"Rewilding, Carbon Credits and Nature-based Solutions have become clickbait to grab the public’s imagination with an idyllic, sunlit, sylvan landscape teeming with wildflowers and butterflies, offering boundless opportunities for the reintroduction of long-lost species."
Are we seeing the “green lairds” and the “rewilding aficionados ” heavy handedly trying to convert the Highlands into a national park and sterilise it in perpetuity? Is it right that people with access to large sums of money are able to buy up vast areas and their response to any criticism is “It’s our land and we will do as we want with it”? Communities are being priced out of any hope of land acquisition purely for vanity projects and the latest fashion accessory (Tatler). And carbon credits and the monetization of nature, will they just be another financial Bubble?
Can we dare to hope that land reform could provide opportunity in the Highlands for initiative, independence and industry? For the sake of just my community alone I hope so.