LONG READ: Inverness author and playwright Jenna Watt explores conservation movement in her latest book, Hindsight
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AN Inverness playwright has taken a walk on the wild side for her first non-fiction book.
In her latest book, Hindsight, the award-winning theatre maker Jenna Watt takes us on her personal journey researching and taking a plunge into the various facets of the conservation movement.
The book, published by Birlinn in August, follows the author as she goes on her first hind stalk in an almost cathartic experience, as well as opening conversations around rewilding, ecological grief and ecofeminism across different areas in the Highlands and Scotland.
“Hindsight originally started its life as a piece of theatre,” she said. The initial idea was born at Magnetic North Theatre’s residency in Edinburgh in 2020.
“I was trying to find ways to integrate and topics and concerns that I learned on my masters course and integrate them into my artistic practice at the time.
“I was fortunate enough to start working with some performers at Magnetic North about the story of the stalk which I had done some months before – but then, lockdown happened.”
Eventually, she was asked to explore these topics in a book, and that's how Hindsight was born.
Featuring interviews with main actors in the rewilding world such as Peter Cairns from The Big Picture, Jeremy Roberts from Cairngorms Connect, Cathy Mayne and Megan Rowland who run the deer-management network Hind Sight as well as Alladale's owner Paul Lister, Hindsight is door into various aspects and voices within the rewilding movement.
"I guess I wanted to find those people that worked in places that I had a connection to, and because of where they are they have a very interesting dynamic to deal with, the interrelation between ecology, rural economy and tourism.
“Growing up in the Highlands I was very fortunate that my parents would take me around quite a lot, so I was quite familiar with certain areas of the region. I really valued those trips.
“I just grew up that was how the Highlands looked like, I hadn’t had been around enough to have seen any significant ecological change which improved biodiversity, rather then degrading the habitat, especially with Inverness population growing exponentially.
After exploring the north-west Highlands, she became really aware of the different landscape.
“I started to question what was around me, particularly when I went to Cape Wrath, which is owned by the Ministry of defence and the military.
“What I thought was wilderness was instead a landscape that was being shelled. And then I was the only woodland in the area, and it was fenced off. And I started wondering why.
“I wondered – how can this be interpreted as being bleak and at the same time this beautiful wilderness? This is when I started to look at landscapes I grew up in in a different way.”
Her passion brought her to do a master in MSc in Sustainable Rural Development, which allowed her to better understand the landscape around her.
She said: “I was being told that the wasn’t that habitat at its full potential, but it was being kept that way for other purposes
"I started challenging and thinking that it's not only about looking at the beauty of the Highlands. This can actually be better!"
A particular interest for Jenna was in deer management; during her research, she discovered that her ancestors were gamekeepers at the Drumochter shooting lodge and this among other things led her to meet with deer stalkers and and to try to better understand what the process of deer culling entails. She decided to take part to a hind stalk.
She said: "Deer stalking is a really important part of conservation in Scotland, and I wanted to do something more practical, grounded. with stalking it felt like another one of those divisive topics – that does that mean if you support conservation in Scotland but you wouldn't take part to a deer stalk? It's something I felt drawn to.
"I chose hind stalking because there is no trophy aspect to it, and it is much more effective in terms of population control."
"I am not a hunter, I am not interested in the culture of that, I have never been really drawn to the sporting side of it, but the deer management side of it felt very different. However I was aware that it would be a very male-dominated environment.
"I read a book by Portia Simpson who wrote about her education and how she became a deer stalker and I loved her account. She was giving a woman's perspective - not necessarily a feminist perspective – but I found it fascinating.
"I wanted to understand what it was like for women deer stalkers how it was to work in that environment."
From Glenfeshie to the Coffin Road near Brora, from hind stalking and beaver reintroduction to land management, the book touches on many aspects of conservation which affect the Highlands, giving a voice to various perspectives in the conversation.
"I really wanted to understand the role of people in conservation and rewilding, because we are not separate from it.
"Land ownership in Scotland is very controversial because of the loss we had ad the cultural cleansing of the region, we have a very difficult relation with what is done with the land.
"Coming from an artist's perspective, I am in a totally separate economy and I felt I could offer something here as I am not tied to any one particular view. I'd like to think that as artists we might be able to communicate things in accessible ways.
"I really hope that people are left with the desire to learn more and reflect on the habitat they are surrounded by, and discover what they can do for their environment, even if that is just going quietly through it."
