Who Owns Scotland Now?: Use and Abuse of Private Land

Landowners have had a huge influence on Scotland. The castles, mansions, roads, churches and harbours they have built and the woodlands they created still survive in many parts of the country. In a bygone age, clan chiefs enjoyed unswerving loyalty from their followers and lairds had their own courts with the power to hang those who broke the law on their land. Today, the landowner's power is diminished and the chieftain's link with his people is lost, but many old families - the dukes and the lords - continue to cling to vast estates. The traditional lairds have been joined in the ownership of Scotland by foreign businessmen and aristocrats, and by rock stars, pension funds and environment groups - 80 per cent of Scotland is still governed by lairds of one kind or another, whose motives are often less than altruistic.
In Who Owns Scotland Now?, Auslan Cramb raises important questions. Should areas containing internationally important species and habitats be sold to the highest bidder? Should crofting estates be priced beyond the means of the local community? Should vast areas of Scotland be treated as occasional homes and managed, often to the detriment of the environment, for deerstalking, grouse-shooting and salmon-fishing? Or is there a more productive Scotland on the horizon, where land reform gives communities a say in the use of their land, and where the damaged landscape can begin to heal?
Who Owns Scotland Now? is both an insight into the closed world of the great landowners and a clarion call for change.

Auslan Cramb is presently Scottish correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.