Vacant land on the banks of the Clyde THE vast majority of Scots support widening urban and rural land ownership to the public, communities and third sector, a poll has found. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of respondents to a survey of 1500 back the proposal, while just 7% are opposed. The poll, carried out by Ipsos MORI for Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), also found Scots consider climate change, building on greenspace and inequality in land ownership to be three of the biggest issues for the future of the country’s land. Close to three-quarters (73%) said they knew little about the Scottish Government’s land reform agenda, but respondents were aware of challenges linked to land. These include concentrated ownership, absentee landlords, vacant and derelict land and land banking (where investors buy land in the hope of profiting in the future).
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NATURESCOT
Golden Plovers breed on moorland before flying back south before winter
Working for Waders is a key initiative that is seeking to arrest the alarming decline in our wading bird population, writes Agnes Stevenson. They are an iconic feature of our coastline and estuaries and their long-legged and long-billed silhouettes appear too on lochs and lagoons, but the waders that are so much a part of our landscape are in dire trouble. In recent years populations of curlew and lapwing have collapsed, down 61% and 55% on what they once were, and oystercatchers too are struggling, with a third less of these beautiful birds being recorded around our shores.