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Make Space For Nature
Make Space For Nature
Our shared outdoors: Ramblers Scotland on 20 years of access rights and responsibilities
Join us as we mark two decades of Scotland's pioneering access rights and responsibilities, with Brendan Paddy, Director of Ramblers Scotland.
Brendan explains the basics of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and shares how these rights have transformed our connection with nature, boosting personal wellbeing and local economies alike. We highlight the unique approach Scotland has taken and discuss the vital role of public education in safeguarding these freedoms for future generations.
We delve into the crucial challenge of making Scotland's outdoors truly accessible to all. Hear about innovative projects breaking down barriers for global majority communities, refugees, and asylum seekers, and learn how digital engagement is inspiring the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts.
As we look ahead, we stress the importance of targeted messaging and collaborative working to ensure continued enjoyment of Scotland’s stunning landscapes for everyone.
Welcome to Make Space for Nature, the NatureScot podcast celebrating Scotland's remarkable wildlife and landscapes. I'm Kirsten Guthrie and in each episode we're joined by inspiring guests who share their expertise and passion for the natural world. In this episode, rhiannon Law and I chat to Brendan Paddy, director of Ramblers, scotland, to mark a significant milestone the 20th anniversary of Scotland. To mark a significant milestone the 20th anniversary of Scotland's world-leading access rights and responsibilities. Brendan reflects on over two decades of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and explains how these progressive rights and responsibilities have transformed our relationship with Scotland's landscapes, from urban parks to remote glens. We also explore Ramblers Scotland work in making outdoor access truly inclusive and we hear about the collaborative efforts to educate young people about responsible access, helping to safeguard these rights for generations to come. So, whether you're climbing one rose, biking to work or walking the dog, scotland's unique access rights and responsibilities are relevant to you and ensure that everyone can explore our outdoors responsibly. Rhiannon kicks off the conversation by going back to the basics.
Speaker 2:Hi, brendan, welcome to the Make Space for Nature podcast. It's great to have you on and chat about this important milestone. I think we should start by explaining what we mean by some of the terminology around the code. Can you expand on?
Speaker 3:that, yeah, sure. So I think the first thing to say is people often misunderstand the rights they have in Scotland and they often talk about the right to roam, which is not awful as a shorthand, but it's slightly misleading, because what you actually have is a right to access the outdoors. You can do that in a variety of ways. You don't have to be on foot. You could be on a bike, so long as it's not a powered bike. You could do it on a horse, you can do it on a kayak, so it covers a whole variety of activities, and, equally, you have the right to camp.
Speaker 3:Now, there's a few rules that are sort of around that, some fundamental principles really, but the critical thing to remember is your right to be there is only going to hold as long as you're behaving responsibly, and that's the critical bit that you miss when people talk just about the right to roam, that it is conditional on your behavior, and those principles are perhaps worth spelling out. So the first one is you have to take responsibility for your own actions. The second is that you have to respect the interests of others, so that could be other people in the outdoors, or it could be people who are working on the land or owning the land, and the final thing is you obviously have to take care of the environment.
Speaker 2:So when we use the term access rights, we are always talking about both those things the freedom to access the land and the water, but your duty to do so responsibly.
Speaker 3:Yeah and it's worth saying too, because some people forget this side of it as well is this framework does also apply to landowners and land managers, so it isn't just people taking access who have rights and responsibilities. So do the people who own and manage the land.
Speaker 2:So, as we mark 20 years of access rights in Scotland, what do you think has been the Land Reform Scotland Act's greatest achievement?
Speaker 3:So I think for me, it's really helped underpin a huge growth in people getting outdoors and enjoying all the benefits of that. Those are health and wellbeing benefits, but also there's obviously massive benefits to the economy, especially in some places in rural areas where the economy is often really struggling. So that's been absolutely huge over the last 20 years and I think it's done all that without a massive amount of investment because of the way that the framework is set up. Yes, of course and we'll come on, I'm sure, to talk about resources but it doesn't require a huge amount of investment to get that significant additional benefit. You're not restricted to places where paths exist and where there's a right of way, you really can go anywhere, and that gives people so many options and has allowed people to do so many things that wouldn't have been possible previously.
Speaker 3:And, of course, there's examples of both individuals taking access and not doing so responsibly, and that is a concern. And there are examples of people who own or manage land who are trying to restrict access in ways that aren't appropriate or even legal in some cases, but overwhelmingly, those are issues that can be dealt with through education and support for people, both landowners and people taking access, rather than a whole series of rules, and I think that's one of the great strengths of the framework is because it's based on those fundamental principles. You don't need a long list of prescriptive rules, of do's and don'ts, and I think that's a great part of the joy of it. It's really freeing so long as you behave responsibly.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and I do feel that we're very lucky, or very fortunate in Scotland to have these access rights. Can you just explain how unique these are compared to other countries?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean they are really unusual. I'm from New Zealand originally. Before I came to Scotland, I traveled quite a lot, including in North America, and I also lived for a while in London, did a lot of my walking in England and Wales and in all those places. Everywhere you go you will see signs telling you that you have to stick to paths, and if there isn't a path which has a legal status which allows you to walk on it, you cannot go. With a few exceptions In national parks and open access areas, the rules are slightly different, but generally you have to stick to predetermined places where access it's sort of access by exemption, whereas in Scotland we do have something completely extraordinary which is an assumption you can go where you like so long as you obey certain simple rules about respecting other people's rights and behaving responsibly, and that really is extraordinary.
Speaker 3:And it comes back to that point about it being incredibly freeing In terms of where it comes from. I think some of this is organically Scottish, so there was a custom and practice of people in Scotland, especially in the hills, enjoying the outdoors before the law was passed, before the code was in place. But I think also it's worthwhile acknowledging that there are somewhat similar frameworks in Scandinavia, and we did look explicitly at those when we were forming our system in Scotland.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do as you say. I do feel very, very lucky, and I think sometimes a lot of people maybe don't understand it or maybe take it for granted. And so what changes have you observed in how people use and understand their access rights over the years?
Speaker 3:So I think I'd come back to sort of the positive and negatives of people interpreting the rights they have in Scotland as the right to roam. So I think the huge positive about that is that sense of freedom and the sense that you can go anywhere and do anything. And actually that's not an awful starting place. But the bit that it does miss is that you must do that responsibly. You can't do that regardless of the interests of other people and regardless of the impact that you might have on the environment.
Speaker 3:And in terms of how we've changed over time, well, we may come on to talk about how it's evolved, but I would say some of the things that I would pick out that perhaps are evolutions in our understanding of the way that the code applies are to do with fires in particular. So the way the code is written it seems fairly permissive of fires, but I think if you read the code carefully then you'll see that there are lots of restrictions about how and when a fire is appropriate, and what that amounts to for most people is you can't light fires at most times in most places. Because you can't light fires at most times in most places? Because you can't do it without creating a risk that you're going to damage something or leave permanent marks in the landscape, and you don't want to be doing those things.
Speaker 2:I suppose thinking about the evolution of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and how things have changed in the past two decades, you've kind of touched on that already. But obviously that involves activities as well, new things that have come along, say paddle boarding, gravel bikes, things like that. So how has the code itself, do you think, evolved to meet changing needs over those past two decades?
Speaker 3:Well, I think the first thing to say about that is I think it stood up remarkably well and that's because it's rooted in those fundamental principles and that gives it a flexibility that you wouldn't get if it was simply a list of do's and don'ts. If people had sat down and framed the code by making a long list of the things you can do and a long list of the things you can't, they wouldn't have seen that paddleboarding was going to become amazingly popular. They might have said don't canoe like this, only canoe like that, and the paddleboarders be like well, that's fine, that's nothing to do with me. But because it's written as principles, I think things like paddleboarding are really easily and obviously captured by the same rules that would apply to people doing different kinds of access. I think the things that are sort of slightly more challenging are often things that technically actually are outwith the code.
Speaker 3:So the obvious one to me is there's obviously, as well as paddle boarding, been a huge boom in people using camper vans. Now, there's some benefits to that. I think if people are using commercial sites, then that creates far fewer problems. But equally, people can use them on the side of the road in the right locations if they do it responsibly, but you're never doing it. Under the Scottish outdoor access framework, you don't have a right of access by motor vehicle, and I think it's a really common misconception and people often point to that and say, oh, this is where the code breaks down and I'm sorry, but that isn't an issue of access to the outdoors as we are talking about it, because that's about where you park a vehicle and what you do with your vehicle, and there's a whole different set of rules and regulations that cover that. Likewise, with things like drones, you know you can say that some of the principles are things you should consider when it comes to something like drones, but actually there's a separate set of rules for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's really important not to confuse the different rules that are there and try and merge it into one. So thinking about people accessing the outdoors and enjoying it and we've talked quite positively about that but what are the main barriers preventing some groups fully enjoying their access rights, do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is something we care a lot about, the Ramblers. So we've spent quite a bit of time thinking about what the barriers are for different groups, whether that's people from less well-off backgrounds or maybe people from global majority or, if you prefer, ethnic minority communities, and I think the first and really obvious one, and the one that sort of people tend to focus on, is just the cost. So you know the cost of transport, access to vehicles, you know the cost of some of the clothing and equipment. We've structured our programs, which we might talk about a little bit further in a minute, to make sure that people can access the outdoors without really encountering those costs, and the way we've done it is by helping people from those communities to begin their journey into the outdoors on their doorstep, where they need a minimum of equipment and very little time or money in terms of travel.
Speaker 3:I think the next thing would be people not seeing role models. So some of the outdoors companies have been very good and actually our president, zahra Mahmood, has been fantastic on this. She's got an Instagram account called the Hill Walking Hijabi, and Zahra talks all the time about the fact that she didn't see people like herself in the outdoors and the message she was receiving as a result was that the outdoors was not for her or people like her, and so I think that's really important that we've now got some really positive role models, and those of us in the outdoor community whether it's the Ramblers or Nature Scout or anybody else should be really conscious that it's not sort of woke or politically correct to include people from all communities in your communications and the way you show people out, yours. It's about being really positive about what's possible for everybody and showing the full range of people who can and do access the outdoors. And I guess the final one and I think this is tough, but I think we do need to talk about it when I talk to some people, particularly from global majority communities, they're made to feel sometimes really uncomfortable or indeed unwelcome in the outdoors.
Speaker 3:And I think where you have got people who might be quote, unquote the authorities or just other people in the outdoors trying to hold people, for example, from global majority backgrounds, to a higher standard in terms of their behavior, expecting them to behave as though they belong to a different culture than the one they actually belong to in others, that's not okay. So you know, the Black Scottish Adventurers, for example, told this awful story about how they were out enjoying a day in the Loch Globen and Chosix and they were challenged by somebody not somebody from the park about their presence there and it was just assumed they were going to cause a problem because, to be fair, they were a large group and they didn't look like the people that we're used to having in that space. But that's not okay and I think we need to be really upfront about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and we've actually worked with Zara and the Outdoor Adventures as well. We've done quite a lot of work with them and it's great, um, just to help spread the messages to these groups as well. Um, and encourage more people to get outdoors, and you know you've obviously been working hard with Rambler Scotland to to try and encourage more people. You know to make it more inclusive. Can you give some examples or success stories of some projects you've?
Speaker 3:worked on, yeah, so I think one of my favorites because when we started it we really really didn't know if it was going to work at all is we started a project on community engagement that focused specifically on refugees, asylum seekers and global majority communities, and the idea was to go to where people are. So we started off in Aberdeen and Dundee and Edinburgh and Glasgow and we looked at communities that were not well represented in the outdoors and some of them, particularly the asylum seekers, had really significant practical barriers to getting outdoors because they are living on an absolute pittance, as well as the cultural issues that they might face, and we just spent time with them and the program we ended up coming up with built on some previous experiences we had, and the whole premise of it was we're going to take you into the outdoors from your doorstep. We could throw you in a minivan and drag you up to the Cairngorms and, god knows, you'd have a brilliant time, but you probably couldn't replicate that. And so if we take you to parks that you can reach from your front door by bus or even walk to, and you begin to understand what the opportunities are to enjoy outdoor leisure in those places, you're in a much stronger position to keep doing that yourself. And also we've worked with people to try and build their confidence to actually run walking programs and activities within their communities.
Speaker 3:And I think that's been amazing because, in all honesty, when we went into that we thought the response we might get was, yeah, we're just not that interested, or it's not really for us, or we've got so many other things we're worried about. You really think whether we can get out for a walk is a priority. But actually we've had incredible responses. For example, one participant, min, who's from China. She'd come to Edinburgh. She hadn't really found a place in Scotland. She went out with the program and now she's incredibly excited. She feels she belongs in Scotland in a way she didn't before. She feels part of something that is really Scottish and that matters to Scottish people. And when the Minister of Sport came out and walked with her, she was so evangelical that I thought, well, I'm not going to do any discussion in future about this community engagement work. I'm going to get men to do it, because she's done a far better job than I possibly could have, because it changed her life.
Speaker 4:That's brilliant, that's great to hear. It's really inspirational as well, such a positive story. And we often talk about young people and trying to educate young people about responsible access, the Scouts, these kind of outdoor organizations they do a bit of that. There's some work that goes into primary schools that I know of anyway, certainly through my own children.
Speaker 3:How do you think organizations are working together to educate young people about responsible access? So I think some of the things you've mentioned are fantastic. I'm as involved in the outdoors as I am because of the Scouts, because my family weren't remotely outdoorsy so that was my gateway in. So bless the Scouts for that, I would add. You know, duke of Edinburgh is fantastic for lots of people. The outdoor education programs which we played a small part in helping, you know, argue to save that many schools run. I mean that is all absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that we saw was that once people got of an age where they were going to go on their own or with their mates, a lot of things fell away and there weren't clear messages going out to that audience. And I think that became particularly apparent in the aftermath of COVID, where we saw lots more younger people heading into the outdoors and it was seen as a problem. And that really broke my heart because that's exactly what we wanted. We wanted more young people from every background to enjoy and value being outdoors. So we worked with a bunch of partners and included Nature Scott, but also the National Parks and Visit Scotland, and what we did is said look, why are young people getting into these difficulties when they try and get outdoors? What are they trying to do and how can we help them do what they're doing, rather than wag our fingers at them as an authority figure and say don't do this, don't do that? Because we knew that wouldn't work. And so we sat down. We did a co-production process, basically, where we sat down and we talked to people from that group and said what is it that you're trying to do? What are the things you want? What are the things that you don't want? And then we tried to work out a way to do something that was about helping enable them to do the things they wanted to do, but in a responsible fashion. And so what we ended up producing over three years was a series of videos that were specifically designed for social media.
Speaker 3:We ended up going way out of our comfort zone. We thought initially, I will do Instagram, and then we looked at the figures for Instagram and we're like, oh God, everyone on Instagram is in their bloody thirties. That's not going to work, and so we said not just you know what are you trying to do, but where would you expect to hear these messages? And they all said Snapchat, tiktok, and we were like, oh God, we don't know anything about those platforms, but we had to listen, because if that's what your audience is telling you, then you have to listen to that and you have to find a way to make your messages work on those platforms.
Speaker 3:So we had this huge journey where we had to understand the perspective of young people. So, rather than being outdoor professionals telling them what they should do and what they should want, we listened to them and what they actually wanted. And the second thing was we had to talk to them in a way that they were going to understand, by doing it on the platforms they actually used. So we used a lot of humor and we did it in a light way, and we stopped trying to direct them to web pages which they weren't going to look at, because it was really clear they weren't going to look at them. So the messaging had to be in the videos, even though they had to be really short, like 20 seconds short, 30 seconds short. What a challenge.
Speaker 3:And the final lesson with that one was the money, and we did have to spend some money. We had some brilliant partners to help us bring the money in. We had a brilliant video agency, hehaw, to help us make really high quality videos. We managed to get some fantastic influences from the right platforms with the right tone and presentation to tell the story. But at the end of the day, if we hadn't put a bit of money into the marketing, we just wouldn't have reached the audiences we need to reach and I think that's a big lesson for everybody in this space is start with your audience, go to where the audience is, and you need to reserve probably half your budget not for making the product but for actually promoting the product, because on those platforms you're just not going to. You know this whole idea that it will go viral. Forget it. You know, maybe you'll get very lucky and you will get some organic sharing, but if you're serious about reaching this audience, you have to be prepared to pay.
Speaker 2:And, I suppose, as young people that you're talking about when you think about the past 20 years. These are talk about digital natives, but these are access natives, aren't these are? These are youngsters that have have always grown up with the scottish outdoor access code, but it's just making sure that they understand it fully and, like you say, they can take that outdoors and actually use it and enjoy the outdoors. And I suppose we've changed as well at Nature Scotland adapted the way we promote the Scottish Outdoor Access Code messages and looked at, using different digital platforms, influencers, as you mentioned. What role do you see digital technology playing in helping people understand and exercise those access rights in the future? Kind of going forward now. So you've done those videos, but what do you think is coming next?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you're right to say it's got to be front and centre of our thinking about how we educate the current and coming generations about this, because that's where the vast majority of people of those generations are getting their information. I think there's a tendency to focus on websites, and that's not a bad place to start Like. You will need a resource where you answer lots of questions and share things on websites, but in a sense, that's just the beginning. So when people actively go looking for that information, that may be what they find, but in order to get the information across, you've got to go where they are, and that's why, as I've said, things like TikTok and Snapchat, or whatever the next platform like that is, are going to be really critical, and that means starting where your audience is, both in terms of what they're trying to do, but also where you're going to reach them and talking to them in a way that isn't patronizing.
Speaker 3:I mean, that was my big fear, that I was basically going to get into the communications equivalent of dad dancing with this project, and that was the last place I wanted to be, because there's a million products out there where you've got grownups either trying to talk like kids, or trying to be authority figures and tell kids what to do, and both of those things are a guaranteed fail.
Speaker 3:You're just not going to get the result you're looking for if you try and engage in that way. So we checked everything we did with the audience to make sure that it wasn't patronizing. We kept things simple and light, but we didn't want to make everything cringe, and I do think we've done other work online which shows that you can make things more accessible in that way. So, for example, we've had some support from Nature Scott on our Scottish Paths map, and that is a way to try and make more information available about where paths exist, because, if they exist, in most cases you could walk on them and, unlike England and Wales, you know, and what you often see on the OS maps, we're not limited to the paths you can fit on a paper map, which are the rights of way. There's so many more paths than that in Scotland and, yes, it can be a bit messy, but you absolutely, if you use digital platforms, have the opportunity to both crowdsource information about them but also to share everything, not just the narrow slice of things that are formally recognised.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's really interesting, isn't it, how things have changed in the past 20 years again, not just in terms of the rights and not just in terms of activities, but even the platforms that we're communicating on, and I guess that's been a challenge that we will need to rise to. But, looking ahead, what do?
Speaker 3:you think are the key challenges for access rights over the next 20 years in Scotland. So I hate to say it, but I think a lot of it is money, money and money, and the reason I say that is because the most immediate challenges that you see are often landowners and managers saying that they have issues with people taking access on their land. But I think when you dig into that, nine times out of 10, it's not that people are behaving deliberately responsibly, it's that they don't know where they can go and how they should behave, and so that comes back to the good education stuff that we've been talking about. But I think more than that, it comes back to the fact that we've seen a gradual erosion at local authorities on the money going into funding access officers, so the people at local authority level who take care of access disputes. Now that could be walkers complaining that someone's blocking their access, but equally it could be a land owner saying I've got a problem with people taking access on my land in a way that isn't appropriate or even legal. We've also seen the ranger services roll back, and we've seen in many cases the local access authorities the forums where everybody's supposed to get together to resolve these disputes being disbanded or just not meeting for years at a time. So those fundamental building blocks of the system are starting to break down because progressively we've seen local authorities disinvesting in this area and that's something that the ramblers are increasingly saying we're going to have to try and challenge.
Speaker 3:The next bit is the money just isn't there for the infrastructure. So you've seen many paths that are really well-loved, including some long distance paths and really iconic paths that just aren't in brilliant conditions. The national parks do a brilliant job on their patches. They've got a few more resources. But if you're in a local authority area, unless you have something like OATS, the Outdoor Access Trust, who've, you know, parachuted in and, you know, saved your upland path, there's a good chance those paths could be in quite poor condition. And unless we get something really revolutionary that comes out of the new land management legislation that's going through Parliament in Scotland now, we may not see much money in the future for those kinds of assets to be developed and maintained.
Speaker 3:I've mentioned the educational awareness stuff. That's obviously critical. It isn't a huge investment but it needs to be there and it isn't pennies. You can find little bits of money down the back of the sofa on an airtop basis, but we really need a decently funded rolling program to reach people from the new generations. And just finally, I would say I really do think we need better outreach programs for excluded groups.
Speaker 3:I've talked about some of the things that we've done at Ramblers, but those are on quite a small scale. We're really grateful to Active Scotland and the Scottish government for funding both our Out there Award, which helps young people get into, but those are on quite a small scale. We're really grateful to Active Scotland and the Scottish government for funding both our Out there Award, which helps young people get into the outdoors, and also our community engagement work for refugees, asylum seekers and global majority heritage people. But those are small things and there's lots of people doing little things like that. It would be great if there was a bit more money there to help people who do have additional barriers to overcome those barriers and get outdoors.
Speaker 4:So that for me is the big challenge making sure everybody can enjoy the outdoors and do it without causing problems for anyone else a lot of challenges there, indeed, as you say, and perhaps one, um, I don't know, I suppose wider challenges, as that affects us all is climate change, you know, and the associated kind of environmental changes. It's impacting everybody's life globally and you know that I mean that could be eroding paths, flooding, you know, trees down we've just seen it recently with some storms and there's more storms coming in. So how have these changes affected people's ability to exercise their access rights to the outdoors in Scotland?
Speaker 3:I think that's really interesting and in some ways I tend to look at this, I guess, from the other end of the spyglass. The question I tend to ask is how are the changes that we have to make to our lifestyles and our culture and our economy and our society to stop climate chaos? How are they going to affect our ability to access the outdoors? And I'll pull out two examples. One is the vast majority of people who go outdoors in Scotland to the Highlands in particular, but anything beyond their immediate neighbourhood do so in private cars. Those private cars obviously have a huge impact on the climate cumulatively. How do we encourage and facilitate more access to the outdoors that doesn't involve the use of private cars? And so you can start with the easy stuff like carpooling and making sure that you don't have redundant journeys where you can avoid them. But I also think that where landowners are trying to do the right thing so, for example, loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, saying we want to reduce car parking at some of our sites and encourage people to use shuttle buses to reduce the impact both in terms of parking and also climate we have to support that, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it would be easy for us.
Speaker 3:Every single time someone introduces a parking charge, someone will come to me from the media and say do you want to criticize this? Nine times out of 10, I say no, I really don't, because if they're trying to prevent avoidable journeys in places where there is public transport, actually I'm in favor of that. I'm in favor of people taking slightly more effort to get somewhere. If they're just pocketing the money, that's a different story. But most cases responsible landowners are using at least a chunk of the money they raise from car parking revenue to try and improve the facilities.
Speaker 3:And I guess something on a bigger scale, on a landscape scale, would be to say what relationship should walkers and outdoor folk have to rewilding?
Speaker 3:I do remember back in the day one organization which I won't name basically putting out a press release saying trees were bad, and the argument was essentially that they weren't natural and they got in the way of the view. And I looked at that and I went that's completely insane and my view, and I think the view of most people in the outdoor community, is we do need to re-wet a lot of peatland, we do need to allow montane forest to redevelop on even some of our higher peaks and you know we do need, you know, rich woodland that is diverse and, yeah, some of it will be a thicket and there'll be brambles and it'll be hard to get through, but I think all of that is a price worth paying if we're walking in a nature-rich environment, which is hugely valuable in terms of the experience of the walker, but also obviously there's massive climate benefits. So I will never argue against the rewilding of appropriate areas of land in Scotland because it's a huge benefit from a climate and from a walking point of view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and earlier you talked about encouraging people to get outdoors who maybe hadn't was completely new to them. But what advice would you give someone who's unsure about their access rights? They want to get outdoors but they're a bit unsure about making sure they're following the access rights correctly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did some research and one of the top things that people said about what are the barriers to getting outdoors in Scotland if they weren't already doing it particularly younger people was they just didn't know where to go, and I would say for that reason, I would always encourage people to start exploring locally. You can have some amazing experiences outdoors on your doorstep, even if you're in an urban area. There'll be parks on the edges of your city that you can go and enjoy, and we actually do a lot of our work in those kinds of places, and that's a brilliant place to start, and one of the big advantages is you don't need a lot of equipment and it's not going to be costly, so you can do it in the clothes that you probably already have. I think the second thing I would say is know your principles, like. One of the things that really bothers people is they're not sure where the limits are. You might not know every single right and wrong and in and out of the legislation and the code, but if you learn the principles about taking responsibility for yourself, respecting others and respecting the environment, then you're going to start really well and you're much less likely to make the kinds of mistakes that are going to get people cross with you.
Speaker 3:And the final thing I would say and apologies, this is Rambler Scotland, telling you to join a walking group, but I do have to say that it's in my contract. But, more importantly, you'll learn a ton. If you're not confident in experiencing the outdoors, you will be able to get places you'd never get, to have experiences you couldn't have on your own, and do it safely and enjoyably if you're part of a group, and so that is something well worth exploring, and you can then branch out on your own. Group walks aren't for everybody, you know. I'm not here to sell you group walks, but as a way to start getting out there, they're a brilliant starting point.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. We would encourage everybody to join wherever they are, wherever they can do. Absolutely, you know, it's a first step and it gives people confidence to get out there as well, doesn't it? So I'm just thinking you know, if you could make one change to strengthen Scotland's access legislation, what would it be yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've already said, I think the code is incredibly flexible and that's one of its huge benefits, because of its foundation and core principles rather than rules and regs.
Speaker 3:I think if I could change one thing, it would be that where something goes wrong and I would stress this as the exception you know, most things can be sorted out if you've got the framework there. If you've got the framework there, if you've got your local access officers, people of goodwill, a local access authority to be the adjudicator if there's a dispute, I think most things can be sorted out. But where somebody a landowner or a land manager in particular really isn't interested in engaging and just refuse to talk to the local authority which sadly does happen sometimes I wish they just had slightly more powers to basically enforce the law, because at the moment, local authorities are really hesitant to do that, because if push comes to shove, the only thing they can do is go to court. They can issue an order, but the landowner can take it to court and challenge it.
Speaker 3:In cases that are fairly clear cut, where there's a clear breach of the law, I would like them to just be able to say I'm sorry, you can't keep that gate locked, it's got to be open and for that not to be something that requires a court fight and for that to be immediately enforceable and yeah, that could go both ways. Again, the use of interdicts by landowners to ban particular difficult individuals from their land is really cumbersome and therefore extremely little used. I wouldn't be too concerned if somebody really was a persistent problem to a landowner and they were behaving out with the law, for the local authority to just say you know, you can't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair enough. So I suppose this topic is obviously so close to you and your work around Scotland. That kind of goes without saying, doesn't it? And I'm going to assume that you enjoy responsible access to the outdoors fairly often. I think that's a good guess.
Speaker 3:That would be fair. It's often weird because I came to this role having previously worked in overseas aid. So my last job was down in London God help me and I was doing overseas emergency. So I arrived in Scotland slightly bewildered and not knowing quite what had happened. And I was doing overseas emergency. So I arrived in Scotland slightly bewildered and not knowing quite what had happened and people started asking me questions about the use of medicated grit on grouse moors and I didn't really know what was going on for at least a good six months.
Speaker 3:But I have always loved the outdoors and so that bit made it easier and it meant I could talk to people about the stuff we all cared about in a way that I think resonated from the beginning. So the stuff that I suppose is closest to my heart firstly is the day-to-day stuff. So I've already talked a lot about how important it is to make things accessible. But that's true even for those of us who are regular outdoor goers. Even if you're a regular outdoor goer, the things you do every day are not going to be unless you're very, very lucky in a national park or in some extraordinary area of the highlands or the coast. You might live in those communities, in which case good luck to you. You're blessed. But for most of us it means smaller local green spaces, and for me that's the Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill, which is on my doorstep in South Edinburgh, and I run there virtually every day and I deliberately run the trails. I don't run down the main concrete paths. It's terrible for your knees and it's just a joy, despite the occasional slip and one or two twisted ankles, to be running through the woods on a trail. But if I have the time, to go somewhere different.
Speaker 3:I've already talked a little bit about rewilding. When I came to Scotland I didn't understand that the extraordinary, awesome but desolate landscapes that we often see in the highlands aren't actually natural. But that's a product of man-made processes. It's a product of years of overgrazing and when you start to remove that grazing pressure you see the most extraordinary things happen, whether it's in Glen Feshy or Glen Affricric and the first place I encountered it, which was on the Marlodge estate on Deeside in the Cairngorms, I'm going to choke up the first time you walk into a regenerating forest and you see all around you that where you remove the high volume of grazing by deer or by sheep that this forest will start to come back and you're suddenly surrounded by saplings and you can see that it's a forest just waiting to happen. That is just extraordinarily exciting, and so I will never miss an opportunity to go back to that part of the world.
Speaker 2:I can tell why. I can tell why. And do you have a favorite way you'd like to try it, a favorite sport or something that you'd like to try in the outdoors that you haven't done yet? Is there something that's on the list where you're like? Actually, I think this would get me a lot closer to nature. I should try this.
Speaker 3:Do you know what? I've done a bunch of things, and the thing they all have in common is I've gone. Yeah, that's fantastic, it's really exciting. And yeah, that's fantastic, it's really exciting. And I am definitely going to kill myself if I keep doing this, just because I'm acutely aware of the limits of my own confidence.
Speaker 3:So I used to do some kayaking. I loved it, but I really knew that it wasn't going to be something that I was going to survive if I got more serious about it. And I'd say the same about serious climbing, whether it's rock climbing or snow and ice in the winter. And I'd probably say the same about mountain biking, which I just loved. But I just thought I'm not going to know when to stop. I haven't got an off switch for this stuff.
Speaker 3:I guess the one thing I can do and initially I thought this was mad as well when I moved to Scotland I thought I am going to start doing a little bit of trail running, and I thought I'm a middle-aged man, my weight is slightly higher than it should be Is taking up trail running really a smart thing to do? And I thought, yeah, it's really not. But you know what? I'm going to do it anyway, because I love being in the outdoors and there is something special about flying through a bit of woodland or up a hill, you know, when you're just within the limits of what you can physically do and you feel a sense of presence in your body and competence in what you're doing. But also you're doing that in a context which is itself really inspiring and that just creates something really special which you don't get with road running, which I used to do a lot of and I have to say I will now run a mile sorry about the pun to avoid running on a road.
Speaker 2:I really will it sounds like you'll be staying on your two feet then for the foreseeable, okay, well, thanks, brendan. So much for joining us today. Um, it's been really interesting to hear your reflections on the past of the scottish outdoor access code, the present and the future, and how our world's leading access rights have strengthened people's connections to the outdoors and nature, and also to get your thoughts on what can be done to help more people enjoy these rights, because that is really important. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying Make Space for Nature, please follow it on your podcast app and leave a reviewer rating. We'd also love you to tell more people about the series. For more ways to connect with and help protect Scotland's natural world, go to naturescot.