DIGITAL PRODUCTION
DAVID LINTERN (with Tim Parkin) Save Glen Etive website
The Ben Starav group, the Allt a’ Mheuran issues from the coire system
David Lintern explains why the
campaigning website was set up and the
process involved
I
n autumn 2018, many hillwalkers and kayakers
became aware of plans to build seven Run of
River hydro schemes in Glen Etive - in effect, to
industrialise every major tributary leading into the
main River Etive. The tributaries on the east of the river
were felt to be the most sensitive, with a significant
landscape impact, and much recreational use by both
white water boaters, walkers accessing the Ben Starav
Munros and photographers. The environmental impact
of run of river is only just starting to emerge, but we
know that eel, salmon, eagle and freshwater mussel
habitat could be drastically affected. This, quite apart
from the value in Scotland’s cultural heritage as the
site for drove roads, Gaelic song poems and Celtic
mythology. The tributaries on the west are cloaked in
sitka plantation, although this is slowly being taken out.
Around 650 people lodged formal objections, and
both Mountaineering Council and John Muir Trust
objected in various ways. The developer then pulled a
fairly familiar trick of pulling the applications, then
resubmitting with some small changes, which meant
that all of the public’s objections were classed as
redundant. Of course, asking people to look all over
again at the plans and resubmit their objections is never
as successful - who has the time for this, except the
energy companies and their lawyers...?
22 Outdoor focus | winter 2019
Until February 2019, efforts were mostly individual
and fragmented, although word was spreading by
social media. A small group of activists came together
quite organically - most of us have still never met bar
meetings via phone and video link. An FB group was
very successful in raising awareness among the general
(not necessarily hill going per se) visiting public, a
petition grew to over 12,000 signatories and emails
to councillors made public on Twitter did similar
work for those more professionally engaged - guides,
journalists, councillors and the NGOs.
Enough of a fuss was created to cause The Highland
Council to decide to look again at the three schemes on
the east side. A date of 20 March was decided, and this
loose campaign group needed a means of addressing the
councillors, most of whom are not experts in renewable
schemes before they considered and voted on the issue.
As you can see the website was not the focus of the
campaign, just a tool for a particular audience...
Most of the credit for the website build itself should
go to Tim Parkin, a local man from Ballachulish who
runs the On Landscape photography magazine (but
is not an OWPG member). I wrote the text, in close
cooperation with my fellow rabble-rousers, but Tim
looked after the design side, utilising his extensive
contacts in the photography world who all donated
images. The OWPG judges said some nice things about
the website, but also pointed out some issues which are
relevant in this kind of work. Some of our images took
a while to load, and some links were defunct. Back in
March, of course, all the links did work... and we had no