TO 2nd May 2022
Foich and Inverlael Estate
c/o Hendrik JE van Beuningen sen.
Brink 5
3945 Cothen
NETHERLANDS
Dear Sir
I do wonder if you are doing eco-tourism on the estate land. On the 19 April four young walkers, with two babies were dropped off near to the lochan on the top of the Graham summit at 667 metres. The hill is Beinn Bhreac, nr Meall Dubh hill. Grid reference: NH 22578 88618
The Argocat was fine on the estate roads and was doing no damage. However, it went off-road for a long time, twisting and turning and, churned or stripped off the vegetation to expose the peat. Am I right in thinking that the scientific consensus is that when Argocats expose bare peat it releases carbon dioxide that is a powerful greenhouse gas that worsens the climate emergency?
Could you encourage tourists to walk when they are fit and able or, at least, confine their Argocat motoring to estate roads and public roads?
I would be glad to read your perspective on the matter, please.
Best wishes
Dear Tim, 9 May 2022
Thank you for your letter in respect of the four young walkers with two babies.
One of the four is my daughter and she is co owner of the estate, so no eco tourism.
The argo was used to drop them off on the top of Meall Dunn Hill and further in the season we use the argo for stalking stags and culling hinds.
The argo is driving then always off road to collect the carcasses.
By the way, you send your letter to my father, but he dyed 7 years ago.
Kind regards
Hendrik Jan
H.J.E. van Beuningen
Gooyerdijk 47
3947 NB Langbroek
Netherlands
0031 (0) 653350911
11 May 2022
Dear Hendrik
HELP KEEP THE PLANET BEAUTIFUL
Many thanks for your email. Good of you to reply.
I did think it was the owner's family group, especially when the Inverlael Forest Estate came up on the website, 'Who owns Scotland' as having a Dutch owner but I did not want to act on an assumption.
One of the women explained, that they had at least, come by boat from the Netherlands and not flown. However, I saw their Netherlands car at the bottom of the forest road which meant sea travel was necessary and plane travel unlikely. Clearly, from their remark, they did have some knowledge of the climate/ecological crisis that caused the Secretary-General of the United Nations to talk, more than once, of a "Code Red Warning for humanity".
The warning is in response to what scientists call the Anthropocene age and the sixth mass extinction episode, in the history of the planet. This one we humans are wholly responsible for from our enthusiastic burning of finite fossil fuels that kicked off the industrial age and, consequently, high standards of living for us in the West. Since 1988, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been accumulating the evidence of us humans causing the enhanced natural greenhouse effect to put all life on earth in danger.
It sounds as though you are as wedded and as welded to your Argocats as you may be to your car. I would simply ask you to compensate for peatland destruction by funding even more of the Caledonian Temperate Rainforest that is being replanted in small areas of Scotland. Perhaps, too, more in your own beautiful estate?
I'm a member of the British Mountaineering Council and help with their 'Moors for the Future' project to stop the loss of plants from our peatlands, their destruction, and the consequent release of carbon dioxide.
I'm 74 and love hillwalking. However, after a lifetime of using the car, I'm now using my pushbike and trains to get to the hills much more and have cut my car mileage by well over 50% since 2019 when I motored 14,000 miles. Old men like me get blamed for wrecking the environment for the young. Yet, since the early 1990s I've been cycling to and from work and even using my bike for my social work visits on over 90% of the days.
I would love you to be even more ambitious in building a more beautiful planet for your growing family, Hendrik.
Very best wishes
Tim
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