…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
Guest Blog by Jess Smith, Scottish author, musician and story-teller from Perthshire’s Travelling People The Tinker’s Heart is a small arrangement of white quartz stones embedded in the ground at the junction between the road to Strachar (A815) and Hell’s
Continue readingImage: Becky Hitchcock The persecution of birds of prey is one of the most malign of wildlife crimes. Yesterday, the ever excellent Raptor Persecution Scotland (RPS) website (which has courageously and doggedly documented and reported on the topic for over
Continue readingOn 23 February 2014, the Sunday Herald revealed that Timothy Congdon, UKIP’s economic spokesperson, had benefitted from wind energy developments on his land in Argyll and Caithness. Today (4 March) it was revealed that he has stood down from the
Continue readingOn 22 January, the Scottish Government published an interesting map showing the density of tenanted agricultural land per parish (1162kb pdf here). What struck me about the map was the apparent coincidence of those parishes with >75% of the land
Continue readingImage: Black Law Commonty The task at hand appears overwhelming. To restore the common ownership of the land & natural resources has been a goal of reformers down the ages but it has often met with limited success. Faced with
Continue readingIn 1965, Educational Films of Scotland made fascinating film narrated by Scottish actor Moultrie Kelsall about the history of Grangemouth from 1750 to modern times (1965). Among the highlights of the film is the focus on the role of Grangemouth
Continue readingA report was published today by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) entitled Family Estates and Rural Resiliance. It contains the findings from a series of 23 interviews with landowners of so-called “family estates”. The report contains a few interesting observations but
Continue readingOn 3 June this year, in response to a question from Ian Davidson MP, the Prime Minister David Cameron announced in the House of Commons that he would co-operate with the Scottish Affairs Committee in establishing who owns and controls
Continue readingIn the first session of the Scottish Parliament between 1999 and 2003, a total of 12 Acts were passed in relation to land reform – 20% of the 61 Acts passed in the first four years of devolution. There was
Continue readingImage © John Paul Photography Allan Macrae 1939 – 2013 Allan Macrae was the crofter who led the campaign by the Assynt Crofters to reclaim their land in 1992. His family had been in Assynt for generations and his great
Continue reading