The Scottish Parliament was empowered to reform Scotland’s archaic pattern of land ownership when it was founded in 1999, yet has consistently failed to democratise Scotland’s land. Privately-owned land is now concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer landowners, in spite of previous Scottish land reform legislation.

How our land is owned and managed is critical if we are to meet many important policy objectives. Housing, agriculture, biodiversity, sport and leisure, and social and economic sustainability of so many communities across Scotland are all affected by land ownership. Most crucially, we will only be able to mitigate the impacts of the ongoing nature-climate crisis when we start questioning who owns our land and for whose benefit it is managed.

The Scottish Land Commission’s 2019 investigation into the concentration of land ownership in Scotland found that the current pattern of ownership hoards wealth, resources and ultimately power in the hands of........

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