'Birds, bogs and forestry revisited: The significance of the Flow Country controversy

This paper evaluates the significance of the battle between forest and cons ervation interests in the Flow Country of northern Scotland during the late 1980s. It summarises the key arguments for and against afforestation as th ey were presented at the time, and reviews their validity in the light of s ubsequent developments. Commercial afforestation was claimed to be an econo mically valuable land use in a region with few alternatives, whereas conser vationists presented the Flow Country as a wetland habitat of international significance. The controversy had far-reaching consequences both for fores t practice and nature conservation in Scotland and the UK. The break-up of the Nature Conservancy Council and the remit given to Scottish Natural Heri tage, the negative public perception of commercial forestry, the adoption o f multiple objective forest management, Indicative Forest Strategies, and t he participatory philosophy in conservation, can all be wholly or partly tr aced to the controversy. Ultimately, the controversy is shown to have had p ositive outcomes both for conservation and forest,practice.