From Scotland to California, golf courses are being rewilded – with lofty aims to benefit both people and nature.

Sinking into nature comes easy at the Plock of Kyle. I visit this tiny wedge of parkland on the west coast of Scotland, just across the bridge from the Isle of Skye, on a rainy day in late September, and park ranger Heather Beaton and I spend the afternoon wandering around its various ecosystems-in-miniature.

We clamber over rocks at one of its little hidden natural harbours. We freeze as black darter dragonflies land on her pink shoe by a pond. And we bend to peer at circles of huge mushrooms which have sprung up overnight in its tiny woodland.

A wildflower meadow, ponds, scrub habitat, coastline and even an area of peat bog can be found on this little 60-acre (24-hectare) plot, which boasts roe deer, otters, lizards, eels and a huge array of insects and birds. "We do describe it as a microcosm of Scotland," says Beaton. "If you think of all of the major habitats of Scotland, we've got them here on the Plock, just in miniature." It's an impression she works to cultivate. "The more little pockets we have, the more chance a person has to... end up having a nature experience," she says.

All of these habitats had fallen into serious disarray until a few years ago, says Beaton. In fact, most of this area used to be a golf course.

The Plock is part of a small but significant global trend of land once used for golf being turned back over to nature. From California to Pennsylvania and Australia to Canada, these projects are reaping in some big rewards for both biodiversity and local people.

But what does it take to rewild a golf course? Could this be a key to both supporting biodiversity and helping more people get the immense benefits that come with interacting with nature? And what do we win – and lose – in the process?

Huge swathes of land are used for golf. According to one recent study, many countries across the world, including the UK and the US, use far more land for golf courses than they do for wind or solar energy. The US has the most courses of any country by far: its 16,300 golf courses occupy an estimated 8,000 sq km (2 million acres), an area around a third of the size of Vermont.

Golf emerged as a sport in my home country of Scotland in the 15th-17th Centuries, and for a time was relatively widely played, with courses often shared spaces used for walking and other activities as well as golf. Over the last century or so, however, it has widely emerged as the sport of the most affluent in society.

Luxury hotels and golf clubs have sprung up across the world, sometimes damaging precious ecosystems in the process. In just one example, in 2017 a golf course built by now US president Donald Trump in Aberdeenshire was found by a Scottish government watchdog to have "destroyed” the sand dune system it was built on, causing permanent habitat loss and loss of its status as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). Responding to a request for comment about these criticisms, Sarah Malone, executive vice president of Trump International, Scotland, called the reports "inaccurate and grossly misleading".

"Nature Scot [Scotland's conservation body] ignored and neglected the dunes under the previous ownership and have barely set foot on this site over the past 20 years," she said. "Their own assessment acknowledged that many attributes of the SSSI – which was, in fact, less than 3% of our vast estate – had flourished since the first golf course was completed in 2012. Trump International's ongoing investment and care of the land is beyond question, as anyone who actually visits the property will attest."

A separate proposal for an 18-hole golf course on another fragile Scottish dune sand ecosystem continues to divide public opinion.

There are other environmental impacts of golf courses alongside land use. In the US, an estimated 1.5 billion gallons (5.7 billion litres) of water a day is used to irrigate golf courses, mostly from lakes and onsite wells. Courses are also treated with some 100,000 tonnes of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash a year. Run off from these fertilisers and pesticides have been found to cause risks to humans, wildlife and the environment.

"Certainly, some of the key environmental concerns with golf over time have involved pesticide spraying, the quantity of water used, especially in times of drought,........

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