How the next Land Reform Bill could endanger nature and climate change objectives
SLE's Policy Adviser for Rural Communities, Sarah Madden, reflects in this blog on how the forthcoming Scottish Government Land Reform Bill could hamper vital investment and action on nature restoration and carbon sequestration.
The Scottish Government’s commitment to introducing a new land reform bill by the end of the year puts the ability of rural Scotland to deliver on nature restoration and climate change objectives in jeopardy.
The proposals seek to place additional regulatory burdens on ‘large-scale’ land holdings and influence the land market with a public interest test on land transactions over an arbitrary ‘large-scale figure’. However, there are those such as Labour MSP Mercedes Villalba, who advocate much more radical change in the form of a cap on ownership altogether, regardless of the wider consequences.
Lowering the arbitrary ‘large-scale’ threshold (originally 3000 hectares) would capture smaller landholdings potentially as small as 500 hectares, exacerbating the worries of Scottish farmers already grappling with uncertainties around agricultural subsidy, viability and trade. Never before has agriculture needed as much reassurance and support as it does now, rather than additional regulations that could compound financial uncertainty and hinder sustainability efforts. Unfortunately, the threshold looks set to come down regardless of Ms Villalba’s influence and smaller landholdings will be required to adhere to further regulatory burdens.
On the existential crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, the scale of investment required to ensure land use can seriously tackle these issues goes way beyond the reach of the public purse – around £15-20bn over the next decade according to the Green Finance Institute. It is also well acknowledged by government agencies that this is best delivered at landscape scale, despite a counter-productive political pursuit of fragmentation of ownership. Pushing land reform measures too far too soon could ultimately hinder the environmental progress expected from land use and dent investor confidence.
A dynamic and varied pattern of land ownership does have its advantages where managers and owners have the capabilities and capacity to make a success of it, and there are already plenty of opportunities for this to be achieved. More community ownership mechanisms materialised from The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, and last year saw a seven percent increase in community ownership on the year before, with the number of assets in community ownership at an all-time high. More landowners than ever are engaging with the Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement since its inception five years ago, and a recent community engagement survey conducted by the Scottish Land Commission also showed extremely encouraging trends in the level and quality of community engagement between landowners and communities, improving year on year.
Most land-based businesses are already anchors and economic powerhouses in their local economies and are wanting to do more, currently contributing an estimated £2.4bn GVA per year to the Scottish economy and supporting 1 in 10 rural jobs. Four out of five estates actively engage in conservation efforts, and as stewards of our natural environment, they are uniquely placed to deliver tangible solutions to the twin crises of nature loss and climate change facing us all. Land-based businesses are equally committed to enhancing responsible land management practices as a mutually beneficial approach for the businesses and communities. Transparency in ownership and management, along with improved trust and relationships with communities and policy makers, can foster positive outcomes for everyone, and this is well accepted in the rural sector.
So, while there is work still to do, the nature of land ownership and management is increasingly working in the public interest. An over-zealous ideological commitment risks this huge contribution and the sector’s ability and confidence to do even more.
Regulatory clarity and market confidence are vital for attracting viable investment, and imposing additional regulatory burdens of maximising community influence may undermine this and dampen the scale of investment. Can we really balance leveraging private investment to reach environmental goals, while also delivering often contradictory social outcomes? Policy makers need to give serious consideration to these choices against a backdrop of potential environmental collapse.
This blog post first appeared as a column in the print edition of the Press & Journal on 22 July 2023.
Comments