October 17th, 2000

Brussels

TO REINFORCE THE MOUNTAIN CO-OPERATION NETWORKS IN EUROPE

Let me start by telling you a salutary tale. I live in the lowlands of Scotland, although I can see part of the Highlands from my living room window. I have a view across the Firth of Clyde to the Mull of Kintyre, which is in Argyll - part of the Highlands of Scotland. I can also see Ailsa Craig and Arran and even the mountains of Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland.

The Ayrshire coast, where I live, boasts some of the oldest rocks known to man. As a consequence, it is very popular with geologists who have discovered unique fossils which only exist in South Ayrshire and in the Appalachian Mountains in North America, proving that Scotland was once part of North Virginia. In fact, the island of Ailsa Craig which I can see from my window, provides the solution to this conundrum. Ailsa Craig is an enormous granite rock which rises several thousand feet out of the Firth of Clyde. It is actually a volcanic plug - the last remnants of a chain of volcanoes which erupted many hundreds of millions of years ago and which ripped Scotland off the North American continent and rammed us up against England, where we have remained uneasily ever since.

I tell you all this to illustrate that if you really want to see mountains it is to Scotland and not England, which you would have to travel. The Pennines and Snowdonia are mere pimples compared to the Cairngorms, Ben Nevis and the towering Cuillins of Skye. However, the future of the mountain areas of Scotland are under threat like never before. Indeed, Scotland may be extraordinary in that we have just witnessed one of our great mountain ranges being sold. The Black Cuillins in Skye are a massive, dark volcanic rim.

They belong to the Chief of the Clan Macleod and he recently decided that he needed over £1 million to repair the roof of his castle. He therefore placed the Black Cuillins on the market and, I understand, recently completed a successful sale of this spectacular mountain range to the Japanese.

I find this rather extraordinary, although I cannot say that I got overly excited about it, unlike some of my compatriots. After all, although Mr Macleod has pocketed several million Yen, the Japanese purchaser is not about to move the Black Cuillins to Tokyo! I think we can look forward to climbing them for a few more years!

Nevertheless, this strange saga and the way many people in Scotland were deeply offended by the concept that part of our natural heritage could be sold to a foreign buyer, perhaps helps to illustrate the deep-seated love that people have for their mountains and also underscores the importance of our task here today in seeking to find ways to protect and maintain the mountainous areas of Europe.

I am a member of the Agriculture Committee in the European Parliament and it is from the perspective of farming that I want to make my presentation today. Agriculture is going through tough times just now throughout the EU, but nowhere more so that in the UK, where farmers are suffering their worst recession for almost 100 years. A survey published last week by international accountants Deloitte Touche, found that the average family farm in the UK has suffered a 90% drop in income over the past five years. Average farm incomes for a 200 hectare farm are down to (£8000) or around 13000 Euros, catastrophically below the basic minimum wage.

Many farmers are now living on their overdrafts and it is only a matter of time before the banks start an avalanche of foreclosures, forcing hundreds into bankruptcy. The problem is, when farmers go bust, they not only lose their jobs and livelihood, they also lose their homes. They tend to move off the land and into council houses in the towns. The trend towards rural depopulation then escalates, as village shops, post offices, banks and eventually schools and medical centres all close.

Nowhere is there such strong evidence of rural depopulation as in the hill and upland areas of Scotland - the mountainous areas of the Highlands and Islands. At the end of the nineteenth century, the owners of the great Estates in the Highlands cleared off the farmers, crofters and peasants in order that they could concentrate on profitable sheep rearing ventures. This notorious episode in Scotland's bloody history became known as The Highland Clearances. Sadly, I believe that we may be witnessing the beginning of the new Highland Clearances today.

The failure of the CAP, together with an unsympathetic approach to rural Britain from government and Brussels, has caused a sharp decline in the economic well-being of these marginal and economically fragile areas. This in turn has led the start of an exodus from the land. The causes of this accelerating decline will be familiar to everyone here.

The fuel crisis, which has made the UK the most expensive place to buy petrol in the entire EU, despite the fact that we are the only oil exporting nation in the entire EU. and, believe me, if fuel is expensive in the towns and cities it is even more expensive in the highlands and islands, only there, people have no alternative to the car.

The fuel crisis coupled to the fact that the mountainous areas of Scotland are remote and difficult to reach, mean that tourism has taken a sharp knock this year as well, further denting the rural economy of these areas. And of course, major reforms of the CAP, de-coupling agricultural subsidies from production, have had their own impact on rural incomes. New hill farming support proposals in Scotland which introduce area-based payments, will benefit the larger farms and massive agri-businesses, but will have a disastrous impact on small farms and crofts who relied on headage payments for their livestock.

Now there are new draft directives in the pipeline from the Commission which will undermine the viability of the traditional hunting and stalking industries in Scotland's mountainous areas. New laws will insist on trained animal pathologists being present at every shoot. No shot game will be allowed to be sold without having been inspected by a qualified animal pathologist and accompanied by a signed certificate which guarantees the game to be free from diseases and from exposure to environmental pollution.

At the same time we have an increasingly hysterical anti-hunting lobby seeking to ban fox hunting and to make inroads on the shooting and fishing lobby. No wonder our rural population feels threatened and beleaguered. Our urban neighbours say they love the mountains and hills and they demand more and more rights of access to them. But in return they burden these areas with red tape, bureaucracy, rules, regulations and economic strictures which will serve to depopulate our uplands and leave them as barren wastelands, devoid of people - the collective memory and unique natural heritage of the mountains irreversibly lost.

Now we even face the additional problem of EU enlargement. I wholly in favour of the process of enlarging the European Union. I believe we have a fundamental moral obligation to the people of central and eastern Europe to welcome them back into the European family after their years of oppression under the Soviet and communist systems.

However, we should be under no illusions as to the massive costs that enlargement will entail. The structural funding and subsidies which we have enjoyed for years as Members of the EU will dry up to a trickle as funds drift from the west to the east.

Already, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland has lost Objective 1 status because it narrowly failed to meet the necessary economic and demographic criteria. The temporary funding programme which has been put in place will come to an end in four years' time and frankly, I cannot see any further programme being secured. The precarious economy of the region will therefore suffer further decline, unless new sources of income and employment can be established.

And it is the quest for these new sources of income and employment that I turn to the final part of my presentation and seek to find a way out of this un-remitting picture of gloom and despondency. All of us are aware of the benefits of living in the mountainous areas of Europe. The unique quality of life, the wonderful and peaceful scenery, the low crime rate and safe environment, are all familiar parts of the package. However, such a package is not sustainable without economic security.

If, as I have outlined, the traditional sectors of agriculture, forestry and tourism are becoming increasingly precarious, then we must examine the new technologies to see if they can offer a sustainable future. Can the information and communication sectors offer employment to people living in remote mountainous areas? Can training in marketing and the creation of producer organisations help to add value to and develop niche markets for traditional upland farm produce and crafts? Can we further develop the tourist industry without overloading the road networks and overburdening the delicate environment?

Regional and national governments and the EU institutions have a vital role to play in this scenario. Tough political decisions will need to be taken. There must be a clear acceptance that there is an unfair distribution of basic infrastructures in lowland areas, compared to our hills and uplands. There must be an acceptance that there will be major costs to society in securing a reasonable future for our mountainous areas, not least in compensating the upland population for the crucial services they continue to provide by protecting the vital landscape resources and ecosystems.

Only in this way, can we secure a brighter future for the mountainous areas of Europe - a future which will attract young people who were born and bred in the mountains to make their careers and raise their families there and which will even attract new people to move there, in search of the quality of life which only he mountains can provide.