LAND REFORM: A WIDER PERSPECTIVE?

Ken Thomson

An international conference held at the James Hutton Institute in March 2019 provided some wider perspectives on a current Scottish issue. A range of visitors from countries as far apart as North America, Central Europe and the Asia were first given a quick summary of the Scottish situation, e.g. the concentrated pattern of land ownership (about 500 landowners control 50% of rural land in Scotland), legal developments since the 1990s and the current activities of the Land Commission, and recent experience with community land ownership. Contributors noted a number of motivations for land reform other than breaking up large land holdings and diversifying the landownership pattern per se, e.g. social "fairness" in the control of natural assets, limiting foreign or absentee ownership, accelerating economic growth, and improving nature conservation, and that there may be unavoidable trade-offs in pursuing these goals.

A good deal of time was spent on the role of the "community" in land reform, e.g. who makes up such communities? Are they communities of "place" and/or "interest", e.g. NGOs? Who leads them in acquiring and/or managing land and other assets? What are the difficulties in exercising the current "rights to buy" in Scotland? - the widespread failure of crofters buying land ownership (over and above their existing grazing rights) since the 1990s was noted, and the heavy resources needed to register and implement the new community rights granted since 2003. A contribution from the United States was interesting in describing various efforts at community land trusts, albeit mostly in urban contexts to ensure continuity of affordable housing - but this is a perennial issue in rural Scotland. Another contribution from France noted some cases of tension and conflict between local control (by communes) and national aims (e.g. by environmental agencies).

One "transnational" participant offered the "Five Rs" of land reform: Recognise (rights), Restitute (to the dispossessed), Redistribute (of the means of production), Regenerate (socially, economically), and (politically) Represent (or Revolt!): how far can these be applied to cotemporary Scotland?

Issues that arose during a final "Discussion and Conclusions" session included:

• How far could a "first nation" or "indigenous peoples" agenda be applied to Scotland? - see Mountain Views 78, pp18-21 as regards recent proposals to map long-abandoned settlements in Scotland, for possible re-population
• Why the disconnect between the Scottish planning system and the land reform debate? - the current draft CNPA Local Development Plan (see elsewhere in this issue of Mountain Views) makes almost no reference to land reform topics
• Might there be unintended consequences of further land reform measures in Scotland, e.g. the break-up of viable farms, or "capture" by higher-income or urban-based interests?
• Is there more scope for "third sector" landownership beyond the current areas belonging to the National Trust, RSPB, John Muir Trust, etc.?
• Will the need to show "sustainable economic growth" as regards future land purchases make life more difficult in trying to diversify landownership and use in Scotland?

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