Holly Deary's presentation during the wilderness symposium at the 3rd European Conference on COnservation Biology. Holly concludes (among other things) that Conservation strategies founded upon wildness remain controversial among many Scottish land managers – such challenges must be overcome to move Scotland’s wild strategy forward.

1. „The Return of the Wild:
conceptions of rewilding in the
Scottish Highlands‟
Holly Deary,
Supported by Scottish Land & Estates and the Association of Deer Management Groups

2. Presentation
Outline
• Restoring ‘wildness’ to the Scottish
Highlands
• Distinctness of the Scottish wild land
context,
• Challenges to moving Scotland’s wild
land agenda forward,

3. Restoring Wildness
Principles
• Landscape scale conservation,
• Promoting wilderness qualities,
• Ecological processes as paramount,
• Minimal intervention,
Practices .......................
• Manipulation of grazing pressure,
i.e. Removing sheep, culling deer,
• Restoration of hill tracks,
• Restructuring plantations,
„Long term vision for core
reserves of wild land where
natural processes dominate‟

4. Unanswered Questions
• What level of agreement is there over definitions of ‘rewilding’/’enhancing
wildness and methods for its practical application?’
• How compatible is enhancing wildness with our current subscriptions to more
conventional conservation strategies?
• Does ‘managing for wildness’ make sense in the Scottish context as a land
management strategy?
• What are the primary fault lines associated with ‘managing for wildness’ in
Scotland?

5. A „wild land‟ Delphi model
 Eclectic mix of 18 estates
(i.e. Private, NGO, Trust ownership)
 An adapted Delphi model
- Structured communication system,
- Series of rounds,
- Expert panel,

6. The „rewilding‟
Fault-lines
 Ambiguous terminology
 Uniquely Scottish context
 Lack of conceptual clarity
 Integrating agendas
 Clashing imperatives

7. 1. Ambiguous terminology
• Lack of consensus as to what the emergent
environmental ethic means,
• Lack of understanding as to how it should be
manifested in the landscape,
• Interchangeable terminology
• Conflicting views of the concept in
accordance with parameters used to
understand ‘wild land’,

8. 2. Distinctly Scottish Wild
Land Context
 Heavily managed landscapes to retain the high
biodiversity and socio-economic benefits associated
with them,
 Conservation must co-exist with other land
management practices in Scotland,
 Distinct Scottish ‘wild land’ terminology framework,
“There are some large areas of Scotland,
particularly in the north and west, whose largely
semi-natural landscapes show minimal signs of
human influence” (Scottish Natural Heritage, 2012)

9. Is rewilding, with its implicit values of naturalness,
authenticity and historical fidelity, capable of coping with
the complexity of natural and cultural heritage in the
Scottish Highlands?

10. 3. Lack of conceptual clarity
• Does managing for wildness in a cultural landscape make
sense?
• Where is the cultural value of these hybrid landscapes
positioned within the restoration framework?
• What is the teleological state of naturalness that some of these
estates are aspiring to?

11. 4. Integrating agendas
• Incompatibility between current
nature conservation agenda and ‘wild
land agenda’......
• Restrictiveness of a policy framework
still founded upon the ‘nature under
threat’ approach to conservation.....
• Holistic, landscape scale, minimal
intervention approach vs. targeted
biodiversity agendas.......

12. 5.Clashing imperatives
• Sterilisation of the Highlands.....
• Embrace Scotland’s cultural
heritage......
• Reconciling ‘wildness’ with
more traditional land uses....

13. Conclusions to date....
 Approaches for managing wild land in Scotland are diffuse & disparate, and depend
on the parameters of ‘wild land’ employed,
 Scotland’s natural and cultural heritage necessitates a pragmatic understanding of
rewilding in the same way that wild land provides a pragmatic understanding of
wilderness,
 Conservation strategies founded upon wildness remain controversial among many
Scottish land managers – such challenges must be overcome to move Scotland’s
wild strategy forward,
 Restoration through active interventions.

14. Thank you