It’s that time of year again. No, not the end of exams (although it is that too. Woop!) but the Synoptic Issues Analysis paper. You know, the one I told you about back in January called ‘Galapagos At Risk?‘. It’s come round again, and for June it’s all about the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Oh, I see the excitement on your face already…
The Cairngorms are the name given to a mountainous area around the middle of Scotland. It’s a favourite of the old people and the people who like looking at stuff. If you find yourself gazing out the window, admiring the greenery, while in the bingo hall, this place is for you. It’s got all the things you’d ever want to look at with what, a ski resort, a bloody ugly railway and some nice holes in the ground. How could you not want to come to the Cairngorms?
The whole physical nonsense
If you regard yourself a British citizen, I’m sure you would recognise the Cairngorms as the most important area for nature conservation values nationwide (I mean, who wouldn’t?) but what’s truly quote-unquote "stunning" about the Cairngorms is its vast array of somewhat interesting glacial landscapes.
Now, okay, you’re seriously asking the wrong person as to how they’re formed, but I’ll give it a shot. Basically, the actual Cairngorms wasn’t as badly hit by the glaciers in the Ice Age as the rest of Scotland, so it’s still pretty rounded. This means nothing cool really happened here, and that’s a rarity when you’re talking about the ice age. What did happen here, though, left these things called ‘tors’, which are basically bits that stick out because they didn’t erode away like they should of when everywhere got nice and toasty again.
Then we’ve got the glacial carved through Lairig Ghru, which is the only one in the area. Not because they suck, it’s because there was only really one big glacier going through the area, hence one track.
Then there’s some stones and stuff, some other stuff about soils and acidification. Something about biodiversity. All pretty boring. All you really need to know is that it’s got lots of different types of trees and bugs… yay…!
Oh dear, the deer are back again…
It’s not all happy days though in the CNP. Red and roe deer are roaming the area. Sure, they’re all pretty and stuff and helping the biodiversity of the area, but there’s just too many of them and they’re getting bored.
One of the highly rated attractions to the Cairngorms is deer stalking because apparently that’s good. But that sort of contradicts what the admittedly vast majority of other people want to do, which is look at them lustfully and go "Aww" at the baby ones. So what to do, we’ve got deer which eat anything we plant to regenerate some areas but are prime targets for deer stalkers, but at the same time we’ve got these people who don’t like seeing animals die. Solution? Well, just kill them behind closed doors…
Well, you’re not getting any younger
You know when a place is in trouble when the number of residents over 60 is greater than the number of residents under 30. It’s a great place to retire to, what with the scenery and relaxing rural atmosphere. By 2025, it’s going to have the majority of residents over 65. That’s not good for population stats, let alone the economy and… well… what they have planned to improve the place.
Needless to say, it’s not a good place for younger kids, seeing as it has the highest mortality rate here than anywhere else remotely near it. All the under 20′s bugger off elsewhere (especially young girls, for some reason…) to get proper jobs or move closer to them, as they aren’t exactly easy to get to with the road systems about as badly designed as Titanic iceberg early warning system.
It’s not a great place to live for young people permanently, so what’s happened is that lots of the houses are purchased by the rich old folk as second homes. This drives prices up thanks to them installing a flash new Stannah stair-lift and stops anyone new from buying there. So it sort of creates a ghost town. Nobody’s there all the time and you’re all on your tod. Bless.
The old money-spinner
Ultimately, the Cairngorms make their money from tourism. That tourism comes from the ski resorts dotted around the place. Although thanks to a little thing called global warming, it doesn’t snow as much or as consistently as it once did. It’s making skiing a really hit-and-miss earner and seeing as the skiing season is only really November until March, they won’t have enough to survive the year. That’s a problem, if you hadn’t got that yet.
That’s really what I’m going to have to sort out – What should they do to the Glenshee ski resort right on the edge of the national park. There’s three options. One’s like build a mountain track like they did up Ben Nevis and improve facilities for paragliding, rock climbing and suchlike. Obviously everyone living around the area and visit the Cairngorms regular enough don’t particularly like the idea of some geezer ruining their favourite walking place. It’s not a particularly sustainable choice.
Number two, then, is number one +1. It’s like option one on crack. It’s the idea of building a mountain bike track for use in the world championship events. It’ll bring around £7.5 million to the local economy, create a whole load more jobs and keep business running along with some ski slopes, meaning big wonga all year round. Okay, so the old people might not use it, but it’ll bring in more younger people and that’s always good. Got to love young people (not in that way…).
The third and final option is to just leave it. Let it go into nice lovely vegetation land and farm on it. There’s a reason why it wasn’t done before, though. It’s because the soil actually sucks. Seriously, you’d be better off growing things in your own navel. But they’re hoping with incentives and all that, they can get an even more rich biodiversity and increase the amount of farmers rearing cattle here. It’s also for a bit of bird-watching and all those oh-so-exciting things you see them do on Springwatch. But that’s boring. So don’t do that.
That’s basically it. You need to take into consideration everyone’s wants and needs and come up with a solution to this apparently infamous park. So while you sleep tomorrow, I’ll be hard at work trying to fit Lonesome Terry – This year’s cute little area mascot – somewhere into my answer.
LG + LT 4 EVA
Deer stalkers?
Your pictures amuse me. I spent 10 minutes trying to work out what they were
LG + LT = OTP ♥
Tors? Arn’t they formed when the top layer of a granite batholith if washed or scraped away, and the tors are ares of rock with less bedding planes and splints, so they erode slower?
@Simon: But that’s their beauty!
@John: …what?
@Mitch: …Something like that. :p
“Lonesome George + Lonesome Terry = One True Pairing ♥”
