I understand that the decisive step is soon to be taken regarding the enormous wind farm proposed for the north of the island of Lewis.
Only two weeks ago, after years of publicity and dissent, a Scottish television commentator referred to the site as “on a moor in Lewis”, as if the area, known 500 years ago as “the great moor”, had no distinction and had no meaning either for most people or for the speaker.
I have known something about that moor for nearly 60 years. I have walked it from side to side and end to end. I have watched light and shade running across its wide spaces, and wondered at the colours changing from moment to moment and season to season. I have unavoidably soaked my legs in the endless variety of bog.
This part of Lewis, picked on for a gigantic wind farm, is not just a supreme treasure of the Outer Hebrides, leading a field shared by the machair, the mountains and the shrines of prehistory and history. It is recognised for its world of nature and its evolutionary meaning by the top level of designations, which have been assigned to it to secure its preservation and to recognise its priceless, irreplaceable, virtually unique qualities.
It is not just a place. It is the soul of Lewis.
No undemocratic, industrial interest can possibly be encouraged to destroy such a thing.
By Michael Robson
Port of Ness, Lewis
6 February 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/02/06/alternative-take-2/