Andrew Hopetoun: Shooting for the top prize of being the best

Grouse shooting has just completed its most successful season in living memory, with remarkable results being reported from numerous estates, particularly in the Angus Glens and Lammermuirs.

Clearly this has delighted those who have forked out very substantial sums of money (up to £20,000 a day) to enjoy the finest wild grouse shooting in the world. These people have travelled to Scotland from all over the world, although the majority still come to our moors from other parts of the UK.

They are a loyal and dedicated band of sportsmen and women, but as the Scottish rural economy celebrates to the tune of £30 million, all of us involved in the shooting industry know that these good people do have a choice. They don’t have to spend their money here.

What Scotland does brilliantly is that it offers sport and scenery that is unrivalled in the world. But it does not happen by accident. The outstanding success of the 2011 season, which officially ended on 10 December, built on the already great season of the previous year.

At the heart of it all is Scotland’s majestic moorland. But it is a landscape that needs to be looked after and that is where landowners and land managers play a key role in terms of investment, management skills and patience. There are no quick fixes and it comes with a price. Perhaps the most striking example in recent years has been one estate in Angus where the owner invested the best part of £20m to restore the properties and land to their very best.

Of course, there are good years and bad years for grouse shooting but better investment in management, keepering and technology is reaping rewards.

It would, however, be a mistake to think that this only benefits well-heeled country sports enthusiasts. The environmental benefits of well-managed moorland are multiple. Seventy per cent of drinking water comes from upland catchments. Peatlands store three billion tonnes of carbon, ten times the amount stored in the whole of the UK’s forest biomass.

It is only in the last few years that we have started to fully understand the crucial role played by Scotland’s peatlands in locking up harmful greenhouse gases. Much of that peat lies under grouse moors which have been carefully managed for many decades to ensure a healthy mat of heather which prevents the peat either drying out or washing away into our rivers.

The practice of rotational burning of heather on grouse moors also helps to prevent the sort of catastrophic wildfire which releases locked up greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere again – to put that in perspective, a loss of just 1 per cent of Scotland’s peat equals a year of the UK’s carbon emissions. Scotland’s moorland owners are the “guardians of the peat” and are working closely with government to look after it.

The contribution grouse moors also make in terms of biodiversity should also not be underestimated, let alone the aesthetic appeal of these great landscapes which is to be cherished.

Finally, the economic uplift that comes though tourism and employment is something from which Scotland should all take a great deal of satisfaction. In this very difficult economic climate, rural businesses are struggling and in remote areas of Scotland grouse shooting may be the only enterprise capable of bringing in significant income to a community. Having a really good year like this can transform the economic viability of an estate and its ability to maintain employment.

When it comes to talking about world-class Scotland, we hear plenty of our whisky, golf, fishing and natural produce. The moorland management industry – and what it delivers – means it too has earned the right to be labelled world class. Moorland Scotland? We can all take pride in it.

• Lord Hopetoun is chairman of the Scottish moorland group, Scottish Land & Estates