1. Restricted land access

“Unless a bit of land comes available. Nobody feels empowered, really, to do anything. Or they don’t see an opportunity because there’s no access to the land.”

—Cairngorms resident Land access is a key factor in facilitating community-based landscape regeneration, as our research highlights. In the Scottish Highlands, a small number of landowners own and control vast swaths of land. By contrast, communities hold approximately 3 per cent of total land area in Scotland, including community woodlands and green spaces, alongside land that is managed by communities under lease or partnership arrangements.12 For communities engaging with landscape regeneration, land ownership structures are central to challenges of gaining land access, of having control over land and of governing land in the community interest. With the rollout of land reform policies and measures in Scotland over the past two decades, notably through the Community Right to Buy scheme and the community transfer asset scheme (CATS), some opportunities have opened up for communities to acquire land and contribute to landscape regeneration practices. While these have facilitated steady increases in the numbers of community-owned land and assets since 200013, particularly in rural areas, land inequalities in Scotland have continued to worsen14, and communities continue to face substantial barriers in acquiring and accessing land. There are ongoing tensions between policy commitments to, on the one hand, empower communities and create a fairer land system and, on the other hand, incentivise natural capital and ‘green’ private investments in Scotland’s rural land. Our research highlights several examples of community organisations in the Cairngorms undertaking small-scale landscape regeneration practices. Although empirical evidence of outcomes is lacking, many examples of community land management across Scotland show a shift in approaches, away from private estates that managed land for sporting or commercial forestry, and towards land management tied to nature recovery, biodiversity and climate outcomes.15 Access to land relates closely to reviving people’s connections to land and nature, and possibilities of what could be done with the land. In the stories below, we discuss examples of how community ownership has contributed to transformations in land-based livelihoods and ways of realising community wealth and benefits.

12 Scottish Government, Community Ownership in Scotland 2024.

13 Scottish Government, Community Ownership in Scotland 2024.

14 Wightman, Who Owns Scotland 2024. 15 Lawrence and Macaulay, Intersections Between Land Reform and Rewilding in Britain. A briefing paper for Rewilding Britain.

2. Disconnected land and livelihoods

“You know, [they] see themselves as custodians of the of the land and wouldn’t ever want to shout about what they do or what they have done and what they have done for a long, long time as well before anyone else came in to speak to them about it. Have you thought of doing this for the land? And they’re like, we’ve always been doing that…” —Community-based organisation With nature restoration and land reform initiatives underway, rural land uses and livelihoods in the Cairngorms and Scotland are set to significantly alter over the coming years. There are challenges to ensuring that climate and biodiversity transitions are just, including supporting the economic revitalisation of rural communities, community wealth-building, the fair distribution of community benefits and the development of opportunities for decent jobs in landscape regeneration. Our findings emphasise the importance of integrating economic revitalisation with landscape regeneration efforts. Community engagement in landscape regeneration is closely tied to job creation, affordable housing, public services, transport and local governance. Such issues are particularly pronounced in relation to calls for re-peopling of the landscape. Without affordable housing, transport, and childcare in the area, the staffing of green jobs can be constrained. Housing costs in rural Scotland are rising, exacerbated by the growing number of second homes, while jobs, particularly for young people, can often be low-paid, seasonal and precarious. These factors result in depopulation and ageing populations as young people leave the area in search of job opportunities. Research participants noted that these key socio-economic issues need to be addressed alongside initiatives for communities to engage in nature restoration. Landscape regeneration is not a singular objective; rather, it connects to the revival of land-based livelihoods. Indeed, many research participants expressed a hope that green jobs will expand in rural Scotland. Some existing livelihoods, particularly traditional industries and land uses such as farming, will need to be carefully and fairly managed as part of a just transition. Our research highlights the importance of rural skills development to support the development of sectors linked to landscape regeneration, such as forestry. In the stories below, we show how communities have developed initiatives to realise collective wealth, benefit and skills through emerging land-based livelihoods. 3. Unequal community capacities “…there’s some seriously capable skills embedded in communities where there might not have been once before where they’re all going to urban areas to work” -Community-based organisation Communities vary significantly in their ability to design, develop and carry out regeneration plans and practices. These differences are based on a number of factors, including resources, funding, support, knowledge, skills and community cohesiveness. Community capacities are unequally distributed across the Cairngorms, structuring

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whether and how communities can initiate and respond to landscape regeneration opportunities. As outlined by the Scottish Government, community capacity-building can help build skills and activate communities and organisations, thereby enabling relationship-building, participation, and self-determination.16 While some communities struggle to undertake project development or realise positive impacts, other communities are in a more advantageous position to draw on a wide range of skills and expertise, impactful supporting networks, and access to funding and other resources. This disparity in community capacities tends to run along socio-economic lines, with less well-off and deprived areas more likely to lack resources and capacities (e.g., people with free time or professional expertise in finance and contracts) to develop and run community-based organisations or community-led initiatives. There is potential for these disparities to further exacerbate social inequalities across rural Scotland17. Nevertheless, even the most well-connected and skilled community initiatives encounter recurring problems with staffing and volunteer availability, limited resources and funding, which multiple initiatives compete for, constrained project longevity without ongoing resources and personnel, and changing opportunities and networks due to the precarity of many of these initiatives. Research participants identified that one important way to address constrained capacities and limited resources in the Cairngorms is through knowledge exchange, collaboration and network-building. Communities can build skills and expertise by learning from each other, including from those who run more experienced, long-standing community initiatives. In doing so, community groups could achieve landscape-scale impact through regional partnerships and network-building. In the stories below, we provide examples of how communities have engaged in capacity-building within and across landscape regeneration networks and initiatives. 4. Limited community voice and influence “What people need is power, not more engagement” -Community-based organisation Although there are growing calls for people-centred approaches to nature restoration, our research highlights that communities often feel disempowered from land-based decision-making. This lack of community influence occurs in landscapes across different scales. With significant tracts of land controlled by wealthy landowners and large landholding organisations, communities in Scotland continue to feel disempowered to influence land-based decision-making, whether this concerns farmland, sporting estates or restoration initiatives.

16 Scottish Government, “Community empowerment”

17 Sharma, « In danger of co-option: Examining how austerity and central control shape community woodlands in Scotland. »

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Mechanisms for communities to engage in and to be heard tend to be poorly developed. Our findings show growing criticism of the lack of community engagement and democratic tendencies of some restoration initiatives. However, while perhaps better embedded locally over a longer period, the older, more traditional estates can rely on familiarity and complacency, thereby overlooking the importance of ongoing community involvement. Without robust, well-developed mechanisms in place, it falls to individual landowners and land managers to mobilise community engagement. As a result, the quality of community engagement across different landowners varies considerably, in line with their values, commitments, and resources. Our findings show that communities call for large landowners not only to engage but also to act on community input. Such efforts could give communities a stronger voice in land-based decision-making. We highlight examples below, both in the toolkit review and in Cairngorms stories, where community engagement in land-use decision-making and community-based initiatives contributes to greater community voice and influence. We show how small projects that are effectively connected to wider contexts and institutions can help to realise outsized impacts, even with limited land and resources. 5. Diminished local governance and democratic participation “There is a governance gap, from national to local” -Cairngorms resident During our interviews, workshops and site visits, research participants noted that some aspects of Scottish governance can constrain and negatively affect communities attempting to engage in and benefit from landscape regeneration initiatives. Overall, participants frequently mentioned a lack of robust local and municipal structures. Local authorities operate at the regional level, covering vast areas and many communities, creating a gap between local and regional governance. Local authorities, such as the Highland Council, are seen to be not representative of local areas or grounded in local priorities. Community councils are the local representative bodies for residents, yet they are under-resourced and hold no statutory powers. They also have little formal input into higher-up decisions about the land. Further constraints relate to public-sector planning and bureaucracy, as well as community efforts to obtain funding or support for their initiatives, or to engage in and provide input on local developments. Many participants observed that communities are not central to the planning system, and their contributions to consultations are not adequately recognised. This disconnection can contribute to community distrust of planning processes. Participants also identified a lack of joined-up thinking in the public sector and silos across different public bodies. This means, for example, that there is sometimes limited clarity about application channels for funding or asset transfers, requiring a high level of knowledge of the policy landscape and further straining community capacities.

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