User:Abernethy Forest/Dick Balharry (Environmentalist)

Dick Balharry is a Scottish conservationist, environmentalist, and writer who has contributed to the raised awareness of the need to safeguard and value the unique natural heritage of Scotland.

Dick Balharry was born and brought up in the village of Muirhead near Dundee and in 1954, after a year of technical college and an hour in a factory in Dundee, Dick Balharry landed a job as kennel boy and under keeper on an estate near Tighnabruaich, Argyll. In 1956, he went to work under Archie McDonald, the head stalker of Glen Lyon. In 1959, he went to work at the Red Deer Commission. In May 1962 Dick Balharry was appointed Warden of the newly created Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve where he was responsible for over 10,000 mountainous acres and Caledonian Pinewood.

In 1985, when the Nature Conservancy Council bough Creag Meagaidh, he was their chief warden for north-east Scotland and roughly managing the same area when the Nature Conservancy Council became Scottish Natural Heritage. In 1996, he was created MBE for services to nature conservation. In 1997, he retired as SNH’s Badenoch and Strathspey, Moray and Nairn area manager.

Retirement
In 2003, he was appointed chairman of the John Muir Trust.

In January 2010, he was appointed interim chairman of the National Trust for Scotland. In June 2010 he had an Honorary Doctorate of Science conferred on him by Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland. In September 2010 he was succeeded as interim chairman of the National Trust for Scotland by Sir Kenneth Calman

In 2013 Dick Balharry, President of Ramblers Scotland, is calling on the Ministry of Defence to abandon its plans for the purchase of additional land at the Cape Wrath NATO firing range and asking the Scottish Government to secure the land for the nation, along with a review of the public interest in all the MoD property held in the Cape Wrath area.