Private Land Ownership
Like the national parks of England and Wales, neither of the Scottish parks are wilderness areas owned by the government. The majority of the land is in private ownership and has been worked by humans for thousands of years. Like many areas of the Scottish Highlands, historical deforestation, overgrazing by sheep and deer, and extensive 20th century afforestation with non-native tree species (particularly conifers) have resulted in landscapes which are semi-natural. Like their English and Welsh counterparts, then, the parks in Scotland are effectively "managed landscapes", and are classified as IUCN Category V Protected Landscapes because of this.
Access to cultivated land is governed by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
Read more about this topic: National Parks Of Scotland
Famous quotes containing the words private, land and/or ownership:
“Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)