Private Land Ownership
Like the national parks of England and Wales, neither of the Scottish parks are wilderness areas owned by the government. The majority of the land is in private ownership and has been worked by humans for thousands of years. Like many areas of the Scottish Highlands, historical deforestation, overgrazing by sheep and deer, and extensive 20th century afforestation with non-native tree species (particularly conifers) have resulted in landscapes which are semi-natural. Like their English and Welsh counterparts, then, the parks in Scotland are effectively "managed landscapes", and are classified as IUCN Category V Protected Landscapes because of this.
Access to cultivated land is governed by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
Read more about this topic: National Parks Of Scotland
Famous quotes containing the words private, land and/or ownership:
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
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—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
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—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)