"Recreation in the Cairngorms"
	North East Mountain Trust International Year of Mountains Ballater Royal Deeside's Walking Week
Ballater Weekend Event 24th - 26th May 2002

A message from Roger Owen (Event Organiser):
If you are anything like me your world view of geography is dominated by where important mountain ranges happen to be.  I cannot look at any atlas without drifting towards the rugged areas where contour lines squash together revealing the peaks and summits of unseen mountains.  There is where my imagination always takes me. My family holidays, much to my wife’s chagrin, centre around mountains - Scotland, Wales, the Alps, Pyrenees, New Zealand, you name it.  In Bulgaria to see the solar eclipse we all had to climb the country’s highest peak while we were waiting for it to happen. In Norway in May last year at a conference, I had to hire a car, drive 200 miles, climb the two highest peaks in deep, deep snow and drive back to the conference. I’ve even climbed the highest object in Florida - that it was a watchtower in a citrus grove made little difference to my altitudinal acquisitiveness.  With my partners in crime, Alistair Beeley and Andy Christie, I’ve climbed a number of Alpine peaks and, with Alistair, been to Alaska, and Africa too, in the pursuit of more spectacular mountains to climb.  In Africa though I saw something different.  It wasn’t just the awesome vistas of Mount Kenya and of Kilimanjaro, both of which were lifetime experiences in their own right, it was a human element.  I was struck by the lives of Kenyans and Tanzanians living on the vast slopes of these mountains and by their struggles to make a living. I was touched by the dignity with which a Kenyan couple emerged from a crude plantation hut, roofed with banana-leaves, dressed in the best clothes they had and set off, shoeless, to walk 10 miles to church on a Sunday. I was impressed by the sheer determination of a Masai woman hell-bent on selling me a bangle I didn’t want because it was nothing to me but the price of the family’s weekly food to her.

Glen Banchor

This year is International Year of Mountains (IYM) and I empathise instinctively with its aims because I have seen, albeit fleetingly, just how hard it can be for some communities to live amongst the world’s most spectacular mountains.  In Scotland, we don’t have that scale of problems but we still have difficult choices to make in how we manage our own world class mountain areas.  I want to tell you a little about IYM and why the Trust felt it should contribute by holding an event in Ballater in May this year.  IYM was conceived during the pivotal 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero from which sprang Agenda 21 and the global blueprint for sustainable development into the 21^st century.  Chapter 13 was concerned with “Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development”, and placed mountains on an equal footing with climate change, tropical deforestation and desertification as a key global issue in respect of the pressures we place upon them.  In view of this the UN designated 2002 as International Year of Mountains and has asked Governments, NGOs and UN organisations world-wide to take positive steps to highlight the global importance of mountain ecosystems and the threat to communities that depend on them.

The overall aim of IYM is: 
to ensure the well being of mountain populations by promoting sustainable development of mountain regions.

Specific objectives can be summarised as follows: 

• To ensure well being of mountain communities by promoting conservation and sustainable development in mountain areas.
• To increase awareness and knowledge of mountain ecosystems, their overriding importance in providing strategic resources to both highland and lowland people, particularly water supply and food security.
• To promote and defend cultural heritage of  mountain communities.
• To pay attention to frequent conflicts in mountain areas and promote peace-making in those regions.

Achievement of these objectives should be approached through:

• Information generation and exchange;
• Awareness raising and sensitisation;
• Education, training and extension;
• Documentation of best practices and formulation of recommendations based on successful field case studies; and
• Promotion of mountain-specific policy formulation and legislation.

At the regional level IYM strongly encourages mountain conferences during 2002 and discussions regarding interactions between upland and lowland communities.  Ultimately, IYM is asking governments to provide guidelines and appropriate policies for sustainable mountain development and conservation. Currently, 46 countries worldwide have set up national committees to promote IYM.

The North East Mountain Trust has taken this call seriously and considers that IYM is an appropriate time and an apt context in which to bring people together to discuss issues in our own mountain backyard.  A number of the IYM objectives and all of its suggested approaches are completely relevant to the problems we have in managing pressures we place on the Cairngorms.  Even more pertinent to IYM is the imminent Cairngorms National Park and, how the Park Authority will manage recreational use.

So we have organised a great event in Ballater for  the last weekend in May.  It will be an activity-packed few days with lots of entertainment and walks centred around a seminar  with the theme of “Recreational Management of the Cairngorms”.  We have attracted a number of high profile speakers for the Saturday seminar and this will be a very interesting day on its own.  We also have a Friday night slide show from Aberdeen climber Ronnie Robb followed by a Pub Quiz; a Saturday night Ceilidh with a really good band; led walks varying from young family to fitness freak level on Sunday and a walk with Adam Watson to see the issues for management for yourself with a Cairngorms expert.  Ballater is a fantastic venue, the great outdoors surrounds the town and the local community is keen to welcome us with lots of hospitality.

Conscious of the importance of IYM to local communities our event will also be the launch point for Ballater Walking Week, so we are collaborating with the local organising committee, Ballater Royal Deeside, for this week of further entertainment and led walks in the surrounding hills and mountains.  Look out soon for a flyer advertising the Ballater Weekend event and book your participation early so we can make it a great success for everybody.  Bring along your family and persuade your walking and climbing friends to join in – they will have an enjoyable time in good company.

I, and other members of the NEMT General Council, look forward to meeting you in Ballater!

Roger Owen,
Organiser NEMT Ballater Weekend