In January 2026 the Scottish Parliament passed the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill which has rightly been hailed as a historic moment in nature protection and restoration that will bring in legally binding targets for Scotland’s biodiversity. Some experienced and knowledgeable commentators, however, continue to argue for stronger regulation on a number of controversial issues.
In this feature blog, intended to follow and complement three commissioned environmental blogs which appear on the website of the National Galleries of Scotland, linked to her artist pages, Patricia Macdonald (University of Edinburgh and Aerographica consultancy) again takes as a starting point one of her aerial photographic artworks from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland to consider an environmental issue relating to climate change, biodiversity and the abundance of nature in the context of some key Scottish landscapes.
In this case, the selected work is the large aerial composite piece ‘Burnt moorland: grouse shooting’, which may be seen in my previous post, and which is currently on show (until 19 April 2026) in the Great Hall of the Portrait Gallery (National Galleries of Scotland) in Edinburgh.
The post below provides some background concerning the controversy around the practice of ‘muirburn': the rotational burning of moorland as part of moorland management for driven grouse shooting:
Patricia-Macdonald-Artists-feature-blog-4-Setting-the-heather-on-fire