‘Rewilding the Scottish Highlands: a taxonomy of wild land discourses’ Holly Deary , Dr Charles Warren, Dr Rob McMorra

1. ‘Rewilding the Scottish Highlands: a taxonomy of wild land discourses’Holly Deary, Dr Charles Warren, Dr Rob McMorran

2. ‘Restoring the Highlands’ • Multi-dimensional nature of ‘wild land’ • Different land managers, different parameters • Disparate rewilding frameworks

3. Research aims …..the importance of understanding these ‘wilding trajectories’ • To develop a taxonomy of wild land discourses • To establish a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity of Scotland’s wild land movement • To examine how these wild land discourses interface with one another and with other environmental discourses

4. What is Q-methodology • Social sciences research method • Exploring subjectivity (i.e. viewpoint) • Exploring statistical relationships between viewpoints • Form of factor analysis A way of defining discourses which frame participants views: provides a relative set of evaluations for each respondent

5. How important are the following statements in accordance with your vision for wild land? Most important …………. Least important

6. Wild land Q-Sorts • Each and every Q-sort is correlated with one another, then subject to centroid factor analysis

7. Factor Arrays • Three distinct factors • Absolute normalised Z scores converted to relative rankings to highlight areas of consensus and discordance • Red represents greatest area of variance between factors, grey statements are those with greatest consensus

8. Distinguishing statements: profile 1 ….statements concerning experiential wildness/landscape ….statements concerning socio-economics

9. Taxonomy themes • Strength of Q-methodology in its integration of quantitative and qualitative data • Rationalising ‘why’ the Q-sort is sorted that way • Holistic understanding of the nature of these profiles • Establishment of taxonomic themes

10. Taxonomy themes Ecological parameters “[…] moving from the human domination of the ecosystems to one in which natural processes prevail” (Profile 1 estate) “[…] allow the land to achieve its full ecological potential – making it as ecologically productive as we can” (Profile 2 estate) “We do and will continue to do a lot of specific management specifically for mountain ringlet because it is a key species” (Profile 3 estate)

11. Taxonomy themes ii. Historical fidelity “We are completely relaxed about the endpoint” (Profile 1 estate) “We’re concerned with going forwards rather than going backwards” (Profile 2 estate)

12. Interpretation: Taxonomy themes iii. The place of cultural heritage and valuing ‘tradition’ “Ignoring the cultural heritage is not something which sits comfortably with somebody who has a Highland history” (P3 estate) “Wild land should never mean the exclusion of people, especially in a landscape with such a rich cultural history” (P2 estate) […] crofting can have some quite extensive benefits for lapwings in terms of having areas of shorter grass after grazing” (P2 estate) “Wild land should be devoid of human influence, so how can we incorporate or preserve the cultural landscape?” (P1 estate)

13. Interpretation: Taxonomy themes iv. Sustainability and a place for people “It doesn’t need humans to go and experience it for it to be wild. People can experience but it’s not a pre-requisite” (P1 estate) “We do want the land to be productive in the sense of employment and sporting issue” (P2 estate) “People need to realise and recognise that this can’t be done without people” (P2 estate) “Commercial forestry interests are very much going to produce an economic surplus, and that allows management of other areas” (P3 estate)

14. The wild land profiles

15. Summary

16. The point? The significance? • Recognising that wild land, and thus wilding, means radically different things to different land managers/owners • Continuum concepts: Scotland’s ‘wild land ethos’ • Land owners drive change

17. Thank you