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Remote Communities
Small towns and villages in upland Scotland are some of the most disadvantaged in the country. Transport, health etc services and employment options are limited. A few keepers families can make the difference between a school remaining open or not.
These communities must remain viable if people with the necessary skills to manage moorlands are to remain. Once lost, those skills which may be based on generations of experience on one particular piece of ground, can be almost impossible to replace.
The Gamekeeper / Wildlife Manager
Moorland management is a skilled and often arduous job requiring long hours and often working in hostile weather conditions. It needs a special breed of gamekeepers who are dedicated to the job.
Most hill keepers learn from the previous generation - experience that cannot be replaced - but they are increasingly professional and college trained. A hill keeper also has to work with all the other interests on a given area of moor, such as public access, therefore public relations is an increasingly important part of the hill keepers job. Hill keepers also have to have a good understanding of the science and legislation behind their work.
Unfortunately, the pressures on hill keepers are such that it is hard to recruit into the profession and number of effective keepers is going down. Part of this pressure is from outside interest groups who are against shooting or have a very different vision of how moorlands should be managed, and the hill keeper is very much in the front line of those debates, adding considerable stress to an already difficult job
The main organisation representing the interests of moorland keepers are theScottish Gamekeepers Association and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (Scotland)
The keeper is often called the “unsung hero of moorland conservation” because of the practical work that they quietly get on with, day in, day out. They need all the support that they can get, from Government policies and from the public. Once lost, it is very hard to replace effective hill keepers.
The “Moorland People” section of the Cairngorms National Park Moorland Project website gives a superb insight into farming and gamekeeping on the moors.