One of the key drivers for land use change over the coming decades is likely to be the policy shift from support for agricultural production to incentives for environmental, social and economic rural development under the Scottish Rural Development Regulation (SRDR).

This promises ‘the delivery of vibrant communities drawing their livelihoods from a variety of activities: farming, forestry, rural industry, services, tourism and recreation, the provision of environmental qualities for the public good’ (Morris et al., 2000). However, this shift is giving rise to new tensions and conflicts associated with the interaction between production and consumption within the same geographical space, and has prompted a search for ways in which the countryside of the future might be constructed (van der Ploeg et al., 2000:390).

This search is not straightforward, as it is often unclear what people actually want from the countryside, particularly in terms of the balance between market and non-market goods (Hall et al., 2004). Even when it is clear, demands from different groups, firstly, may not be socially, economically or environmentally possible or acceptable, and secondly, may be contradictory, raising issues of how such demands can be reconciled and accommodated within policy decisions.

For example, the role of natural amenities in rural development has received a good deal of attention from researchers and policy-makers recently (e.g. Pendleton, 1999), due to the increasing recognition that amenity value of the rural landscape can bring economic returns through a range of activities related to recreation. The spread of amenity driven residential and recreational land uses in rural areas can, however, have significant ecological and social impacts (Burchell et al., 2002). Studying the response of current communities to these policy changes and demographic and environmental pressures will thus become increasingly necessary, particularly in the way in which community cohesion and supporting structures aid in creating the kind of diverse rural environments desired.

Previous work has focused on linking broader contextual factors with rural change particularly in relation to policy implications, examples of which include the implications of changing demographic structures on family farms for the Scottish RDR (Burton et al., 2005), implications of change on common property enactment (Brown, 2005), distribution of rural incomes (Gilbert, 2004), public expectations from the agricultural sector (Hall et al., 2004; Moran et al., 2004), movement of people and businesses from urban to rural areas (Roberts, 2000; Gelan, 2003), and stakeholder consultations regarding the impact of the SRDP on the uplands in Scotland (Matthews and Schwarz, 2003). There is now a need to extend these studies to provide the evidence base for formulating effective future policy, particularly when the Scottish RDR comes up for renewal in 2013.

This is particularly important in relation to enhancing biodiversity. Previous research suggested that the movement from ‘productivism’ and its associated emphasis on industrial forms of agriculture to more environmentally sustainable agriculture is hindered by the importance of ‘production’ to farmers’ self-identity and local culture (Burton, 2004; Burton and Wilson, 2006; Davies et al., 2004; Blackstock et al., 2006).

Results from a comparative study conducted in Germany and Scotland looking at the social value of productivist and post-productivist activities to farmers (SEERAD RO204884) suggested that rather than farmers becoming more ‘conservation minded’ as a result of exposure to conservation schemes (e.g. the Rural Stewardship Scheme) these ‘post-productivist’ measures are still governed largely by productivist thought. Where conservation schemes did not conform to the aesthetic and cultural ideals of farmers (symbolised by tidy farms, straight lines, regular crop colour, etc., Burton, 2004) their presence on farms met with considerable social resistance. Thus, if greater environmental sustainability is a goal, then innovative ways need to be found to increase the likelihood of farmers adopting conservation schemes.

Added to the pressures just discussed is that of climate change, which is almost certainly the most serious medium-to-long-term threat to global environmental and socio-economic sustainability. If it is indeed as serious a threat as it now appears, it is likely to become central to policy-making and land-use decision-making within the next decade or two, and remain so for many years thereafter. Moreover, the UK’s obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol require consistent and ‘joined-up’ policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases over the period to 2012.

Previous work at MLURI has focused on the impacts of climate change on wildlife, soils and vegetation (e.g. Aspinall and Matthews, 1994; MacDonald et al., 1994; Proe et al., 1996), but the understanding of possible human adaptive responses both to climate change itself, and to policies intended to mitigate it or deal with its effects, is much less advanced. Advancing this understanding is one of the aims of the proposed research, which will focus on land use in rural Scotland.