Reflecting on Islands Revival and Introducing Research on the Edge
2019 was an important year for Scotland's islands, with the development of The National Islands Plan, an increased focus on repopulation, and concern about the consequences of Brexit.
Dr Katherine Irvine
I am a senior researcher in conservation behaviour / environmental psychology focusing on the nature-health-sustainable behaviours nexus. I draw on an interdisciplinary background in molecular biology, natural resource management, conservation behaviour and environmental psychology to investigate the interface between people and their environmental settings (for example, natural, built, home, office) with an aim to develop bridges between issues of ecological quality, health/wellbeing and sustainability.
Katherine Irvine
The James Hutton Institute
Craigiebuckler
Aberdeen
AB15 8QH
Dr David Watts
My research interests include: food insecurity and how it can be tackled; how economic circumstances and food consumption practices are linked; how consumers and producers construct, materially and conceptually, 'alternative' economic networks, both now and in the past. This work is informed by cultural political economy, and I am currently working on how this perspective can be applied to smaller and micro-scales through an engagement with the work of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu.
David Watts
The Rowett Institute
Foresterhill
Aberdeen
AB25 2ZD
Is the demographic tide turning for some Island Communities?
In recent months population trends in remote and Sparsely Populated Areas (SPA) of Scotland have become a political issue, not least due to fears about the likely impact of post-Brexit migration policy. However, this is just a new facet of a longstanding matter of concern which seems to touch a nerve in the national consciousness. Whilst more accessible rural areas have growing populations, the SPA continues to decline, and if recent trends continue, seem to face a bleak future.
Dr Annie Mckee
Annie is a social researcher in land management in the Social Economic and Geographical Sciences Group (SEGS). Annie's background is in geography, environmental management and sustainable development, with previous dissertation research exploring public perceptions of red deer management and sustainable rural communities.
Annie Mckee
The James Hutton Institute
Craigiebuckler
Aberdeen
AB15 8QH
Dr Jane Atterton
Jane is the manager of the Rural Policy Centre at SRUC. Her research focuses broadly on rural and regional development issues, with a particular focus on rural economies and businesses, rural policies and the policy-making process, urban-rural interations and linkages and demographic change in rural areas. She has undertaken projects for the European Comission, Defra, the Scottish Government and a number of local authorities and enterprise agencies.
Jane Atterton
Professor Deborah Roberts
Deb is Director of Science at the James Hutton Institute, and her research experience includes agricultural economics and regional science, with a nuber of inter-related areas. relation to rural and regional development she focuses on understanding how and why rural economies are unique, the key drivers for change, and reasons for regional disparities. Second, in relation to the policy, she has focussed on modelling the economy-wide impacts of changes in farm, forestry and structural policies using social accounting methods and general equilibrium models.
Deborah Roberts
The Demographic Challenges Facing Scotland's Sparsely Populated Areas
This case study summarises ongoing work exploring how changes in the population of remote and rural areas in Scotland affect the social, economic and ecological resilience of these areas. The Sparsely Populated Areas (SPA) of Scotland have a demographic legacy which, in the absence of intervention, will result in decades of population decline, and shrinkage of its working-age population, on a scale which implies serious challenges for economic development, and consequences for its landscape and ecology which are poorly understood.
How might our farmers adapt to a public money for public goods regime?
There is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge before the scale and shape of future public funding to farmers and other land managers becomes clearer. But with Brexit rapidly approaching – and with each new model of theoretical scenarios suggesting that major changes to current support levels are inevitable – then one major topic of debate revolves around the suggestion that future support for land management will primarily be targeted at the provision of public goods.