Developing Dialogues

on Land Use Decision Making for Natural Capital in Scotland

Bryony Nelson, Naomi Beingessner, Lin Batten, Acacia Marshall & Umar Farooq

"Who decides the future of an area and should it be more democratic?"

Workshop participant

Natural capital investment (sometimes known as green land investment) is a rapidly growing phenomenon in Scotland. This is where (new) actors purchase or invest in land for nature restoration, rewilding, afforestation, peatland restoration, renewable energy and other activities that maintain or enhance natural capital and/or sequester carbon. It is different from more "traditional" ownership because the green motivations are a driver rather than a secondary outcome.

 Previous research  done by the James Hutton Institute investigated the social and economic impacts of green land investment in rural Scotland, how it affects different groups in a community (those working locally, local business owners and those working on the land) and the perceived benefits and/or negative impacts of the investment. It found a range of potential, actual or perceived impacts. The positive or negative impacts of green investment activities depended on the specific landowner motivations and local context. For example, one investor-owner may increase recreational access and another may decrease it.

Social and economic benefits

Negative impacts

increased accessibility, transparency and community engagement with estate activities

loss of employment, outmigration and impacts on services (e.g. schools)

investor-owner support for education and training, as well as community housing

decrease of housing availability due to conversion and increased market prices

financial and in-kind support for local community initiatives

threats to recreational access and activities' aesthetic impact on landscape

increased tourism activity and employment

loss of or change to traditional rural jobs such as farming, gamekeeping, and other estate employment

Potential, actual and perceived benefits and negative impacts of green land investment activities (McKee et al., 2023)

Crucially, the research found that good practice in terms of community engagement had a significant impact on communities' perceptions of natural capital projects and a perceived lack of engagement was a critical negative impact.

Engagement, it seems, is key. Done well, it can simultaneously shape perceptions of natural capital investment activities and their impact on communities, and done poorly, it can be a negative impact in and of itself. The research recommended that communities should be involved in land use decision making and natural capital investor-owners should consider the long term consequences of their decisions and activities on local stakeholders.

Expectations for Community Engagement

Recently there has been a conceptual shift in the approach to nature recovery in Scotland, with focus moving from purely ecology and nature impacts, towards centralising the role of people with a particular focus on rural communities.

The  Land Reform (Scotland) Bill  introduces a requirement for landowners with single or composite holdings of over 3,000 ha (or over 1,000 ha if more than 25% of an inhabited island) to produce Land Management Plans.

Landowners must engage with communities in the development of, and any changes to, these Land Management Plans. The plans must provide:

  • transparent ownership information,
  • the owner's long term vision and management objectives,
  • their intention to comply with the Scottish Outdoor Access code and Deer Management Code of Practice,
  • and how the owner is "managing or intends to manage the land in a way that contributes towards achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to climate change,... and increasing or sustaining biodiversity"

The Scottish Government's  Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement  outlines principles and policies guiding ownership, management and use of land in Scotland to ensure it will "protect and enhance the environment" and "support a just transition to net zero", implicating social justice and the building of a fairer society.

There are several tools and frameworks guiding community engagement in relation to natural capital investment in Scotland. These include:

As well as these more general frameworks for community engagement in the context of green land investment, there are activity-specific proposals for community engagement including:

New actors in the Scottish land market, purchasing or investing in land for green purposes such as rewilding or carbon credits,  may not be as familiar with expectations for community engagement  in land-related decisions.  Research on community engagement in Scotland , with a particular focus on so-called ‘hard to reach’ voices, found several research gaps around organisation, best practice, and lessons learned from existing methods of community engagement.

Our Project

Building on this previous research, our project aims to support community involvement in land use decision making in the context of natural capital investment in rural Scotland.

Workshop recruitment poster

We aimed to engage directly with investor-owners and communities who wish to improve community engagement and involvement in decision making.

To do so, we held two workshops in areas where recent purchases by natural capital investors had taken place, with 4 large land purchases in the last 5 years for green revenue-generating activities. The main activities proposed are woodland creation, peatland restoration, and natural capital enhancement, with some activities already having begun on some of the landholdings.

Overall, 34 stakeholders attended the workshops including local residents, local landowners, food producers, recreational land users, business owners and representatives of interested organisations and community councils. Unfortunately, no investor-owners participated, preferring to conduct their own engagement activities.

More information on recruitment, workshops and activities, and our analysis can be found in our case study write up and SEFARI brochure.

Community Engagement: According to the Community

Four principle themes emerged from our workshops relating to engagement: community engagement and participatory decision making, governance, inclusion and community needs.

Community Engagement and Participatory Decision Making

Discussions around significant land use changes occurring in the surrounding areas and the engagement with the community were at the forefront of the debates. A few workshop participants did not perceive the land use changes as intrusive or even something they should have an opinion about.

"Planting trees, or not planting trees. It doesn't bother me anyway. There weren't many sheep on the ground anyway."

Others questioned the balance of power:

"Who decides the future of an area, and should it be more democratic?"

Most participants mentioned a significant lack of involvement in decision making and continuously emphasised a need for more meaningful engagement. There is a certain lack of procedure relating the empowerment of the community when engaging in land use change, as the degree of engagement is often directed by the investor-owner rather than the community. One participant stated the green land investors are

"actively reducing 'size' of community for consultations and [there is use of] divide and rule tactics by investment groups and landowners to their advantage".

There were comments that the routes to communication are one-directional: engagement only occurs if the landowner makes a positive effort, and there is no procedure for community organisations or individuals to proactively engage.

Some members of the community feel overwhelmed by projects based in their surroundings:

"It's a full time job to keep up with all the land use changes happening locally!"

Moreover, there is no singular platform on which to become more informed on all these projects. Some people perceived that the community as a whole has consequently become increasingly apathetic to the green investment projects, in part due to their experience with community consultation and engagement processes in the past. There is little trust in the probability of meaningful empowerment of the community, nor in the receival of effective community benefits or a sense of mutual understanding from these consultations and engagement processes.

Increased apathy could also stem from the increased alienation of the land and its culture. People mentioned cases where the people with land based knowledge are no longer able to work on the land, such as the gamekeepers and local tenant farmers. As the rift between the community and the land on which they dwell expands due to the explicit or implicit actions of investor-owners, so does the sense of apathy and disengagement about how that land is used.

Governance

The commentary around governance, at both national and at local level, was significant and critical in these workshops. In particular, concern was raised around the lack of regulation around natural capital markets which were framed as an:

"[u]nstoppable external investment that does not really benefit the community".

Also, there is a need for:

"more discussion about the question of whose natural capital is it in the context of the history of cleared communities resulting in the present distortions in patterns of land use allowing these large scale capital acquisitions".

Moreover, the changing political environment was mentioned, where policies based on "fads" might lead to more long term land use change and may be difficult to reverse.

Furthermore, the relationship between community members and the legislation impacting the land use, employment opportunities, culture, agriculture, access and housing of the communities they live in was mentioned during the workshops.

"Communities need more opportunity to shape government policy, for instance land reform [...] regulation, wind farm and renewables subsidies, woodland creation and peatland restoration"

There is a general sense that these communities are subject to, rather than co-creating, the legislation and there is little knowledge on a route to effective governance:

"How can local priorities be reflected in national imperatives?"

Inclusion

When workshop participants discussed who 'community' consists of for the purposes of consultation, the general principle was one of inclusion. Participants suggested a broad interpretation of community, in contrast with landowners or developers who participants thought consider 'community' as only those in the immediate vicinity of the landholding. It was suggested that this is perhaps to limit the number of people requiring consultation, or perhaps to "divide and rule": a small community holds less power. Participants suggested that different land use decisions may require different boundaries for consultations, e.g. flooding concerns may affect an entire watershed.

Participants also suggested that a diverse range of people be consulted. They pointed to those who may be harder to reach or engage, or are heard less: young people aged 16-25, young families, and recent arrivals. Some felt that not only residents should be included, but all those who have a stake in the future, including people who work but don't live in the area, second home owners, or even tourists.

Participants also brought up the question of criteria for a landowner being part of the community: is it dependent on family history, money invested, or engagement with the resident community? Many distinguished between "historical" landowners - who are perceived (by the community) to have an intricate connection to the land and its community, identifying themselves as "custodians" of the land - and land investors whose primary objective is profit.

Participants agreed that engagement needs to be not solely based on landowner needs, but is a "two-way street". They worried that estate workers might feel vulnerable and unable to speak, and cautioned that engagement starts in the owners' "own house", meaning how they treat workers spreads to the community. Some expressed sympathy that landowners may fear embarrassment or being wrong, and that it takes a strong leader to engage with community.

Community Needs

Transparency and accountability emerged as two prominent community needs for effective engagement. Participants said they sometimes don't know who absentee landowners are or how to reach them, and more transparency about ownership and ability to contact owners is needed. Participants felt that government needed to set rules for landowners and managers buying land, setting out standards of engagement, e.g. for communicating events and receiving feedback, and perhaps funding a communication channel for communities and owners. Participants also wanted to know landowner plans, which they felt they often had no understanding of, or which inaccurately portrayed the activities that took place subsequent to sharing of plans. There was a feeling of uncertainty that made it difficult to feel secure and plan for the future.

While we expected workshop participants to concentrate on methods and processes of engagement, a significant finding was that they felt there was an essential first step that needed to take place before meaningful engagement was possible, and that was about knowledge of larger scale context for land use decisions.

Participants maintained the communities should be involved in a masterplan or vision for the area that informed all subsequent decisions. One participant mentioned that the community had no local land use plan or biodiversity action plan, and thus no context on which to gauge decisions. Participants pointed out the statutory, piecemeal consultations was not enough. At the same time, they felt that consultation scope was too narrow - for example, consulting about one windfarm without considering the many already in the area. They saw this as lacking big picture, joined up thinking. One participant suggested there are too many different places to monitor proposed plans for change of land use and communities need one place where they are all brought together (e.g. Scottish Forestry registers). People gave other examples of what they considered successful joined up planning and engagement: Forestry and Land Scotland regional advisory groups in the 1990s, Cairngorms' Connect roadmap for 2050, and deer management groups.

In fact, some participants suggested that the term 'community engagement' was inappropriate and what is needed is community partnerships.

"Perhaps you should be starting with the community, what is good or bad for community and what is the response to those needs by those who own the land? It seems to me to come from the wrong direction."

The importance of procedural justice -  the fairness of how decisions are made and by whom  – and the power relations involved in land ownership and land use decision making came out clearly from our workshops.

Current engagement processes around natural capital investments and land use had resulted in a sense of powerlessness and lack of democratic decision making furthering community apathy and seemed to lead to a loss of employment, access to land, and lack of other benefits for community members.

Participants emphasised a need for more meaningful engagement, even preferring ‘partnership’ to engagement. They constructed a broad, inclusive notion of community that encompassed diversity. There was a sense that communities are subject to legislation, rather than co-creating it.

Transparency and accountability were noted as important for any investor-owner engaging with the community, as was honesty and accuracy regarding land use plans and building trust with the community.

“Procedural justice is concerned with the fairness of how decisions are made and by whom […] perceptions of procedural justice are thought to be a key driver of perceived legitimacy”

Ruano-Chamorro et al., 2022, p12861

What Next?

Following the workshops, participants' feedback and reflections showed that creating space for discussions and local participation, and making visible the power dynamics which are at play within green land investment scenarios, was useful for participants. Workshops provided the opportunities to listen to others' perspectives and build shared understandings which participants found beneficial, even if they disagreed. There were hopes that following the workshops participants could use the information to "work across [area] for better environmental solutions" as well as "engaging with other landowners in the future who provide consultations".

A month after the workshops, people perceived "more people talking about and aware of these issues" and "a desire to meet and take them forward". The workshops may have facilitated participants' understanding or building their collective voice, but it was felt that "leadership" was needed to take this forward. This suggests that not only are voice and fairness in decision making processes critical for community engagement, but also community capabilities and capacity to influence decision making.

This prompts the question:

  • What does "good" engagement look like in practice?

Community Engagement: Good Practice

Community engagement exists on a broad spectrum, ranging from 'inform' to 'empower'. Thus far, engagement seems to have taken the form of either 'informing' or 'consultation'. However, participants showed a desire for greater "partnership", or 'collaboration', in green land investment decision making processes.

INFORM

CONSULT

INVOLVE

COLLABORATE

EMPOWER

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION GOAL

To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions.

To obtain public feedback on analysis alternatives and/or decisions.

To work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered.

To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of preferred solution.

To place the final decision making in the hands of the public.

PROMISE TO THE PUBLIC

We will keep you informed.

We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge concerns and aspirations, and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision. We will seek you feedback on drafts and proposals.

We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision.

We will work together with you to formulate solutions and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.

We will implement what you decide.

Spectrum of Public Participation ( International Association for Public Participation )

There is no "one size fits all" approach to community engagement. The  appropriate form of engagement is highly context dependent , depending on a solid understanding of the local place, people, and culture. This includes the socio-economic circumstances of the area, the culture of participation, previous experiences of engagement and consultation, and resources and capacity of the community. From our workshops, this could include building an understanding of historic patterns of landownership and the Clearances and how that affects current population and landownership patterns.

Decision making processes should be designed with procedural justice in mind. This could include (but is not limited to) embedding  transparency, accountability, neutrality, correctability, ethicality, and trustworthiness  into decision making processes. Practically this might mean ensuring Land Management Plans are made public, there are open communication channels between communities and investor-owners, and monitoring and evaluation is built into plans.

 Power dynamics should be managed . This can be built into the design of decision making processes to ensure that equal opportunity to contribute and that all contributions are valued equally. This means that local and traditional knowledge and culture are considered on equal footing to other forms of knowledge. Disagreement may be inevitable (communities themselves are heterogenous places, and participants themselves noted the benefit of listening to others' opinions even if they disagreed) but effective facilitation or mediation can reduce the likelihood of conflicts.

 Engagement processes should 'fit' the geographical and temporal scale  of natural capital investment activities. This will influence who is included as 'the community' in decision making processes. This was found to be broad and inclusive through our workshops, and could incorporate an entire watershed in the case of flooding concerns for example. 'Fit' also implicates the length and frequency of engagement processes. Engagement should start early and be continuous throughout green land investment projects. This can help build trust, show long term commitment, and build accountability into processes. In some instances, it might be appropriate to hold follow-up or post-project engagement for monitoring or evaluation purposes.

Participant Suggestions

Throughout the workshops, participants made suggestions about what might contribute to better decision making processes and better outcomes from green land investments. Many of them touch on the themes above. While not all participants agreed on each of these suggestions, they are presented here for consideration.

For communities:

  • Communities need to be proactive rather than responsive.
  • Develop their own vision for the future and demand support/partnership working.
  • Put together a representative forum with presence to talk to landowners, a 'go-to' representing local people, businesses, and wildlife.
  • Regeneration and restoration should be by the community for the community. Climate emergency response cannot be separated from community action.
  • Have hope; don't disengage because you feel you won't make a difference.

For investor-owners:

  • Transparency about ownership and the ability to contact investor-owners is needed.
  • Communities should be involved in a masterplan or vision for the area.
  • Landowners should use many diverse methods to reach community: online, onsite, via local organisations and events, engaging personally.
  • Awareness of local culture and value local knowledge.
  • Commit to community partnership to ensure community share of returns.

For policy makers:

  • Set rules for landowners and managers buying land, setting out standards of engagement.
  • Enlarge consultation scope when necessary, e.g. not consulting about one windfarm without considering others in the area.
  • Have one place where all proposed plans for change of land use can be brought together for communities to see.
  • Regulate natural capital markets to benefit communities.
  • Give communities more opportunity to shape government policy and be heard on local needs.
  • Have check and balances for land use change, like in housing development.
  • Create certainty through policy to provide security for planning in the future.

Long term ecological restoration is critical in fighting the dual climate and biodiversity crises. Increasingly, the importance of social inclusion and a 'just transition' is recognised in this sphere, with communities benefits and engagement a key principle of natural capital projects. Resources and information on community engagement are largely focused on investor-owners and those running projects. Information, support, and resources for communities are still lacking.

Below are a few resources which may be of use to communities with relation to green land investments:

Community Land Scotland provides  information and guidance on carbon credits aimed at communities  who may own land and other assets.

This report,  Community Benefits: A Bridge to Community Empowerment , provides a collection of case studies highlighting how communities have enhanced community benefits through natural capital projects.

 Scottish Rural Action  and  Scottish Rural Network  are platforms for those living and working in rural and island Scotland, and play a role in informing and connecting communities on issues which affect them.

Project and Related Content

Links and Articles

​​Agile Initiative. (n.d.). What is the Agile Initiative? Retrieved from The Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School. Available at:  https://www.agile-initiative.ox.ac.uk/about/ 

​Community Land Scotland. (2023a). Beyond Community Benefit - a new deal for thriving communities. Glasgow: Pearce Institute. 

Community Land Scotland. (2023b). Guidance: Communities and the Carbon Codes. Available at:  https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CLS-Guidance-May-2023-Communities-and-the-Carbon-Codes.pdf 

Daniels, S., Creasey, R. & McKee, A. (2022). The Impact of Scale and Concentration of Landownership: Community Perspectives from South Scotland. The James Hutton Institute. Available at:  https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/research/srp2016-21/The-impact-of-scale-and-concentration-community-perspectives-from-South-Scotland-Daniels-Creasey-McKee-Hutton-July-2022.pdf 

Forestry and Land Scotland. (n.d.). Forestry Consultation Procedures. Available at:  https://www.forestry.gov.scot/images/corporate/pdf/Forestry-consultation-procedures.pdf 

Foundation Scotland. (2023). Community Benefits: A Bridge to Community Empowerment. Available at:  https://www.foundationscotland.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-10/Community%20Benefits%20-%20A%20Bridge%20to%20Community%20Empowerment.pdf 

​Green Finance Institute. (n.d.). Investment Readiness Toolkit. Available at: Green Finance Institute:  https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.com/gfihive/toolkit/  

​IAP (2020). Internationally recognized principles for making better decisions together public participation pillars become a member. Available at:  https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.iap2.org/resource/resmgr/pillars/Spectrum_8.5x11_Print.pdf 

​Lightbody, R., Escobar, O., Morton, S., & Seditas, K. (2017). ‘Hard to reach’ or ‘easy to ignore’? Promoting equality in community engagement. What Works Scotland. Available at:  https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/hard-to-reach-or-easy-to-ignore-promoting-equality-in-community-e 

​Mckee, A., Beingessner, N., Pinker, A., Marshall, A., Currie, M., & Hopkins, J. (2023). The Social and Economic Impacts of Green Land Investment in Rural Scotland. Scottish Government. Available at:  https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2023/12/social-economic-impacts-green-land-investment-rural-scotland/documents/social-economic-impacts-green-land-investment-rural-scotland/social-economic-impacts-  

NatureScot. (n.d.). Peatland ACTION: Guidance on Outcomes and Priorities for Action. Available at:  https://www.nature.scot/doc/peatland-action-guidance-outcomes-and-priorities-action 

Reed, M.S., Vella, S., Challies, E., De Vente, J., Frewer, L., Hohenwallner‐Ries, D., Huber, T., Neumann, R.K., Oughton, E.A., Sidoli del Ceno, J. and Van Delden, H., 2018. A theory of participation: what makes stakeholder and public engagement in environmental management work?. Restoration ecology, 26, pp.S7-S17.

Reid A and Brand A (2024) Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. SPICe Briefing, 5 June. Scotland: The Scottish Parliament. Available at:  https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings/Report/2024/6/5/03698723-cde5-41ea-ac50-41537e874e0d  

Ruano‐Chamorro, C., Gurney, G.G. and Cinner, J.E., 2022. Advancing procedural justice in conservation. Conservation Letters, 15(3), p.e12861.Scottish Land Commission. (2019). Developing an Engagement Plan for Decisions Relating to Land. Inverness: Scottish Land Commission.

​Scottish Community Development Centre. (n.d.). VOiCE. Available at: Scottish Community Development Centre:  https://www.scdc.org.uk/what/voice/  

​Scottish Land Commission. (2019). Developing an Engagement Plan for Decisions Relating to Land. Inverness: Scottish Land Commission. 

Scottish Land Commission. (2023a). Community Engagement in Decisions Relating to Land. Inverness: Scottish Land Commission. Available at:  https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/downloads/628e17641fd5d_Comm%20Engagement%20Protocol%202021.pdf  

Scottish Land Commission. (2023b). Community Engagement in Decisions Relating to Land Route Map. Inverness: Scottish Land Commission. Available at:  https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/downloads/5ddfaf5834ff3_GOODPRACTICE-routemap-web.pdf  

​Scottish Land Commission. (2023c). Delivering Community Benefits from Land. Inverness: Scottish Land Commission. ​

Scottish Parliament. (n.d.). Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Available at:  https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/land-reform-scotland-bill 

​VOiCE. (n.d.). What are the National Standards for Community Engagement and who are they for? Available at: National Standards for Community Engagement:  https://www.voicescotland.org.uk/national-standards  

Project Partners

This project was funded by the SEFARI Gateway IKE Fund.

Our gratitude goes out to the workshop participants and everyone in communities who shared our research.

Research partners include:

Miss Lin Batten, University of Strathclyde

Special thanks to Dr. Annie McKee for assisting with conception of this project and to Dr. Michelle Wilson for her facilitation assistance.

Workshop recruitment poster