I honed the observation techniques for my PhD thesis, which was on sheep grazing behaviour, sitting on a hill in Shetland. Over the decades, I have either visited or spent extended periods of times in most of the more remote parts - Highlands and Islands - of Scotland. So, I'd like to give an alternative view of Scotland and the sunny days and gorgeous views shown in the Al-Jazeera video about land ownership.

The video, described in Rajiv's blog on Rural Scotland, is definitely worth watching. It's pretty bang on in its explanation of the incredibly archaic, feudal system of land ownership that still prevails in Scotland, and which led, among other things to the Highland clearances. At the time, the clearances were often regarded as a violation of human rights. While there WERE other contributing factors there were also many clear examples of gross mismanagement by greedy landlords who forcibly herded their tenants on to emigration ships so as to make way for sheep.
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