Scottish Sporting Estates and Multifunctionality: a review of stakeholder perceptions

David Charles Hunter Watts, Colin John Hunter

Research output: Contribution to conferenceUnpublished paperpeer-review

Abstract

Scotland’s rural uplands and islands present particular sustainability challenges. In addition to remoteness and generally poor quality soils, recent years have witnessed a decline in productive agriculture, particularly in the north-west. It has been predicted that land management can remain economically sustainable only if land managers are paid for providing ecosystem services. However, it has been suggested that the highly concentrated nature of rural land ownership in these areas – often seen as another challenge to sustainability – forms a good basis from which to deliver ecosystem services. This concentration of land ownership is related to the geography of sporting estates. These occupy 43% of all privately-owned rural land and are managed to provide hunting for landowners, their guests and tourists. Thus, the sustainability of rural Scotland will be heavily influenced by the actions of a relatively small elite group: sporting estate owners.

This paper reports on qualitative interviews with land managers, representatives of hunting and tourism bodies, conservationists and policymakers on the contribution of hunting, and a possible expansion of hunting tourism, to sustainable development in rural Scotland. These highlight concern over whether sporting estates can deliver across the three main sustainability criteria, with a key arena for conflict being competing discourses of conservation and restoration. It argues that conceptualising sporting estates in terms of Wilson’s (2008) ‘spectrum’ of multifunctionality reveals some of the difficulties that are likely to be encountered in enhancing their contribution to sustainable development.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 31 Aug 2011
EventAnnual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (2011) - London, United Kingdom
Duration: 31 Aug 20112 Sept 2011

Conference

ConferenceAnnual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (2011)
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period31/08/112/09/11

Keywords

  • Scotland
  • sporting estates
  • multifunctionailty

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