The Cairngorms area is arguably the most significant for nature conservation in the British Isles and contains its largest National Park. In this book, 35 authors, drawing on published and unpublished sources, present an up-to-date review of the area's natural features, including plants, animals, habitats, geology and landforms. The review falls into three parts. The first and largest part describes the area's rich diversity of nature, with each chapter summarising recent research findings, trends and conservation issues for a different landform, habitat or species group. The second part considers deer management, recreation and projected climate change impacts. Part three focuses on rare and threatened species, and identifies areas and habitats rich in species for which the Cairngorms are nationally and internationally important.

Winner of the Favourite Scottish Nature Photography Book, 2020 Cairngorm National Park is a massive area of mountains and passes, rivers and forests, settlements and wild land, located in the heart of Scotland. A unique environment, it is home to many species of animals and birds. Its scenery is glorious. Andy Howard has enjoyed an intimate relationship with the area since childhood, exploring its most hidden places and developing a close understanding of its wildlife. His photography displays the deep empathy that makes him a unique and sensitive guide.

Hill-walking was Shepherd's great love; her single collection of poetry, 'In the Cairngorms', expresses an intensity of deep kinship with nature. They are poems written with the perception of one who has climbed the mountains and truly knows them.

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Cairngorms: A Secret History is a series of journeys exploring barely known human and natural stories of the Cairngorm Mountains. It looks at a unique British landscape, its last great wilderness, with new eyes. History combines with travelogue in a vivid account of this elemental scenery. There have been rare human incursions into the Cairngorm plateau, and Patrick Baker tracks them down. He traces elusive wildlife and relives ghostly sightings on the summit of Ben Macdui. From the search for a long-forgotten climbing shelter and the locating of ancient gem mines, to the discovery of skeletal aircraft remains and the hunt for a mysterious nineteenth-century aristocratic settlement, he seeks out the unlikeliest and most interesting of features in places far off the beaten track. The cultural and human impact of this stunning landscape and reflections on the history of mountaineering are the threads which bind this compelling narrative together.

In 1995 the National Trust for Scotland acquired Mar Lodge Estate in the heart of the Cairngorms. Home to over 5,000 species, this vast expanse of Caledonian woodlands, subarctic mountains, bogs, moors, roaring burns and frozen lochs could be a place where environmental conservation and Highland field sports would exist in harmony. The only problem was that due to centuries of abuse by human hands, the ancient Caledonian pinewoods were dying, and it would take radical measures to save them. After 25 years of extremely hard work, the pinewoods, bogs, moors and mountains are returning to their former glory. Regeneration is the story of this success, featuring not only the people who are protecting the land and quietly working to undo the wrongs of the past, but also the myriad creatures which inspire them to do so. In addition, it also tackles current controversies such as raptor persecution, deer management and rewilding and asks bigger questions about the nature of conservation itself: what do we see when we look at our wild places? What should we see?

This is a collection of essays showing that concerns about climate change are far from being a uniquely modern phenomenon. It traces the origins of environmental debates about soil erosion, deforestation, and climate change in the writings of early colonial administrators, doctors and missionaries. The author traces what is known and what can be inferred about El Nino events centuries before the devastating 1997/1998 effects. In a concluding essay he analyzes the general significance of marginal land and its ecology in the history of popular resistance movements.

'Crystal Mountains' tells the story of the early crystal hunters who roamed the mountains and glens of the Cairngorms during the 18th and 19th centuries in search of Scotland's famous gem - the smoky quartz or cairngorm. It provides a comprehensive history of this arduous and uncertain quest, and explains the geological background to the occurrence of the gem minerals, and is illustrated with numerous photographs of the Cairngorms National Park and previously unpublished photographs of mineral specimens, gemstones and artefacts made from them.

This authoritative impartial scientific account by a recognised expert, will be of interest to planning officers, ski companies, skiers, hill-walkers and mountaineers as well as the many in the public who appreciate wildlife and the Scottish countryside. The first part of this book presents the evidence of the author as the main scientific witness at the 1981 Lurcher's Gully Public Inquiry into proposals for ski developments on Cairn Gorm. The Inquiry examined human impacts for a week and remains the most thorough Inquiry on this topic so far in Scotland. Following the decision of the Reporter in charge of the Inquiry, the Secretary of State for Scotland rejected the proposals. In the second part of the book the author presents his unpublished research on certain aspects of the Inquiry that he continued to study afterwards, in more detail.

An elegant, moving and heartfelt love letter to the sights, sounds and tastes of northern India told through the enthralling story of the troubled relationship between a father and daughter stretching from Partition to the present day. James Connor is a man who, burdened with guilt following a tragic event in his youth, has dedicated his life to serving India. Ruth Connor is his estranged daughter who, as a teenager, always knew she came second to her parents' missionary vocation and rebelled, with equally tragic consequences. After 24 years away, Ruth finally returns to Askival, the family home in Mussoorie, a remote hill station in the Northern State of Uttarakhand, to tend to her dying father. There she must face the past and confront her own burden of guilt if she is to cross the chasm that has grown between them. In this extraordinary and assured debut, Merryn Glover draws on her own upbringing as a child of missionary parents in Uttarakhand to create this sensitive, complex, moving and epic journey through the sights, sounds and often violent history of India from Partition to the present day. 'An original and engaging story. Glover understands houses are never just houses. Askival will break your heart.' Cynthia Rogerson, author of I Love You, Goodbye and If I Touched the Earth