The new Scottish parliament is responsible for the environment of Scotland with the opportunity for land reform and new approaches to the protection and management of an incomparable countryside to meet the needs of the 21st century. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a far more radical approach is now required to safeguard the public interest over a very large proportion of Scotland's mountain and moorland country. There is little point in exhorting the unemployed, trapped in sub-standard inner city homes, to support campaigns for sustainable forestry or the protection of the Green Belt from industrial encroachment. The plain fact of the matter is that in Scotland, as elsewhere, the means of subsistence will always be first priority where this is under threat, and so-called environmentalists have too often been guilty of adopting an indifference to this.