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The threatened arctic-alpine plants in Scotland are described from the results of a comprehensive survey carried out between 1990 and 1996 which attempted to record all populations. The factors affecting the survival of populations of these species are indicated along with the legal measures available for their protection. I consider whether we should protect these species and whether we can. The steps needed to help ensure their survival are suggested. These could include the assessment of the local risk to populations and the implementation of remedial management to threatened populations. Scottish botanists have to decide whether they support such a change in conservation practice for plants.

Changes in the burning of heather moorland were studied in the Borders and Grampian Regions of Scotland using aerial photographs from the 1940s, 1960s and 1988. Seven out of 32 sites examined in Borders showed no evidence of heather burning. Five of these were close to conifer plantations. In Grampian only one site studied had not been burnt. Despite this difference, mean areas of heather burnt in the two regions were similar in all periods studied, with no evidence of a decline since the 1940s. Narrow (