Scotland

Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust – Reshaping Land Ownership in Scotland

How can communities reclaim control over their shared challenges? In March 2002, Gigha islanders managed, with help from grants and loans from the National Lottery and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, to purchase the island from its absentee landlord for £4 million. The island is now owned through a development trust called the Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust. The Trust aims to promote: community regeneration, employment and sustainability. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFiudQ0t2ms?rel=0] Many people in [...]

Garry Peterson2016-11-28T09:30:00+00:00business, europe|Comments Off

Eigg Heritage Trust – Reshaping Land Ownership in Scotland

How can people organise to gain control of the place in which they live? The Scottish Ilse of Eigg replaced its historic semi-feudal system of land ownership, in which residents were tenants of an absentee laird (a large landowner) with a new model community based ownership. Eigg is one of the Scottish Inner Hebrides. In 1997, the island was bought from its absentee landlord for £1.5m, raised from residents and thousands of non-residents. Many people in Scotland live on land [...]

Garry Peterson2016-11-07T10:38:23+00:00europe, social movement|Comments Off

Trees for Life: Rewilding Scotland Forests

Trees for Life is a rewilding project that aims to restore the wildness to ecosystems and the human spirit. Doing this requires it to work to change how people view what is natural and possible in Scottish nature and it has done this by building a broad effective coalition to achieve a long term task. The project works with extensively with volunteers to combine landscape transformation with education.

Garry Peterson2015-09-11T11:00:00+00:00Conservation, Education, europe, Social-Ecological Seeds|Comments Off

Seeds are existing initiatives which hold potential to shape the future. They are likely not widespread nor well-known. They can be social initiatives, new technologies, economic tools, or social-ecological projects, or organisations, movements or new ways of acting that have that appear to be making a substantial contribution towards creating a future that is just, prosperous, and sustainable.

We gather seeds from diverse research disciplines, communities of practice, and individuals that have different world-views, values, and problems. This diversity means that not everyone will agree on the importance or value of every seed.