Presentation short abstract

Scotland's just transition to net zero will require significant land use change, despite concerns in rural areas that this will entrench existing inequalities. This paper presents findings from interviews with rural "agents of change" to reveal the web of power relations shaping the transition.

Presentation long abstract

Scotland is at the forefront of polities implementing just transition policies (Abram et al., 2022), targeting a net zero economy by 2045 (Scottish Government, 2025). Land use change is fundamental to the achievement of this target, with the Scottish Government pursuing an approach contingent upon attracting private investment in ecological restoration, renewable energy, and carbon sequestration practices such as peatland restoration and re/afforestation (Scottish Government 2022, 2024).

Rural Scotland is a zone of contestation, where diverse values and power relations between actors will shape the just transition (Carmen et al, 2023; Cole et al, 2023). Land reform has been on the political agenda in Scotland for centuries, with the most recent political response to this debate explicitly linking future reform to the drive for net zero (Wightman, 2015). Despite a political push to renegotiate entrenched and imbalanced power relations, rural communities remain concerned that they will be expected to bear a disproportionate burden of the socioenvironmental costs associated with reaching net zero, coupled with inadequate opportunities to participate in decision-making processes (Daniels-Creasey & McKee, 2022; McIntosh, 2023), raising concerns of the imposition of a new era of land-based extractive practices (Franz & McNelly, 2024).

Using the just transition as an analytical lens, this paper foregrounds the different narratives emerging from rural Scotland, presenting analysis from a series of interviews with “agents of change” demonstrating the challenge in delivering a transition that addresses the myriad justice concerns of rural communities (Abram et al., 2022; Flood et al., 2022; Winkler, 2020).