Planning and zoning is the solution to bad tree planting and land management

This week in The Herald we have been reading extensive coverage of ways in which the reforesting of Scotland has been handled badly, with the wrong trees in the wrong places, the wrong places developed in the wrong ways and the whole process being a transfer of wealth from the public purse to wealthy landowners.

The problem is a blunt and unsophisticated incentives regime. The way the subsidies and inducements work is to encourage tree planting in and of itself with a mostly neutral view on what is planted and where. This is an incredibly loose free-market approach which simply pays landowners to plant trees.

As there is no distinction between 'good' tree planting and 'bad' tree planting, there is no incentive to do good tree planting. While there is a weighting given for native species planting over commercial planting (mostly Sitka spruce), there is little consideration given to where trees are planted and a lax-going-on non-existent inspection regime.

This isn't an issue simply of land ownership or even land use, it is a question of land governance. Who has the right to decide that large chunks of the landscapes we share can be transformed out of recognition? In an urban area the answer is simple; it is a public right to control development and so permission must be given to anyone who wishes to develop urban space.

That is the planning permission system and it was originally intended to cover rural space as well until this was taken out after strenuous lobbying by the powerful landowners of the time. There is no logical reason why in an urban area we need permission for disruptive or transformative development but in rural areas a landowner can do whatever they want.

We should zone land in Scotland for use – agriculture, energy, forestry, land-based industries, tourism and recreation, input crops for organic plastics, housing, rewilding. Then only activities covered by the zoning in any area would be considered for development and each would need to seek planning permission with conditions for use exactly the same as we do with urban land.
This enables a stronger public say in how our nation and our land is developed and the way the rest of us experience it. It will help to reform land ownership in Scotland and be a major step towards bringing land in Scotland back into productive life or into a state that can support a wide variety of biodiversity.

To find out more you can read our detailed vision for land in The Common Home Plan, an assessment of the potential for land use in terms both of economic output and jobs and you can find out more about land reform from the Revive coalition of which Common Weal is a part.