from Sunday Herald, 16 August 2009
For 15,000 years their bright red bellies have lit up the dark waters of the loch. They have outlived mammoths, and are giving us unique insights into the evolution of life on earth.
But now the arctic charr in Loch Rannoch are facing the biggest danger of their existence. A property developer is planning to plonk a luxury seven-storey restaurant for the super-rich on their spawning grounds.
The building, billed as an “iconic broch” by the developer, could sever one of Scotland’s few remaining links to the ice age, experts say. And it is likely to be opposed by the government’s conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage.
Malcolm James, who made millions developing property in Cornwall, has applied for planning permission to turn his Dall Estate in Perthshire into Scotland’s most exclusive holiday resort. His £1.3 billion plans over 430 hectares include a luxury hotel, two golf courses, a concert hall, an upmarket shopping centre and a plastic surgery clinic.
Visitors will have to pay £2 million to join a club, £500,000 in annual membership fees and up to £14,000 to stay the night. One of the main attractions will be the underwater restaurant, which will be built in Loch Rannoch in the style of an ancient crannog, James says, with a pier joining it to the shore.
But a leading authority on arctic charr has told the Sunday Herald that the building will disturb one of the fish’s only known spawning grounds. Silt could suffocate the eggs they lay every autumn amidst the pebbles in the loch shallows.
“It’s a killer,” said Ron Greer, who worked for 25 years at the government’s freshwater fisheries laboratory in Pitlochry. “It’s probably the greatest threat that the arctic charr has faced in Loch Rannoch for 15,000 years.”
Protecting the fish was “one of the gravest environmental responsibilities in the whole of Europe” he argued. The loch’s charr population was as important to the understanding of evolutionary biology as the famous finches from the Galápagos islands which inspired Charles Darwin.
Greer, a Scottish representative to the International Society of Arctic Charr Fanatics, a science body, pointed out that Loch Rannoch was one of the last primal habitats in Scotland. It was recolonised by arctic charr when the ice retreated between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.
Since then the fish have remained land-locked, and evolved into three distinct sub-species with differing shapes, eating habits and breeding patterns. They were teaching us a huge amount about how animals adapt over the centuries, Greer said.
“If we can’t save the charr, what can we save?” he declared. “This development is one of the worst projects of its kind that has ever been envisaged.”
Dr Colin Bean, a freshwater fish specialist with Scottish Natural Heritage, pointed out that the arctic charr was one of Scotland’s most important and protected species. Loch Rannoch was a critical site and a designated conservation area.
“This is an incredibly challenging development in terms of water quality, disturbance to species and access to spawning grounds,” he said. SNH will issue its full response to the planning application next month.
The development has provoked fierce opposition from the local community, where it has been branded “not visionary but delusional”. And national environmental groups like the John Muir Trust have also come out against it.
“This speculative proposal seems to be a particularly inappropriate development in a special wild place,” said the trust’s Helen McDade.
But the plan has been defended by its proposer, Malcolm James. “There won’t be any pollution,” he told the Sunday Herald. “I don’t want any habitat to be destroyed.”
He lives with his family at Dall House, and regularly swims and dives in Loch Rannoch. But he wasn’t aware of the arctic charr’s spawning grounds.
“I want to see that this project doesn’t cause any detriment, and in fact improves the environment,” he said. “I am for nature, not for ruining nature.”
Read an earlier article on the proposed development at Loch Rannoch here.
The photograph of arctic charr is courtesy of Natural Resources Scotland.
Sorry, he's not on email.
Posted by: Rob Edwards | 27 October 2009 at 04:18 PM
Do you have the email address of Ron Greer - I should have sent him a message.
Thank you for your help
Posted by: reidar borgstrøm | 21 October 2009 at 10:06 PM