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How multimillionaires are trying to rewild Scotland
On the edge of the Scottish Highlands lies a 5,500-acre estate called Kildrummy. It was recently bought by American property developers Camille and Christopher Bently. The Bentlys join the growing ranks of so-called “green lairds” – climate-savvy millionaires and billionaires who are buying up Scottish land and transforming the way it’s managed. CAMILLE BENTLY, REWILDER: “Kildrummy was operated as a shooting estate, and so really intensely managed for that purpose.” The Bentlys bought Kildrummy estate for about $15 million. Its manor house was built in 1901 to accommodate grouse shooting parties, and its land was intensely managed.Heather-clad moors were burned to improve breeding conditions for the grouse. And their predators, such as foxes, were hunted and trapped. The Bentlys have banned trapping and shooting at Kildrummy. They plan to turn the estate into a semi-wilderness where dwindling species are revived and protected. CHRISTOPHER BENTLY, REWILDER: “Across the way we’re looking at the Glenkindie estate, our neighbor. They’re a hunting estate. And they, though, have managed their land very sympathetically with the environment.”“We’re looking to piggyback off of that and replicate that here, where you see a heavily burned, heavily managed moorland that was kept this way for far too long.” Not far away lies a former shooting estate, named Bunloit. It was recently bought by another green laird, Jeremy Leggett. Leggett is a long-time climate campaigner who made his millions from solar power. JEREMY LEGGETT, REWILDER: “After 20 years as a solar entrepreneur, I went from the beginning of that time being told that I was a rootless dreamer and solar energy would never be making energy for grown ups who really knew about energy, through to where we are now. I thought, why not try and have a go at helping create that kind of exponential growth elsewhere in the survival story right at the end? Taking carbon down out of the atmosphere.” Leggett hopes that research at Bunloit will accelerate a land-management revolution in Scotland and help avert climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse. He told Reuters he aims to measure precisely how much carbon is stored at the Bunloit estate. JEREMY LEGGETT, REWILDER: “I think a hundred years from now, if we get this right, much of Scotland is going to look like small parts of Scotland do today: ancient woodlands with oak trees hundreds of years old.”The rise of the green lairds has revived debates about who owns Scotland’s land and what they’re doing with it. Campaigners say fewer than 500 people own more than half of Scotland’s private land, and many of them are foreigners. Some traditional lairds are deeply skeptical about proponents of rewilding. One of them is 74-year-old Jamie Williamson. “The people who are pushing this rewilding tend to be people from an urban background or foreign country who’s come in here.” Williamson runs Alvie & Dalraddy, a traditional sporting estate. He says he’s been struggling to maintain his revenue from grouse shooting and deer stalking on an estate surrounded by prominent rewilding projects.He also says planting native woodlands in Scotland won’t avert climate change so long as the country imports cheap timber from overseas. “If we actually brought back in and produced our own steel and iron and brought back our polluting industries, but run them more efficiently. We’d actually probably do far more for global warming than peatland restoration or growing very slow growing trees here.” Back at Kildrummy estate, the Bentlys know that Scots can be wary of Americans with grand plans and deep pockets. CAMILLE BENTLY, REWILDER: “There’s definitely a contingent who has this mindset like, you know, oh, these Americans coming in and buying up land and they’re changing everything that we know and love. But that’s not what our goal is at all. We are here because we love it and we just want to be a part of making it and the very best that it can be, throughout the future.”
