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So @JimHunter22 has already said this, but we need to talk about how landlordism is again being held up as an ideal for ecological restoration. Thread 
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/rewilding-bunloit-estate-scotland-jeremy-leggett-climate-crisis-a9602631.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/rewilding-bunloit-estate-scotland-jeremy-leggett-climate-crisis-a9602631.html
Iâm a supporter of re-wilding but unless this is allied to a wider democratisation of nature, then it is always going to meet resistance in precisely those places where it needs allies.
Iâd be more sympathetic if I thought these folk had done their homework, but the signs are not good: itâll be an âopen natural laboratoryâ. 
Look, weâve been through this movie before. Itâs what Julian Huxley said about St Kilda in the â30s. The lab metaphor authorises certain kinds of management (St Kilda is still overgrazed today).
Thereâs RĂšm, famously, where clearance, landlordism and depopulation were the backdrop to, yes, the âoutdoor laboratoryâ for the then Nature Conservancy Councilâs deer study.
The Scottish Highlands have been framed this way since the 18th c: a kind of testing ground for Improvement â the Enlightenment laboratory. But labs are not models for community!
Poor Bunloit is now the âBunloit Wildlandâ project, supported by ReWilding Europe Capital (âleveraging positive changeâ ⌠âworking to build a business case for wild nature in Europeâ).
âI will be conferring on the prospects for bison to join the grazing teamâ ⌠âI think my streams, sorry âburnsâ, are too steep for beavers, but we will be checking with experts.â
My streams! Does he mean Allt na h-Eireige, the chicken burn â maybe the place is not so wild?
My streams! Does he mean Allt na h-Eireige, the chicken burn â maybe the place is not so wild?
Full disclosure: my family â both the Frasers and the MacDonalds â were once tenants on what was the same estate, dutifully coughing up to the same factor on rent day.
Not having enough land is one part of the family story, along with poor harvests and rogue landlords. But what land they did have was intimately known, named, worked, storied and sung. It wasnât wild.
Being serious about re-wilding and looking for âscalability potentialâ, sigh, means displacing this image of landlord as the credible agent of natural change in the landscape.
Anyway, enough already, but my absolute favourite line in the article:
âHe is yet to come up against opponents to the plan, but said he expects to.â
âHe is yet to come up against opponents to the plan, but said he expects to.â
