A wide-ranging study of how different landownership models deliver sustainability in Scotland's upland areas

Scotland is at the heart of modern, sustainable upland management. Large estates cover vast areas of the uplands, with a long, complex and emotive history of ownership and use.

In recent decades, the Scottish uplands have increasingly been the arena for passionate debates over large-scale land management issues. Crucially, what kinds of ownership and management will best deliver sustainable futures for upland environments and communities?

Although the globally unique dominance of private ownership remains a distinctive characteristic of Scotland's uplands, increasing numbers of estates are now owned by environmental NGOs and local communities, especially since the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003. A decade after the passage of this landmark Act, this book synthesises research carried out on a diverse range of upland estates by the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands. The findings from privately-owned estates as well as those owned by communities, charities and conservation groups will prove enlightening and relevant to upland managers, policy makers, and researchers across Britain and Europe.

With the Scottish Government promoting a vision of environmental sustainability, and with the new diversity of ownerships and management now appearing, this timely and topical book investigates the implications of these different types of land ownership for sustainable upland management.

Key Features:

• Presents major new thinking on upland estate management
• First dedicated textbook on upland estate management
• Respected and experienced academic editorial team
• An academic synthesis of theory and practical case-studies

Jayne Glass is a Research Fellow in the Rural Policy Centre at Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. She was previously a Researcher at the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands). She has undertaken a range of theoretical and applied research and consultancy projects related to land reform and land ownership in Scotland. She has co-edited and contributed to Land Reform in Scotland: History, Law and Policy (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) and Lairds, Land and Sustainability: Scottish Perspectives on Upland Management (Edinburgh University Press, 2013).

Martin F. Price is Director of the Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, and holds the UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Mountain Development. He previously worked at the Universities of Oxford, Bern, and Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Books he has edited include Mountain Area Research and Management (Earthscan 2007); The Mountains of Northern Europe (The Stationery Office 2005); and Key Issues for Mountain Areas (United Nations University Press 2004).

Charles Warren is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography & Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, and holds degrees in geography, glaciology and resource management from Oxford and Edinburgh universities. He has written widely on Scottish land use issues, including his book Managing Scotland's Environment (Edinburgh University Press 2009). He also co-edited Learning from Wind Power: Governance, Societal and Policy Perspectives on Sustainable Energy (Palgrave 2012).

Alister Scott is Professor of Environment and Spatial Planning at Birmingham City University. He is a chartered planner with roots firmly in geography. His research and teaching is located within an interdisciplinary framework with a focus on complex and messy policy land use problems. He has become an expert at the interface of spatial planning and the ecosystem approach with projects exploring the rural urban fringe as part of the RELU programme (2009-2011) and the embedding of the ecosystem approach in tools for improved policy and decision making as part of the National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) Follow on project 2012-2014. He also sits on the NEA expert panel and is a communication adviser for the NERC BESS programme.