Extract: Borrowed Land by Kapka Kassabova
An extraordinary portrait of the Scottish Highlands: this is an epic and urgent story of destruction and renewal, told through unforgettable encounters with its people. Enjoy this extract from Borrowed Land.
Preface
This is the story of a Scottish glen and its inhabitants, and of how I came to call it my glen. Mo ghleann. In the Gaelic worldview, mo expresses affection more than possession. My
glen runs 80 kilometres west to east and is second to none in beauty and story, not even to its neighbour the Great Glen of Loch Ness.
A glen is a long river valley. A long and wide valley is a strath. Lake is loch (pronounced with a hard h) and streams are called burns. Straths and glens, burns and lochs define the character of the Scottish Highlands. The balance of water, land, air and sentient beings has shaped this northern land.
But the balance is on the brink. I came to this place at a time when industry is rapidly changing the face of the land and the sea. Energy companies are building industrial hubs across the Highlands and Islands on a scale not seen before. Their appetite is insatiable and their footprint expands horizontally and vertically. Their industrial networks are everywhere – underground, overhead, on hills, inside lochs, rivers and the
ocean.
Sixteen power stations, including the country’s two largest switching stations. Over 1,000 wind turbines up to 230 metres high. Forty battery energy storage systems (BESS). Five or maybe eight national transmission lines with pylons 59 to 100 metres high, converging over the same river. Three or maybe six major pumped storage Hydro schemes on Loch Ness. This is the projected footprint by energy companies in the Great Glen area, not counting the old Hydro schemes. The north of Scotland has become a target for big developers to build industrial hubs and extract wind, water and solar energy and export
it hundreds of miles from where it is produced – which is why the transmission grid expands in all directions. This deployment of industry in a delicate ecology is driven by net-zero targets in the race to stop climate change. But what is happening
on the ground increasingly feels like a war on nature and communities.
What to do? I went into my glen. To discover it with fresh eyes. To capture how it feels to live in a microcosm where everything alive is in relationship. To record what may be lost.