The CEI will be working with the Biosphere team to promote the East Ayrshire coalfield region within the proposed biosphere reserve. We will be championing the area and working to ensure that the benefits of the UNESCO designation are realised within communities in East Ayrshire.
Galloway and Southern Ayrshire
Galloway and South Ayrshire is now being proposed as a new style UNESCO Biosphere because of its unique combination of special landscapes and wildlife areas, rich cultural heritage and communities that care about their environment and culture and want to develop it sustainably. Biosphere designation will help understand, define, sustain and enhance those special qualities. As an internationally recognised marketing brand for superb natural environments Biosphere designation will offer new opportunities for individuals, businesses and communities to demonstrate how to live, work and play in a world class environment.
Galloway and Southern Ayrshire could be the first ‘new style’ Biosphere in Scotland and would be only the third in the UK. Biospheres have three main functions -conservation, learning /research, and sustainable development. Biospheres are managed by a framework which divides the area into three complementary management zones – Core Area, Buffer Zone and Transition Area. The Transition Area is a more flexible area in which sustainable economic and community development would be actively promoted. Biosphere designation would bring no new regulation of activities within the area.
Why is a Biosphere being proposed for Galloway and Southern Ayrshire?
Galloway and Southern Ayrshire is a special place to live, work and to visit – special for its people, its culture and its outstanding environment. It hosts some of the finest examples of special landscapes and wildlife areas in Europe and in addition has a community that cares about, and for, this special place.
Cairnsmore, Silver Flowe and Merriick Kells were first designated as Biospheres in 1976. UNESCO rule changes in the 1990s meant that the Biosphere concept has been broadened to become one aimed at sustainable regional development. Existing Biospheres have to either re-apply under the new criteria or withdraw. Following extensive local consultation which is now ongoing, it is proposed that a Biosphere partnership in Galloway and Southern Ayrshire submit a formal application to UNESCO to re-register a much larger area.
Biosphere designation provides Galloway and Southern Ayrshire with a unique opportunity to take a lead in developing more sustainable ways of living that will benefit the environment, economy and community of the area and ultimately act as an example of best practice within UNESCO’s worldwide network of Biospheres. If this exciting vision is to be achieved then everyone will need to play their part, whether as communities, organisations, businesses or individuals.
Where are the boundaries?
The area which makes up the proposed Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere is not based on some abstract concept or administrative boundaries but reflects the physical characteristics of the natural environment. Biospheres are living (working) ecosystems and this is reflected in the proposed boundary. The Galloway and Southern Ayrshire biosphere is based on the upland area centred on the Merrick which acts as a water catchment for a large part of south west Scotland and which feeds water flowing from its source via the rivers to the coast and out to sea.
Rain which falls on the hills, moorlands, forests, farmland, roads and other built structures eventually finds its way into streams, rivers and lochs. The area of land that catches the rainfall which feeds a river is known as the catchment. In the case of the proposed biosphere you are likely to be part of the proposed Galloway and Southern Ayrshire biosphere if you live in the areas drained by the river catchments of the Cree, Fleet, Ken-Dee, Nith, Doon, Water of Girvan and Stinchar.
The area’s many small towns: Castle Douglas; Gatehouse of Fleet; Newton Stewart; Wigtown; Girvan; Maybole; Dalmellington; New Cumnock; Cumnock; Sanquhar; Thornhill and their surrounding villages are in the biosphere and just as important to its existence and well-being as the National Nature Reserves of Cairnsmore and Silver Flowe and the Merrick Kells SSSI which are its Core Areas.
The biosphere proposal will feature the strong cultural and local identity of Galloway and Southern Ayrshire and the common thread of water connecting the natural environment, landscape and everyone living and working in the area and on which they all depend. It is through water that everyone living and working in the biosphere is connected with everyone else.
What is Galloway and Southern Ayrshire’s Biosphere trying to achieve?
Galloway and Southern Ayrshire’s Biosphere has the 3 fundamental, complementary functions required of a UNESCO Biosphere (Conservation, Learning and Research and Sustainable Development) that support the core purpose of ‘testing and demonstrating sustainable development on a regional scale’. A Biosphere vision and strategic aims will be developed in consultation with the Biosphere stakeholders and Champions as part of the process of preparing the UNESCO application for re-designation. An Action Plan will also be developed setting out a portfolio of actions identified by the Biosphere Partnership to address those aims.
