Paths win prizes

A five-year project to restore upland paths in Scotland’s national parks has won the 2018 Scottish Rural Innovators Award.

The Mountains and The People Project won in the Environment and Land Use category.

Held every two years, the awards are organised and hosted by Scottish Rural Action to highlight excellence in rural innovation in meeting the needs of rural communities. 

An unprecedented project in terms of sheer scale and collaboration, The Mountains and The People is a five year £5.2M partnership to restore upland paths in Scotland’s national parks while encouraging people to get involved in maintaining our upland paths for the future.

With over 4.9m people visiting Scotland’s two national parks each year, it was apparent that a project of this magnitude was needed to address the degradation of our upland paths, while being a fantastic opportunity to engage the people of Scotland in the care of the mountains.

Ian Moffett, Chairman of the Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland, lead partner for the project, said: “We are delighted to have won this award and, on behalf of our project partners, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park Authority, Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland and the Heritage Lottery Fund, I would like to congratulate all those who have worked on the project over the past 3.5 years and look forward to what they may achieve over the remaining 18 months.

“The vision of The Mountains and The People project has always been to protect our mountains and encourage others to care about the wild and special qualities of the mountains within Scotland’s National Parks and so to win this award and gain recognition for the project is a fantastic achievement.”

If you would like to become part of our conservation project, visit either of the following websites for details on who to contact: 

www.themountainsandthepeople.org.uk    

www.outdooraccesstrustforscotland.org.uk