St. Kilda

• Official name: St. Kilda
• Location: Scotland
• Type: Natural and Cultural
• Year of inscription: 1986

St. Kilda is an archipelago off the west coast of northern Scotland. It consists of four islands: Hirta, Dun, Soay, and Boreray. The geography of these islands features rolling hills and steep cliffs. Evidence suggests that human beings inhabited St. Kilda for two to four thousand years. For much of this history, indigenous peoples lived on St. Kilda. The region was briefly settled by the Norse, and then later by Scottish immigrants. The Scottish immigrants remained on the island, despite its remote location and harsh weather, until the 1930s when the British government relocated them to other parts of its empire. This action was taken mainly because the residents of St. Kilda were living in extreme poverty and lacked access to medical care. However, the Scottish inhabitants of St. Kilda struggled to adapt to life in an area other than the island.

St. Kilda was named a World Heritage Site because of its unique ecological features. After people left the islands, wildlife began to flourish. The islands that make up St. Kilda are home to one of the largest populations of seabirds in the North Atlantic and in Europe, with more than one million seabirds on the island at any one time. The sea life surrounding St. Kilda is also abundant, with many species of fish and aquatic animals living near the islands’ shores.

History

The archipelago of St. Kilda formed from an ancient volcano in the North Atlantic Ocean roughly sixty million years ago. This gradually resulted in the creation of the steep cliffs for which the region is known. While the environment of St. Kilda is harsh and known for its severe weather, archaeological evidence shows that the islands were inhabited by human beings for two to four thousand years. The region’s neolithic sites reveal that ancient peoples once lived there and show evidence of Norse settlements. The Yalukit-William aboriginal people, a sub-branch of the Kulin Nation, lived on the island on the island before European colonization in the 1930s.

In 1802, naval surveyor Charles Grimes sailed from Sydney, Australia, to St. Kilda. At this time, the region was populated by Scottish immigrants. While they originally called the islands Green Knoll, the area was renamed St. Kilda in 1842.

Despite the harsh climate, small communities of Scotts persisted on St. Kilda. The population of St. Kilda began to decline during the mid-nineteenth century, when the government of the United Kingdom issued the Act of Proscription, which sought to force the assimilation of the Scots into mainstream English culture. Many Scots were redistributed across the British Empire, resulting in massive Scottish emigration from their homelands.

While small communities of Scottish people lived on St. Kilda, the archipelago was considered the property of a Highland Scottish clan called Macleod. This clan was associated with the Isle of Sky, which is off Scotland’s northwest coast. The Macleod clan resided on the Isle of Skye, traveling to St. Kilda occasionally to collect materials from its inhabitants.

During the nineteenth century when the Europeans arrived, the isolated community was struck by a smallpox epidemic, killing many of the people of St. Kilda. Soon after, the British relocated some of the remaining residents of St. Kilda to other parts of the British Empire, hoping to help them escape poverty and give them a better life.

Tourism increased during the nineteenth century, bringing an influx of wealth to the region, but the declining population of St. Kilda significantly reduced the standard of living for its remaining residents. Historically, the community of St. Kilda had operated by dividing labor between different demographics. As the number of young men declined, food became scarce because young men traditionally handled climbing the cliffs in search of food such as local birds. This resulted in shortages. Soon, the people of St. Kilda faced extreme poverty.

By 1930, just thirty-six people resided on St. Kilda. The products traditionally exported by the people of St. Kilda, particularly feathers, continued to decline. The British government announced that due to the declining quality of life on St. Kilda, as well as the island’s lack of access to medical care, the island’s remaining residents would be evacuated to the mainland.

Though the people of St. Kilda embraced this evacuation, many struggled with the transition. The people were distributed throughout Scotland, not into a central community, resulting in a sense of isolation and the loss of their collective culture. Additionally, many of the people of St. Kilda were unable to bring their livestock with the evacuation, leaving their primary skillset behind on the isolated island. Without marketable skills or livestock to farm, the former residents of St. Kilda continued to experience poverty. Though St. Kilda was later opened to military personnel and scientists, no additional permanent settlements were founded.

After human residents were removed from the island, the population of animals across St. Kilda grew into a uniquely diverse ecology. Populations of seabirds, which were once kept in check by the residents of the island, rapidly grew. The Soay sheep, a feral sheep unique to the island, are considered a culturally important, historic breed. Additionally, the island is surrounded by high levels of aquatic biodiversity.

Large numbers of historic ruins can be found throughout St. Kilda. One of the largest abandoned settlements, Village Bay, still contains structures dating back to the late nineteenth century. Other archaeological sites provide evidence that the island has been inhabited by people for millennia.

Significance

St. Kilda is the only United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in the United Kingdom to be listed for both its cultural and national heritage. Locations under consideration to become a World Heritage Site must meet at least one of ten establish criteria. St. Kilda meets the qualifications for five of those criteria: iii, v, vii, ix, and x. Criterion iii requires that the site exhibit an important interchange of human values or developments in architecture, technology, arts, town-planning, or landscape design. This criterion is met through St. Kilda’s prolonged period of human occupation. Criterion v requires that a site be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use. Criterion vii requires that a site contain superlative natural phenomena, which is satisfied by St. Kilda’s unique landscape. Criterion ix requires that a site be an example of significant on-going ecological processes while criterion x requires that a site contain important and significant natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity. Both criteria ix and x are met through St. Kilda’s large wildlife and seabird population.

The continued occupation of the remote island, dating back from the indigenous peoples through Scottish immigrants, is considered culturally significant. Through preservation as a World Heritage Site, researchers and archaeologists can learn how various civilizations survived in such harsh conditions. In the twenty-first century, the island’s history is considered an important example of subsistence economy. St. Kilda’s subsistence economy was based on agriculture, sheep farming, and the hunting of wild seabirds. Should the island be repopulated by permanent residents, these important historical records might be damaged or destroyed.

Numerous factors contributed to St. Kilda’s status as a natural World Heritage Site. The archipelago’s unique landscape, including its steep cliffs and underwater scenery, are considered ecologically unique. Additionally, following the departure of permanent human residents from the island, St. Kilda has become one of the largest seabird-gathering sites in the North Atlantic and Europe. The species with the largest populations on the island are fulmars, gannets, and puffins. At any given time, more than one million seabirds may be present on St. Kilda.

Though conservations efforts for St. Kilda are important but not the sole reason for the archipelago’s relatively untouched natural environment and surviving historical records of occupation. Even in the modern era, St. Kilda is difficult for travelers to safely reach. Additionally, the region’s climate remains unpleasant and inhospitable for humans. However, experts warn that St. Kilda may be threatened by the eventual development of offshore structures. They also warn that global climate change may increase the pace of natural erosion, resulting in the destruction of historic sites across the archipelago. It may also create changes in the maritime environment surrounding St. Kilda, resulting in the widespread death of plankton and damaging the populations of many other species.

Lastly, though populations of seabirds and other wild species currently flourish across St. Kilda without human intervention, periodic travel to the island by military personnel, scientists, and tourists presents a unique danger. The accidental introduction of invasive species to the archipelago could disrupt the delicate balance in which the wildlife of St. Kilda exists. For these reasons, travel to and from St. Kilda remains carefully tracked and controlled.

Bibliography

“Archipelago of Saint Kilda World Heritage Site.” EnezGreen, 2022, www.enezgreen.com/en/archipelago-of-saint-kilda-world-heritage-site/. Accessed 13 July 2022.

“St. Kilda.” UNESCO, 2022, whc.unesco.org/en/list/387/. Accessed 12 July 2022.

“St. Kilda.” World Heritage Datasheet, 2022, world-heritage-datasheets.unep-wcmc.org/datasheet/output/site/st-kilda/. Accessed 13 July 2022.

“St. Kilda World Heritage Site.” NTS, 2022, www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/st-kilda. Accessed 13 July 2022.

“Stories from St. Kilda.” National Records of Scotland, www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/features/stories-from-st-kilda. Accessed 13 July 2022.

“The Criteria for Selection.” UNESCO, 2022, whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/. Accessed 13 July 2022.