Who Owns the Countryside?

 

OR                                                           ??

            

The BBC is carrying an item on complaints by salmon fishermen about commercial rafting companies on the Tay disrupting their fishing.

This raises the interesting question as to who owns the countryside.  Not who has legal title but which of the many stakeholders has the most say in what happens to the the countryside and how it should be utilised.  Traditionally game interests, particularly in Scotland, and farmers have been the most powerful voices in this debate.  But as new ways of commercial exploitation have evolved, such as tourism and recreation, many of which are becoming more economically important, so the old assumptions about primacy give way to today’s debate about who can benefit the most.

Although I don’t know the figures it is conceivable that commercial rafting does or could generate more economic benefit on the Tay than fishing.  In which case, given that the two activities appear to be mutually incompatible who should hold sway?  And if it be the rafters should they tell the fishermen to bugger off which is what the fishermen seem to be saying at present to the rafters!

Truly a knotty issue. I don’t envy the local authority rule makers!