Stand on a cliff-top at the north end of Scotland, shade your eyes and look out to sea. On the horizon you will see a group of islands - to the west rugged Hoy and to the east, lower lying South Ronaldsay, the most southerly of the group of 300 or so islands and skerries that make up the county of Orkney.

Of the three archipelago counties of Scotland - Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles - the greenest and most fertile is Orkney. The seventeen inhabited islands have extensive areas of pretty good soils, the many lochs, burns and surrounding seas are still relatively clean and the air that blows constantly across them is still relatively unpolluted. This is one of the battered earth’s fairer places!

The climate is mild, with little frost or snow, but plenty of rain and wind and a wide sky full of rainbows! The summer nights are very short - in clear weather, it is light enough to read outdoors at midnight at midsummer. The winter nights are very long and dark and consequently Orcadians are convivial people who enjoy visiting and all kinds of winter evening entertainments.

The most important industries are farming and fishing.

There is a small, enthusiastic Organic Farming group but the bulk of farming is ‘modern’. There is little intensive farming, however. The mild climate produces plenty of grass and the farmers produce excellent cattle and sheep, running suckler herds and flocks on the fields and hills in summer and feeding home-grown fodder in winter. The amount of silage-making needed for this can cause environmental problems. However, the weather and international politics and finance currently cause most of the troubles that Orkney farmers face! The fishery includes deep-sea trawling, creeling for lobsters and crabs, gathering shellfish and, increasingly, salmon farming. All of these are thought to cause some environmental damage, by over-fishing or pollution. Much of the catch is processed in Orkney, producing delicacies such as smoked salmon and pickled herring and there is a thriving industry producing other foodstuffs from local resources, such as cheeses, many kinds of biscuits and fudge. And, inevitably, they all produce industrial effluent.

Many people visit Orkney each year and tourism is now a large industry - the population of Orkney can double in the high season.

The presence of sunken World War I and II wrecks in Scapa Flow draws divers from all over the world, while the presence of brown trout in the lochs draws a similar number of anglers.

Several music and arts festivals are held, attracting hundreds of people. The science festival and other academic events are well attended. Arts and crafts also thrive, with internationally known knitwear and silverware leading a very diverse group and attracting many people to the islands.

Orkney is world-famous for its archaeology, with sites of international importance, including the famous stone-age houses at Knap of Howar and Skara Brae. The whole history of the islands, from first human habitation to modern times may be seen in stone-age, bronze-age, iron-age, Viking and more recent sites. The number of visitors’ cars and buses causes congestion on the narrow roads and at some sites the number of feet on the paths is causing erosion. The wildlife of Orkney is famous, especially the birds. Many thousands of seabirds nest each year on the cliffs, beaches and machair and Orkney is one of the last refuges for some of Britain’s rarest species, including the once common corncrake. During the spring and autumn migrations, the islands become a landing stage and hotel for all kinds of birds, some of them very rare visitors. These are followed by flocks of ‘twitchers’ and other bird watchers, lured by the chance of a once in a lifetime sighting.

Orkney also has a magnificent flora, including rare alpine and arctic species. The varied habitats, from high hill to wetland to arable and from sand dune to rocky shore, lead to a marvellous diversity of plants. One recently visited sand dune had some forty species in a couple of square yards! The star in Orkney’s crown is undoubtedly the tiny, beautiful Scottish Primrose, Primula scotica, unique to Scotland and now occurring in only a few sites. The wildlife of Orkney is under constant pressure from farming, fishing and the increase in ‘people-pressure’. Careful management will be needed in future if this splendid biodiversity is not to be lost.

This is the Orkney, beautiful, varied, still pretty clean and still farmed in a fairly non-intensive way, that ECO is dedicated to protecting. Please help us in this worthwhile task.

For more photographs, see the Gallery.