The role of culture in the sustainable use of a ‘cultural landscape’: a case study from the Hebridean machair

Abstract

This article explores the interrelationship between landscape and culture. Taking as its focus the distinctive machair landscapes of western Scotland and Ireland, this study argues that continuing concern for the sustainable use of this landscape is fostered by its celebration in poetry and song and that, in turn, this literary culture depends on traditional ways of farming this fragile landscape. The blown shell sands of the machair plains are rich in calcium carbonate which contributes to its fertility and to the biodiversity of its flora. This article reviews how the machair landscape has been praised in traditional songs and how contemporary poetry functions as a vehicle for the transmission of cultural knowledge and values. It also considers how machair has become an ‘index’ for Scottish Gaelic culture.