, I suppose there's... Yeah, so there's a path and there's actually a bridge across that gorge a little bit lower down from the Meekly waters, where there's a very, popular path, the Corrie Galle. And I guess from the area around that bridge and to one side, I've seen a lot of photos get taken of the Aranac there. I don't know if that's where you mean.

Tim Parkin (33:36.014)
No, it's the one below the house that's being renovated, where you've got a little waterfall dropping into it. It's next to where the climbing, next to the bendy, just below the bendy.

James (33:41.518)
okay.

James (33:48.348)
Yeah, so again, I've not really seen, I know I've seen quite a few deer hoof prints and aside from that, I go to the, yeah, not really anything beyond that.

Tim Parkin (34:00.368)
That's quite reassuring because that is popular with quite a lot of photographers.

James (34:07.184)
Yeah, I again, I have to be fair, haven't actually even seen any photos of that place anywhere.

Tim Parkin (34:13.294)
I shall have to share the hotspots

James (34:15.386)
Yeah, I'll have to have a look at it afterwards. But yeah, certainly, I mean, there's are some amazing places to take photos all around there.

Tim Parkin (34:24.416)
One of the comments I got from when I was looking at the area in front of the buckle, which is the Black Horries estate, I believe, is on their land. And I spoke to one of their land rangers, or killies, and asked, is there anything we can do as photographers to try and raise money to do something with it? And they said, to be honest, the damage there isn't much. You should probably go and speak to the kayakers down Glen Etive. There's people causing more damage as far as we're concerned.

And that surprised me quite a lot. But I can understand it really with the access for the kayakers going in and out of the water in Glenative. Do you see other activities causing damage?

James (35:03.196)
I mean, again, I suppose I know where the kayak is getting and out and it is possible to see, I guess, a track. But I suppose it's a track that looks very much like the deer tracks that go around Langho and isn't really, there isn't really any damage beyond that. So that is, I suppose, again, that feels like it is on the right side of the balance between like, OK, there are footprints there, but there's nothing more than footprints for, again, a lot of people getting into.

Tim Parkin (35:14.52)
Yeah.

James (35:32.028)
outdoors and enjoying it which is part of what we're looking at for the place for. And so yeah I think the other activity we have that can cause damage is camping and there's a lot of people camping Glen Etive and a lot of them do it without leaving it at a mark and there's so many of them there's a fair few. There's well we clear up quite a lot of scorch marks from fires on the ground and there are a lot of trees that have had limbs hacked off and then you'll be clearing up.

Well, you've got that damaged and obviously then the branch will be lying down on the ground slightly singed because it's full of water, because it's live wood and so that'll be burnt.

Tim Parkin (36:10.608)
I've got a question from one of our readers actually about that. It's from Stuart James and he says, what's your advice to do if you find some people wild campers damaging the environment or doing things they shouldn't be doing in terms of fires or mess or whatever caused? What's a good approach?

James (36:28.732)
Yeah, so again I suppose it's just a case of working out what's actually going on there because obviously camping is legal and does get chapter access code if it's done in a way that leaves no trace. And I suppose if you are seeing something that is particularly when there's a high wildfire risk time, if there's a fire that's responsible, is then a criminal activity and so if you are seeing a crime in progress you should contact the police about it or again if it's a fire that's starting to spread.

fire service and but quite often there is the time when you're seeing somebody where it's sort of yeah they're doing something that's not quite within Scottish Outdoor Access Code because they've got a fire on the ground or they've scavenged deadwood to burn or something like that but it's not something that's a real big crime that's really a fuel worth passing money on so I guess I mean what we do here is we try and at busy times go around and speak to the groups that are camping and just in a very polite way and just

speak to them and if they are doing anything, particularly with the fires, just to point out what the issue is with fire. Lots of scorch marks making them active over the course of time and we can't deal with them, not look anywhere near as wild, they're attractive and again a lot of the time you'll get a positive response. There is a lot of genuine, so this is the first time camping and people haven't quite realised that that's how it is and that that fire scar could be there for quite a few years before it grows back.

Tim Parkin (37:50.703)
Yeah.

James (37:56.156)
And so I guess you can fix that with a polite conversation and there will be a small minority of people that aren't really going to want to listen. again, I suppose, so if it's on the NTS land here, we'd quite welcome some people who get in touch if they see something I think is an issue and let us know and we can go and have a look at it and work from ourselves and make a decision as to whether it's passed on or not. It's a hard one. It's one we struggle with ourselves, but I think you can try just a polite conversation.

Tim Parkin (38:07.024)
You're probably not gonna read them anyway.

James (38:25.242)
Many times actually someone will not quite be aware of the impact that too many people camping in the wrong way will have.

Joe (38:40.492)
Yeah, I mean, it's, think obviously camping is one of those, you know, the, I've done a fair bit of camping in Scotland and the ethos of leaving no traces is really, really important. I mean, I personally never do open fires or a deadwood collection. I mean, it's easy to understand how people who haven't done it before would have, you know, wouldn't know any better.

And so, yeah, it's very interesting to hear what you say. I mean, getting the message out there is obviously important to try to educate people better. And a lot of it is really about consideration for others as much as it is about preserving nature, because it spoils the, or can really spoil the experience for other people visiting those areas when, you know, they're hoping to visit somewhere that's wild and natural looking and just coming across.

that kind of damage. mean, the good news is on all of this is that nature is generally pretty resilient and it does recover fast. And I was thinking just to extend the conversation a little bit away from Glencoe that because I've been having lots of rather sort of depressing thoughts in anticipation of this conversation. And actually, it's been more encouraging than I thought, I have to admit.

But but the I was going to say the coast is is one of those places where you can be many, many people could go and if you're in the intertidal zone, there's a limit to the amount of damage that you can probably do and then it feels like the tide comes in and renews the wild world every twice a day, which makes the sea seaside particularly kind of miraculous in that regard and many of the really very much honey pot locations even you would say in

counties like Cornwall, which I suppose is renowned for its fabulous coastal scenery. The beaches remain beautiful and they're still fantastic to go to and visit and photograph in spite of large numbers of visitors. And partly because people do spend a lot of time in the intertidal zone rather than trampling around through the wildflowers on the cliff top. So I'm not sure if that's relevant to the conversation, but I do think that human

Joe (41:01.114)
I mean, we're really discussing this extraordinary dilemma, how to bring people closer back to nature in a way, through the inspiration, the beauty of it, and at the same time, be mindful and sensitive to nature so that we keep it and preserve it for future generations without doing lasting damage.

And I was particularly struck by the story of the Victorian plant collectors because it just goes to show that something's been going on much longer than we might have imagined.

Tim Parkin (41:35.728)
Doesn't change much does it?

Joe (41:38.877)
No, no, mean, it's interesting. Sorry, Tim, just because one thought that occurred to me then was that I'm not sure if you've ever read Robert McFarlane's book, Mountains of the Mind, first book. But that, you know, describes how, you know, prior to around 1600, the view of of someone like Glenn Coe would have been to be avoided at all costs by by most my sane people because it was horrible and dangerous.

you know, all of those things and, and, and fear, fearsome. And it's fascinating how now we are in a different world where we look on mountains with a, you know, as, places of inspiration and beauty. And so, know, in a way, that's that's a positive.

James (42:27.664)
Yeah, I think so. No, go ahead.

Tim Parkin (42:31.664)
I'm interested from the point of view of, you know, we see all these stories about social media causing the problems with the way people access the landscape and people having fires, et cetera. Do think that the changes need to come in education where people have a chance to learn about the outdoors and they're not learning as much as they could have or is it?

James (42:55.388)
Absolutely, yeah. mean, personally, I think it would be amazing if the school curriculum included a week of being out wild camping, properly wild camping, in a way that left a trace and sort of learning about these places and learning how interesting we are and how to appreciate them. And I think I would hope, I guess I can't tell until it happens, I would hope that would leave people again when they're coming back to these places, when they're going out on the camping trips that we see all around, that far more people...

be just aware of how to do it responsibly. I think, again, when we are doing these camping controls, we're seeing a majority of people, if there is an issue, is just because they had not realised that they hadn't gone out and camped somewhere before. I guess maybe Glencoe and Glen Attif suit themselves to being somewhere, someone's first attempt to go and camp semi-wild. And so the learning from that would be good to us. And yeah, if they already knew that, then I think, well, maybe we'd have more people coming out and camping because more...

would just realise quite how amazing that is. But also I think, yeah, I'm hopeful that just knowing already how to do responsibly would change things. know people I know in certain European countries where I mean, I've had people stop me on the road here to ask what on earth is going on with all the fires, because they're just part of their education is you do not have a fire outside this meditation, because yeah, they're brought up knowing that there is a big wildfire risk and they can't do that.

Tim Parkin (43:53.391)
Yeah.

James (44:21.5)
I guess in Scotland we just haven't quite realised that we can have bad wildfires until the last few years and the big spring droughts and we've had some incredibly incredibly destructive ones. So yeah I'm hopeful for that, I'm really hopeful and we do what we can bring in school groups onto the Earth and trying to speak to them and yeah it's fascinating doing it and I'd to see more. But yeah again.

Tim Parkin (44:37.668)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (44:44.144)
And the big question we've come back to is about photography. And do you think photography is then is a tool for good in general? So in terms of people coming to, let's say, Glencoe and taking great pictures and publicising.

James (44:55.772)
Okay.

Yeah, I think it absolutely can be. And again, just backtracking to what Joe was saying about kind of the coasts and beaches you see on Cornwall that have huge numbers of visitors and can still look beautiful on my own. Again, I think the majority of the hills around here are in that category. A lot of people do walk up the mountain, so you're trying to get on the Monrozo or just outfully redrive them. And most places are still managing to sustain that impact. But what we've been talking about earlier on is just a handful of locations where it's gone wrong.

And so yeah, think there is a lot of scoop to just reach these places that are damaging them anyway. And then photography, can touch on. In fact, I'm hoping to try and arrange for you, Tim, to come out here. And I'd really like to get more photographers coming to some of the places where, I guess because they're just very inaccessible, we have got some really impressive remnants of the kind of ancient woodlands that would have covered more of the mountains here.

not as one continuous blanket like you would see in a plantation, but there were a lot more trees, were a lot more wildflowers, there were a lot more things living in them in the past. actually there's, because we get so used to these days just seeing the hills as they are in many places in a landscape that's been really heavily shaped by humans, particularly since the Highland Clearances in some areas. And since we have this transition away from people living out in the Highlands.

and often grazing animals and with pasture on the hills through the summers, working crops in the valley floors. That was a system I think with, particularly with cattle grazing, there's many places that cattle can't get to on the hills. And so there probably was much more of a balance there. Certainly if look at old maps, there were more trees there. Nothing else is marked, but they are. And so I think, it's quite recent that we've had this change to the hills being quite bare and very short vegetation covering much bigger areas of them.

James (46:53.0)
And I think, again, you get used to that, being normal for mountains, and then you see some of the places around, there's a few really impressive nature reserves around Scotland and other places where you've got these beautiful remnants of that still there, and just being able to showcase them and show people how interesting they are, how much is living there, I think might change people's perceptions to how we should manage the landscape.

maybe get more support for restoring that inner balance with all the human uses and obviously the historic heritage we've got in Glencoe because it wasn't a pure wilderness for a very long time now. I think for what we're doing here it seems like some of that history can be restored at the same time as some of the wilderness. So yeah, I think the scope of Dogby, I would like to see more showing off. Certainly even...

I guess, particularly when my interest is art quite a lot and I see in a lot of, I guess I pay a lot more attention to, I go out looking for paintings, landscapes and more than photos a bit. And you see in many of them, well, they're fantastic artworks. A lot of the trees have actually been kind of smoothed out in the process of making conversation. And again, a lot of these photos you're seeing on postcards of the place, of the people might be coming to the Three Sisters car park and viewpoint in Glencoe to see have been from that very, very open board landscape, which is spectacular in its way.

But then I guess once you really start looking closely at the Anko, you've got some incredibly ancient trees scattered around and all kinds of weird and beautiful and adorning shapes you've got. How's the life there? Darny owls, are very strictly woodland animals supposedly, managing to live right out in the glen, a handful of old trees. And so yeah, just telling that story, I think, would be really well done. It was a great tool for doing that.

Tim Parkin (48:32.26)
Right.

Joe (48:41.762)
Well, if you ever thinking of the two of you going out and finding some of these lost places, do include me in your plans. I'd love to find them.

Tim Parkin (48:52.365)
We should do that, definitely. So it's looking at more detail. It's all in fact looking at the what's under your feet and around you, not necessarily the big views, is what could be more of interest. And we get a lot of pictures of mountains, but I think the context of the mountains is quite interesting.

Joe (48:53.87)
Sounds great.

Joe (49:11.222)
And also, think, Tim, you were showing me earlier some remarkable geological details from your area. And although obviously they are nowhere near as vulnerable to damage as plants and vegetation, in fact, not really vulnerable at all, but they show the kind of richness and the complexity of your area in a different kind of way. And those kinds of things, photographers, I think, can contribute to by helping increase the understanding.

of the history of the area, the geological history, which is so extremely complex and fascinating. So yeah, I'd love to see more of that. But I must say it's actually very encouraging to hear James's point of view about it because I was wondering if this conversation would be going down a road of, well, we should stop taking pictures because it's attracting too many people to the area. But of course, that's not going to change, especially with the A82 running right through.

Tim Parkin (49:43.696)
You always do that for me.

Joe (50:09.996)
the heart of the landscape, there will always be many, people and many people stopping and those famous viewpoints and whatnot. And in a way, it seems to me that although my heart sinks slightly when I see those car parks on the main Glencoe Road, which have been completely re-engineered over the last three or four years, and of course, there's always dozens and dozens of cars and coaches parked there now.

At the same time, does mean it concentrates the activity in those areas. People get out, take pictures, and effectively they're not doing any damage at all. So maybe that's for the best.

Tim Parkin (50:50.832)
Yeah, reminds me of the average distance walked by Lake District tourists was something like about 30 yards. It wasn't quite out of the car park.

James (50:59.644)
I I suppose if people aren't working for them they aren't causing much damage but I guess I find it a bit tragic.

James (51:08.956)
seen and I suppose I guess for some people it's all they can fit into the holiday and that's fair enough but there's so much in all of the areas here that there's so much to see and I guess if you are following what you're is what's near to the road. It feels like people are missing out a little bit and so yeah think we're coming to the areas but it would be yeah it would be nice to just come back to that balance try to get them to see more and appreciate more of the area.

Joe (51:35.93)
I mean, think it's fair to say that Scotland generally still has vast, vast open areas, know, both of, you know, open moorland, heathland mountains, and woodland, of course. And, you know, most of it remains pretty much untouched, well, not untouched, because, of course, there's been land use there of various kinds, you know, including lots of grazing in the past. But it's very biodiverse compared to somewhere like the lakes, mainly because

the land use has been much, much lighter over that period. And I'm lucky enough to have walked widely in the Northwest Islands a lot in the last few years. And it's just fantastically beautiful. I think what this conversation really ultimately is gonna probably come back to is, or at least I think we should address it perhaps one more time, is the whole question of geo-tagging and social media. And unfortunately, since I...

don't use social media at all. I'm not in a position to comment. So Tim, perhaps you've got some further views. And do we have any more questions from the community?

Tim Parkin (52:44.304)
We've had most questions, because there was a lot of questions very similar. I'll just mention who asked. Christopher Geiss was asking about the damage that the photographers make, and particularly workshops and things. But it looks like the volume of people doing workshops isn't actually causing much damage comparing with the tourists. And Mike Jones was asking about what values people have and what's failed. And I think we came to the conclusion about the not being

teaching people in school, basic ideas about the outdoors. And I think that it's interesting, a failure. That's come about probably because of Child Welfare Act in terms, because I know a lot of the schools that I speak to a lot of people of my age, and they were taken out just by a school teacher on their own or a friend or whoever as a group of people. And that's very difficult to do that, I think, these days. Stuart James was asking about what to do at wild campers and Rob Sykes.

Joe (53:17.068)
Yeah, that's very important.

Tim Parkin (53:43.824)
again was asking what's gone wrong in terms of influences. I think it's difficult to say what the influence is. I think if there are out there, it's trying to just keep the message of what's being a good custodian of land. But the majority of influences aren't interested in that. And knowing what social media is like, if you do a post about how not to have fires, it won't be promoted. Whereas you do a post about while swimming or having a fire.

camping outside here next to the river will be promoted because that's the way social media works sadly. I do have one last question about is it better to concentrate people in in a smaller area or to promote more areas and trying to get them to spread out and look at different areas? Because that's

It's a tough question in terms of photography, because if we go out and photograph some new areas, say up, stop, current and beta or the back of the loss valley in the gully there, and lots of people go in that direction. Is that worse than just saying, let's leave it as it is? there's some, we know where people go.

James (54:59.726)
It's a slightly harder one to answer, think, because...

James (55:09.916)
same area and lots of other places that spared that impact but also I guess I certainly I would not myself want to just be sort of contained into a tiny area and fumble around and just go to that and leave the rest of it untouched but that's not how my head works and so I can't really say to anyone well I should be allowed to go and explore everywhere I want to but you can't. So I suppose it's gonna just set

Tim Parkin (55:27.461)
Yeah.

James (55:36.7)
places so that we have got places that when people want to have a That very short stop that some people having in Glencoe for instance There is somewhere that can sustain a lot of people having quite a short stop and still see somewhere nice but also I guess with trying to Yeah, we can't we can't force people to do that and so

Tim Parkin (55:56.782)
No, and I think from what I'm taking away from this is the damage, the number of people doing landscape photography is minimal compared with the number of people going out there and being tourists. And the number of influences that are just putting pictures out there, after picture after picture after picture, are way more than landscape photographers. So even if we'd one time killed all the landscape photographers overnight, I don't think it would have a major impact on the land. We won't do that.

But yeah, I'm taking away the fact that the photography can benefit things and I don't think landscape photographers damage things. so the more interested and varied photographs with some context around them would be valuable. That's the common thing, isn't it James?

Joe (56:45.912)
does seem like the educational side is critical here, isn't it? And your point both of you have made is that more education from a young age is critical. But at the same time, it's also important to keep the general public of any age informed about the fragility and the beauty of the natural world, those areas that we call natural, at least, that remain.

And I do think that, well, certainly the Trust South of the border, who I worked with for many years on conservation, use photography constantly as a kind of primary tool of communication, as a way of inspiring people to get outdoors, to get excited about nature, and also in many cases to contribute funds to support conservation projects. you know, that...

that has, I know that has been a positive impact from that. I mean, I think Tim, you and I will be aware of also, I mean, these are more sort of headline projects, but in the past, photographers have contributed in ways maybe they even they couldn't have anticipated would make a huge difference to preserving major landscapes such as the, you know, the Tasmanian Franklin Gordon River Gorge system. Peter Dombroskis' picture there was literally the,

the key element that brought the Australian public onside with the campaign to prevent that river system being dammed. We can cite examples in the states of huge areas of Alaska that were preserved as national parks as a result of Ansel Adams' photographs and so on. There are examples.

Tim Parkin (58:31.28)
That's actually a really interesting point as well because we recently had a planning application put in for a lot of mobile phone transmitters, 5G stations in order to replace the existing emergency services networks. And a couple of those places, one in particular was at the back of Steel Falls, at the back of Glen Nevis, and it was going to go right in the middle of some peatland that's being recovered.

by the John Carambee, who's doing it now. I think it's a Muir Trust that was gonna be doing it. What happened in some of the objections and the people raising it was they searched for good photography of steel. And so that existing pool of photography was used to try and show the people what a beautiful place it was and what was potentially lost. So if those photographs weren't there, then that material wouldn't be there to help raise awareness. So there is.

So there's definitely that to be said about any location. You don't know when it's going to be important to have something promoting an area or showing what's showing what, how beautiful it is.

James (59:40.796)
Yeah, think definitely what you say is it's such an effective communication tool and it's doing well. So it can be used for a lot of stuff. And again, I don't think it takes that much thought to be able to do it without causing any damage. think it's not, just a little bit of thought of, okay, I'm going do this. How will I do it in a way that's sustainable? All it really needs is to just ask that question and have a little think or just read the actual Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which sums up most things quite well.

But yeah, just a little bit of thought of, what is going to happen when I do this? That's all I think it really takes, I think, to do it responsibly. I think it's quite easy to get the balance of getting the good from photography while avoiding the bad.

Tim Parkin (01:00:24.72)
Brilliant. Thank you very much, James. That's fabulous. And I'm looking forward to hopefully getting out with you up the back of Stopcar and Unbeath to try and find some of these rare locations. And thank you very much, Joe, for joining us again.

Joe (01:00:39.246)
Thank you, James.

James (01:00:42.14)
Thank much for having me.

Tim Parkin (01:00:44.914)