Why the battle still rages over land ownership in Scotland

“Who owns Scotland?” It evokes strong emotions.

It’s not just about land. It deals with people, profits and where the power lies.

Scotland is unusual because it has one of the most concentrated patterns of land ownership anywhere in the western world.

Land reformers say 421 individuals, companies, asset management groups and foreign trusts have been accounted for. owns more than 40% of all rural land in the country.

“This is shocking,” said Dr Josh Doble, director of policy and advocacy at Community Land Scotland.

“We are an international anomaly.”

Lawmakers have long grappled with this issue, but the pace of change has accelerated since devolution in 1999.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill is the Scottish government’s latest far-reaching and controversial attempt to address this issue.

It aims to make community buyouts easier, provide tenants with more information about the management of their land and give ministers the power to break up some large properties at the point of sale.

SNP ministers say the legislation gives a voice to the voiceless and gives communities a greater say over their future.

Opponents called it an unenforceable and unprecedented attack on private property rights. There is even talk of “class war”.

Sarah-Jane Laing of Scottish Land and Estates, which represents many large landowners, says the provisions in the law are “driven by ideology”.

He claims that the Scottish government “wants to regard the disintegration and dispersion of estates as an end in itself”; Ms Laing describes this aim as “genuinely damaging to people, businesses and nature”.

The debate has its roots in for-profit clearings in the 18th and 19th centuries, when landowners removed people from their properties to make way for sheep and cattle.

They know all about Knoydart in the West Highlands, a rugged peninsula that can only be reached by boat or a two-day walk.

Hundreds of Scotsmen were violently evicted from Knoydart in the 1850s. Many were forced to emigrate to Canada.

It was one of the events that led to this. Public inquiry into conditions in the Highlands and to Scotland’s first major land reform in 1886.

The Crofters Holdings Act was introduced by William Gladstone’s Liberal government and guaranteed tenure to small-scale tenant farmers known as crofters.

These days Knoydart is owned by the community. In 1999 local people bought most of the land where they lived and worked and now they say the region is developed.

The peninsula is home to Great Britain’s most remote pub, The Old Forge in Inverie, run by Stephanie Harris.

He told us that Knoydart has gone from strength to strength over the last 25 years.

“Many more people live here, there are many more children here now, more private businesses and public organizations operate here,” he explained.

“There are so many more opportunities, and the fact that people still want to come here I think shows that it’s working.”

Davie Newton was instrumental in much of this change, building and renovating a pub, shop, village hall and more; he also helped manage the Knoydart Foundation, which manages the estate.

He said community ownership led to the planting of 600,000 trees. revitalization of hydropower plan and the construction of many new homes.

“When making decisions about its own future, society gains confidence by making decisions and making them right, and gains experience by making decisions and making mistakes,” he said.

The new Land Reform Bill aims to make it easier for other communities to follow in Knoydart’s footsteps.

But the clauses, which would give ministers powers to force the distribution of some large estates, are not welcomed by many landowners and their representatives.

Sarah-Jane Laing said it wasn’t right to say “bigger is worse” when it comes to properties in Scotland.

“Unless you have the scale of ownership, some of the peatland restoration and river restoration – along with building homes, pushing renewable energies, starting businesses – is almost impossible to achieve,” he said.

Scotland’s largest private landowner Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen known for his interest in “rewilding”.

Miss Laing met us at a more modest but still quite large estate – Preston Hall Farm in Midlothian, to illustrate her point – that big can actually be good.

The 650-hectare estate is home to a variety of businesses, from coffee roasters to picture framers and a pottery workshop.

“The variety of things that go on is what makes it exciting to manage and run,” landowner Will Callander said.

“To be clear, we don’t make huge amounts of money. We don’t sit here and drive fast cars and live a luxurious life.

“We live here, we work here, and we want to be surrounded by fun, exciting, happy people.”

Mr Callander has concerns about the latest land reform legislation, which has sparked some talk of legal action to challenge some of its provisions.

“What we need is certainty,” he said.

The new bill was supported by Labor and the Liberal Democrats, but the Conservatives voted against it, saying it was unworkable and destructive.

The Scottish Greens abstained, saying it fell far short of what Scotland needed and accusing the SNP of failing to stand up to landed elites.

Most land reform campaigners agree with the call for more radical reform.

Dr Josh Doble said Scotland was facing a rural housing crisis, rising inequality, depleted biodiversity and limited economic opportunities for local people.

“All of this stems from the fact that there are very few people who control what happens in these areas,” he argued.

“If we had a much more democratic and equitable way of sharing land among people, we would start to address these issues in a truly meaningful way.”

Like many claims in this debate, this one is hotly debated.

Hundreds of years after they began, the battles over land reform look set to continue raging in 21st century Scotland.