Episode 11 Landward

Hello, and a very warm welcome to Landward,

which this week comes from the stunning Dawyck Botanic Garden

in the Borders.

It's one of the world's finest arboreta,

with colourful displays of exotic and native plants

throughout the year.

But we're not just here to marvel at all the trees and the flowers.

We're here to find out about a Victorian hydro scheme that

once powered this estate and has now been brought back to life.

More on that later but first,

here's what else is coming up on the programme.

Euan investigates conflict on the high seas.

Nick's got a seasonal treat for the people of Drymen.

Hmm. I prefer that one.

-That, sir, is the Scottish one.

-Excellent.

And we meet a Commonwealth hopeful, ready to take on her rivals.

I've been practising loads and, hopefully,

I'll be able to catch them.

But first to Aberdeenshire. Seals are one of our most-loved creatures,

sometimes called "the Labrador of the sea".

But they're not always popular with salmon farmers and fishermen.

In the first of two reports this week,

Euan is finding out how the current seal population is faring.

This is the stunning Ythan Estuary at Newburgh in Aberdeenshire.

It's one of the best places in the north of Scotland

for watching wildlife -

eider ducks, terns and hundreds upon hundreds of seals.

Low tide is the best time to see the seals hauled out on the beach

and it's only now you get a feeling

of just how many seals there actually are.

Callun Duck is a senior scientist

from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University.

I'm meeting him here at the Ythan to find out about

the state of seal populations around our coast.

-Hi.

-Euan, hi.

-Quite impressive, isn't it?

Yes, it's the biggest haul-out site on the east coast of Scotland

for grey seals.

How are the seals doing, generally, around the coast?

Very different for the two species. We start with common seals.

Although they're called common or harbour seals,

they're neither common nor found in harbours,

so a bit of a duff name.

On the east coast, in the Northern Isles, Shetland and Orkney,

numbers have gone down very dramatically since 2000.

What about the grey seals? How are they doing?

Grey seals are much more steady. They're static on the west coast.

Their numbers are not going up very much in the west,

but they're slowly increasing in Orkney.

Some of the other colonies in the east coast are in the Firth of Forth

and more down in the southeast of England,

so round the Wash, those colonies are increasing very rapidly,

but the ones in Scotland are increasing slowly compared to

what they were ten years ago.

So what are these guys eating?

You'd have thought any sea trout or salmon going up this river

wouldn't have a hope of getting past.

If they were all eating salmon or sea trout, they wouldn't.

They would clean up every fish that was coming in. But they don't.

A lot of the fish in the scats of the seals here are flatfish,

and the Ythan is well known for being a big flounder site.

I don't know how many flounders are left here

but that's what the seals are targeting.

Why would they take flatfish rather than salmon

and sea trout going right past their door?

The seals are lazy predators. They're not like lions or cheetahs.

Although they're big, fast swimming animals,

they don't like working hard if they don't need to.

They're lazy, a bit like humans,

so they'll take whatever food is easily accessed.

What about nets? Will they take them from nets?

Yes, because the fish are already caught. That's a ready meal.

So they will take, and fishermen do have an issue with nets,

and we're working with quite a few to see if we there are ways other

than shooting seals to dissuade them from coming into the nets.

So, what are the options?

The option that we're trying at the minute

are acoustic deterrent devices, - seal scarers -

that they use at fish farms.

They keep seals away from the nets.

Some of my colleagues have been using these up in the Moray Firth,

and also now working in the east coast at other netting stations,

and they do keep seals away from nets.

But these sonar scarers are only in the trial phase.

Later in the programme, I'll talk to fishermen

who are part of the trial but want to keep the option to kill.

And I meet the international animal rights group

that they're battling with.

While Euan gets in amongst the action,

I'm getting an altogether more relaxing experience.

At a time when the whole country is more concerned than ever with

energy issues, I'm off to explore the history and future of one

of Scotland's oldest private hydroelectricity schemes.

The Dawyck garden lies just southwest of Peebles

and I've chosen the right time of year to come.

There are stunning displays of azaleas, rhododendrons,

Himalayan poppies and many other exotic specimens.

It's famous for its trees.

The 65-acre site has a magnificent collection

built up over the centuries.

Like, for example, that European fir, planted in 1680.

That's 334 years ago. Extraordinary.

The house at Dawyck is privately owned

but the gardens were gifted to the Royal Botanic Gardens

in Edinburgh in 1978 by the Balfour family,

who still own the surrounding estate.

Dawyck was bought by the Balfours in 1897.

It was wealthy widow Janet who used her husband's shipping fortune

to buy the estate.

And her spending didn't stop there.

At the turn of the 20th century,

it was Janet Balfour who installed a hydro scheme to harness

the power of the this, the Scrape Burn,

a tributary of the Tweed, and Dawyck became one of the first

estates in Scotland to have its own electricity supply.

We're heading to the site of the old dynamo house.

'The old system was replaced by mains electricity in the 1950s,

'but Janet's great-grandson Robert Balfour

'is taking me to the spot where the old turbines were housed.'

-This is the actual site of it.

-Yeah.

-You can see the indentation in the ground.

-Hmm.

And the only photograph that we've got anywhere of it is this one...

-which was a very substantial building in those days.

-Wow.

And that was just to house two generators.

So, how successful was it at producing electricity?

-In those days, obviously remarkable.

-Yeah.

But the lights flickered, sometimes you had to

read between the flickering, it failed from time to time.

What do you think her thinking was,

putting in the hydro scheme here at the estate?

I think, probably, it was for practical reasons.

She was a real forerunner in the days.

It was one of the first private schemes

ever put into any house in Scotland.

In their day, the old generators were at the cutting edge of technology.

That spirit lives on.

The estate has just installed a new hydroelectric generator which,

combined with a biomass boiler,

makes it the first carbon-neutral botanic garden in the country.

This is what's known as the dynamo pond,

so this was the original water supply for the hydroelectric system.

'Garden curator Graham Stewart is showing me part

'of the old Victorian system that's been repurposed for the new scheme.'

The burn was originally dammed to provide

the head of water for the historical scheme,

and it also now gives the head of water for the new scheme as well.

The turbine can generate up to 11 kilowatts.

Do you sell any of that back to the Grid, potentially?

We do. It's generating all the time,

so while the garden and the visitor centre's open,

we're supporting our own usage of electric

but we're also, outwith opening times, we're putting

back into the Grid, so there's the revenue from it as well.

The fact there was a hydro scheme here before,

did that inspire you to putting the new one in?

It was part of that, and it was also, from an environmental point

of view, the garden thinks very much about its impact on the environment.

There as a considerable investment in the garden's

infrastructure in 2008, so we opened a new visitors' centre then,

and it was very much a cutting-edge building.

It's a biomass boiler, it's a sedum roof,

so I was looking for a way to build on what we'd already achieved,

so the hydroelectric seemed like a good way forward.

But with large, well-established trees all around,

it offered a few challenges.

This Douglas fir is a fairly substantial tree, isn't it?

Yes, it's a massive tree.

And it was one of the problems we encountered with laying

-the pipes for the hydro.

-Uh-huh.

So much so that here, the pipes go under the ground -

they're almost a metre under the ground - so in order to avoid

the roots, we had to dig by hand to get the pipes under.

-So huge roots for a tree that size, yeah?

-Massive roots.

The spread on the roots is going to be at least what the canopy is,

so we were only going to ever face a problem...

-Right.

-..for the pipes.

-Hand dug?

-Hand dug.

-Seriously hard work?

-Very hard work!

You wouldn't notice, though, that's the amazing thing.

-You would not notice at all now. It looks incredible.

-That's right.

That's the power of nature.

-It healed itself up and now you'd be hard pushed to tell.

-Hmm.

This garden is spectacular and well worth a visit.

It plays an important role in protecting rare species

and now that the hydro has been restored,

it's doing its bit to protect the wider environment as well.

As we saw two weeks ago

when we met the first of our Commonwealth Games hopefuls, the

Scottish countryside is the perfect training ground for athletes.

A few miles east of Dawyck lies the village of Gordon.

The roads and countryside around it are the ideal setting

for potential Scotland medallist Sammi Kinghorn to train in.

-You OK? Do you need to stretch? You all right?

-I'm well stretched.

After taking up the sport only three years ago,

the 18-year-old para-athlete is already one of Europe's leading

wheelchair racers,

and will be competing in Glasgow in the 1,500m event.

There are only six weeks to competition

and with her coach, Ian Mirfin, Sammi is making

the most of the peaceful rural environment in her training.

It's quiet and there's not really anyone. It's quite hilly, as well.

You get downhill and uphill, which is good for fast arms, going downhill,

and uphill just for strength building.

At the weekend, me and my dad will go out on the main road

and we'll do a bigger circuit for longer.

I've never had a car drive too close to me, or anything like that,

because everyone knows me and they'll know when I'm out.

I always get toots of the horn or waves, and stuff.

Someone'll wave at me and make me

want to push a little bit harder and it's just nice to know people...

They know me.

Sammi's journey to becoming the top European athlete in her class began

only a few months after breaking her back in an accident in 2010.

I went to the spinal unit in Glasgow and spent six months there doing

rehabilitation, and I went to a thing called the Spinal Unit Games.

It's just like a big competition kind of thing

where all the spinal units across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland

all come together, and that's basically where I found athletics.

I think I did athletics on the second day and that was it.

I was in love with it and I didn't want to do anything else.

There's no event in the Games

for Sammi's particular disability classification,

so, in order to compete, she's taking on a category

for people with more upper body strength and power.

I am classified as a T53, which means I have no core stability,

so I'm not able to lift in my chair,

so it's just arm power completely down through my wheels.

But because it's a home Games and I really want to do it,

I'm going up a level to compete as a 54,

which basically means that they have more movement than I do.

It's a little bit harder

and they're a little bit quicker off the start,

but I've just been practising loads

and hopefully I'll be able to catch them.

Sammi's coach has no doubt she's strong enough,

physically and mentally, to compete at that level.

She'll do everything she can

to finish as high up in the race as she can.

She's the most determined athlete I've ever met.

You can see what she's like,

and, just for example, having a chat with her dad this morning

before Sammi came through,

after the weekend and having been away racing, we'd said,

"Just an easy push on Monday morning,

"just go out for half an hour, take it easy."

He said, "Oh, the push was fine, but you know Sammi,

"you know what happens.

He told me the time she'd done the push in and how far she'd gone.

Basically, it was an eyeballs-out push that she did,

but she doesn't know the meaning of the word "easy".

As she prepares for the Games, Sammi has found the countryside

round her home in the Borders a constant inspiration.

This is, basically, you know, my favourite place to come,

if I'm sad or if I need time on my own just to think.

It's just...

Just so quiet.

It kind of brings you back to earth

and shows you what a lovely place I live

and just to be thankful for how lucky I am to live here

and to have all the opportunities I've got.

And we wish Sammi luck when she races in Glasgow at the end of July.

The local agricultural show

is the highlight of the summer calendar for many rural communities.

With prize-winning livestock, crafts, horses,

good gossip and a beer tent, they're always a good day out.

That's why Nick and Sarah have taken the Landward food van along

to one of the first of the season - Drymen Show - to join in the fun.

Open for business!

We're going to be cooking a wonderful Scottish product

-that's at its very best right now, and it is...

-Asparagus.

And that's obviously fantastic in terms of food miles,

because it's locally grown in Scotland,

but we are going to have to compare it against some imported asparagus

from Peru, then we're going to go out there and test it

on the lovely people at Drymen Show.

-We are indeed, and we're going to cook it very simply.

-OK.

We're going to cook it in boiling salted water

and serve it with a little bit of hollandaise

that you and I are both going to make.

-I love to help, you know that.

-I do.

-But first let's talk to a man who knows more about asparagus.

-Lead on.

'Asparagus is normally cultivated in the drier East Coast of Scotland.

'But grower Robert Ritchie from Renfrewshire

'is attempting something new -

'growing it on the West Coast.'

So, you're the asparagus grower?

Yes, we started in May last year

and put in 30,000 asparagus crowns.

And you're doing this on the West Coast of Scotland?

Nobody's done this before.

It rains a lot in the West of Scotland,

so we're fighting against the climate all the time, but we've

got it in a south-facing slope and it's done really well.

How do you think the taste of locally grown asparagus

compares with imported asparagus?

I mean, the food miles thing, you're miles ahead on that.

But what about taste?

Taste - it's definitely a lot crisper,

a lot fresher taste you get from it, and the big thing about us

is we can harvest it in the afternoon,

so it can be on the plate in the restaurant

in less than 24 hours from the time it was harvested.

Do you think the public can tell the difference

between your asparagus and imported asparagus?

No doubt at all. Ours is the best.

Fantastic, we will put that to the test!

-Hang around and we'll have a taste later.

-OK, thank you.

Get the pan on.

So, Sarah, we are going to make some hollandaise.

Fantastic - what can I do?

Three egg yolks, could you add a little smidge of mustard in there,

-and a pinch of salt?

-Is that smidge enough?

That's a smidge. And a little bit of lemon juice.

What I've got in here is some ordinary melted butter.

If you could pour the butter in slowly as I whizz it.

-So I've got the hot, boiling butter.

-You've got the hot stuff.

Pour a little bit in, just a splash. There we go.

-Whoa, that'll do.

-Happy?

-Yeah. Oops, sorry about that.

-Stand back.

There she goes, little bit more, thank you.

-Beautiful.

-Teamwork, teamwork.

-You can do it with a hand blender...

-More?

-Yeah, thank you.

..or a jug blender.

Keep going. Yeah, beautiful.

There we have...

-A nice hollandaise sauce.

-Lovely, thick hollandaise.

And is that too thick?

No! You can never have hollandaise too thick.

-It's like thick, hot mayonnaise.

-Can I have a wee taste off the...?

You can have a little taste, yeah.

-That's very good. That's very nice.

-It's crying out for asparagus.

It's crying out for asparagus, so let's get on with the asparagus.

Right, the Peruvian asparagus first.

Peruvian asparagus, boiling salted water.

-Four.

-Four minutes.

Four minutes, out it goes, in the hollandaise.

Actually, you should bite the head off first

then dip the stalk in the hollandaise.

Are there alternative ways to cook them? Steam them?

You can steam them, chargrill them, bake them,

you can barbecue them - it's a very versatile vegetable, asparagus.

Four minutes for the Peruvian asparagus,

out it comes onto a tray.

Fantastic.

Can you cook ahead if you're having people around,

-can you cook ahead?

-No, no, no.

-You can't keep asparagus?

-You can't keep it, no.

We need to do the other asparagus now.

Salted water, in it goes.

-Another four?

-Three minutes.

-Three?

-It's fresher, it's slightly thinner,

it's going to take less cooking time.

-OK.

-The timer's done.

That's the asparagus done, the Scottish asparagus.

I think people are going to love this.

Asparagus is synonymous with the summertime.

And it's a gift, you know, it's a very short season.

-May till...?

-It's April until June.

-Late April until June.

-So not long at all.

We're off to test Asparagus on the good people of Drymen Show.

Yes, let's do it.

-You prefer this one?

-Yes.

-That is Scottish asparagus.

May I ask which you prefer?

That's sweeter.

I'll hold your burger. I'll hold your burger.

Taste.

-BABY GROANS

-Mm-hmm.

You'll get it later.

-That one is actually grown in Peru.

-Is it?

OK.

-BABY CRIES

-Delicious.

-Sorry! Sorry!

I prefer that one.

-That, sir, is the Scottish one.

-Excellent.

OK, do you want the good news or the bad news?

Let's get the good news, surely.

Good news - most people prefer the Scottish variety, your asparagus.

The bad news is two people preferred the Peruvian ones.

-Obviously no taste buds.

-Obviously no taste buds.

Come on, let's see how Nick got on.

I had seven people polled -

five people definitely preferred the Scottish,

one didn't know and one, bizarrely, preferred the Peruvian.

Well, the people I spoke to,

most preferred the Scottish, which is fantastic.

What I'm loving about Robert's product is it is local, seasonal,

and people recognise it on the plate. It's fantastic.

It really is fantastic that people's taste buds can tell

the difference between something that's grown 20 miles away

and something grown thousands of miles away.

That's it for this week at the food van.

Next week we're going to be finding out how much people

are willing to pay for a Scottish burger.

In the meantime, do you fancy a beer?

-Beer!

-I need one.

Earlier in the programme, we heard about the current state of Scotland's

seal populations and how they like a quick and easy meal from salmon nets.

Now I'm further up the coast in a tiny village,

where a big battle is being played out.

This is Gardenstown, known locally as Gamrie,

and this picturesque north-east port dates back to 1720.

But this humble seaside village has become the focus of international

attention as animal rights activists and salmon netsmen clash over seals.

-Good afternoon.

-Good afternoon, sir.

-Can I come on board?

-Yes, welcome aboard.

-Watch your feet coming down.

-Picked a day for it.

'I'm meeting David Pullar of Usan Fisheries,

'which also trades as The Scottish Wild Salmon Company.

'They have the rights to net salmon on this,

'as well as other parts of the coast.

'I asked David what problems they're facing.'

Well, we have quite a major problem here.

The seals just get into the net, steal the fish,

mutilate them, destroy them -

basically, what I would say, it's exactly the same

as a farmer having a problem with a fox taking the likes of lambs

or chickens, they'll go into the field,

and once they get the taste for it they're there day after day.

We're heading out to sea to look at some of their coastal nets.

So how does that work?

Is that like the ones you would see on a beach,

-the salmon come along, hit the net...

-Exactly the same.

They're arrow shaped, like floating traps with a leader

that goes from the shore to the trap, and as the fish come along

they get guided along the leader and into the trap.

'A few minutes later, we're at the nets. So, do we have a fish?'

Is there anything there at all?

How often would you get none?

Oh, we'll get none more often than we get lots.

Nothing there.

It's very early in the season and so far we haven't seen a salmon,

or a seal, for that matter.

But in the height of the netting season things are very different.

Usan, like other fisheries interests, apply for a licence

from the Scottish Government to shoot seals that are targeting their nets.

What kind of hoops to you have to jump through to get a licence?

Well, we have to applied to Marine Scotland annually.

You have to prove that the seals are doing damage,

so we have to photograph all the time

that there's fish with heads taken off, tails, gashes in them.

So we put all that evidence to Marine Scotland in Aberdeen.

But there must be a concern

about safely shooting the seals, cos this boat's moving around

all the time, and you're shooting a seal...

No, we don't shoot off the boat.

It states on the licence we can only shoot from a stable platform.

We will go ashore, we'll put the person with the rifle

ashore if we see a seal damaging the fish,

and then he'll take the shot from there.

'But Usan Fisheries says shooting seals is a last resort.

'They've implemented a number of measures to keep the seals away

'from the fish, including stronger and more sophisticated nets.

'They're also involved in the scientific trial

'we heard about earlier on in the programme,

'testing the effectiveness of acoustic deterrent devices.'

That's the acoustic deterrent device.

The whole project is run by the Seal Mammal Research Unit.

'The device works by emitting a sound that the seals find uncomfortable.'

RAPID CLICKING

So is this the idea, ultimately you won't have to shoot seals?

Well, we only shoot them as a very last resort.

We want to catch salmon, we don't want to shoot seals. Quite simple.

Last year, Usan shot over 30 seals here at Gardenstown

under the terms of its licence.

So far this year, they've shot only one.

But there's a reason for that.

The marine animal welfare conservation society Sea Shepherd

famously used direct action tactics to take on the might

of the Japanese whaling fleet in the southern ocean.

They've moved some of their resources to Gardenstown

as part of their Scottish Seal Defence Campaign.

We tried to reason with them

and said that we only ever have to shoot a seal as a last resort,

and they said they want absolutely no seals shot,

so they couldn't care less about us protecting our livelihood

or fish welfare in the net, the damage they do to the fish.

They had no consideration of that, as long as no seals were shot.

There are two sides to every story,

and I'm back at the harbour to meet Rob Reid from Sea Shepherd.

We were called in by local residents

who were concerned about the shooting of their local seals,

and Usan Salmon Fisheries -

which is the Scottish Wild Salmon Company -

shoot more seals than any other company.

So, in effect, we've started our Scottish Seal Defence Campaign

right here with one of the worst offenders.

But you say worst offenders - they're acting under licence

from the Scottish Government, they're 100% legal.

We believe they're shooting seals

when the seals aren't around their nets.

It's basically more of a seal eradication programme,

to make sure that seals don't interfere with their salmon nets.

But the company say they've only shot one seal this year.

They've only shot one seal this year because we are here.

By this time last year, they shot 18 seals here.

We're not actually interested

in interfering with their salmon fishing.

We are here to intervene against the shooting of seals,

so if the rifle goes out on their boats,

then Sea Shepherd UK will follow.

So how long will you stay?

We will stay as long as seals are at risk of being shot.

We have had two major negotiation meetings,

and our stance is very, very clear.

We want the Scottish Wild Salmon Company to declare themselves

a seal friendly company.

So, if they stop shooting seals,

then Sea Shepherd UK will stop following them.

This is a complex issue,

and my initial personal feelings were that the shooting of seals is wrong.

I still think it's wrong.

But I also accept the fact that fishermen don't want to shoot seals,

but do have the absolute right to protect their livelihood.

There has to be a better way,

and scientists, Government and fishermen

need to get together and sort it out.

On next week's programme, what price Nick's burgers?

I'm not sure, can I have another one, please?

I look at the multimillion pound make-over

as Gleneagles prepares to host the Ryder Cup...

..and our third Commonwealth competitor is aiming for gold.

So, please join us for that and much more at the same time

next week, Friday night, 7:30pm on BBC Two Scotland.

In the meantime, from all the Landward team

here at Dawyck Botanic Garden, thank you so much for your company.

Bye for now.