New initiative to ensure public benefits from investment in Scotland’s land

Led by Community Land Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Land Commission, the project aims to help deliver government expectations that communities are involved in decisions about Scotland’s land.

The Natural Capital Partnerships Project aims to establish fair and practical examples of projects where communities, developers, and landowners work together to share in the benefits of natural capital investment.

The project is funded by  Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Foundation Scotland, Scottish Forestry, and South of Scotland Enterprise.

Ailsa Raeburn, chair of Community Land Scotland, said: “We have seen the natural capital market start to take off in Scotland and seen good and bad examples of this working. The best examples are where landowners and investors sit down with communities and talk about their plans, changes they want to make and how they can work together to help build stronger local communities.  

“That can be through a variety of ways including community benefit funds, building local capacity, transfer of assets and developing local skills and facilities. Equally we have seen some examples where the local community has been ignored or sidelined.  

“Thanks to these amazing funders who have the foresight to understand how the emerging natural capital or green finance markets can be made to work for everyone, we now have a chance to invest in building much stronger and more productive relationships between local people and natural capital owners and developers.”

Rural Affairs Secretary, Mairi Gougeon said: “Our recent research shows that businesses reliant on nature contribute more than £40 billion to the economy and support around 260,000 jobs. We must ensure that we protect and enhance our natural capital so that we support these businesses and the benefits they provide to our communities.

“We have high ambitions to show global leadership in rebuilding natural capital through our National Strategy for Economic Transformation, which contributes to two of the government’s key priorities – driving sustainable economic growth and tackling the climate and nature crises.”