SEBG News
Sporting Estates Play Key Role in Future of Scotland's Green Tourism
22nd April 2010Scotland’s sporting estates are in prime position to help Scotland fulfil its tourism and environmental ambitions, a rural business conference heard today.
Representatives from European and UK landowner organisations and Scottish Natural Heritage told delegates at the Scottish Estates Business Group (SEBG) conference in Edinburgh that estates can make a major contribution to biodiversity and rural sustainability.
Many estates already host sites of special scientific interest and provide a public good in terms of habitats, species and landscapes.
Sporting estates also make a significant contribution to Scotland’s tourism offering with an estimated £400 million being pumped into the local economies each year through shooting and fishing.
Opening the conference, Sir Alastair Gordon Cumming, Chairman of SEBG said: “We are very fortunate in Scotland to be blessed with outstanding natural heritage. Estates have been doing a power of work in terms of conservation for generations now and it is in everyone’s interests for there to be increasing recognition that landowners and estates can be real solution providers in this area.
“Estates have considerable experience in protecting and enhancing biodiversity and making a positive environmental contribution which will increase in the future.
“We are also making great efforts in terms of tourism in the countryside. One of the factors we should keep very firmly in mind is that a great deal of country sport takes place outside the main tourism season and in places where is there is little other economic activity. Country sports deliver real benefits to communities across Scotland and the challenge we must rise to is to build substantially on that.”
For further information:
Ramsay Smith, Media House: 0141 220 6040 / 07788 414856 email: ramsay@mediahouse.co.uk
Louisa MacKenzie, Media House on 0131 247 7520 / 0777 359 2625: louisa@mediahouse.co.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
SEBG represents a group of progressive land-based estates with significant agricultural and rural business interests. It aims to promote a modern business approach in the management of Scotland's land resource in ways which deliver social, economic and environmental benefits. The Group seeks to secure a sustainable and prosperous future for rural areas and its members work hard across Scotland to stimulate enterprise and economic development.
