The Cultural Politics of Hunting: Sporting Estates and Recreational Land Use in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Abstract

Sporting estates are a form of private hunting reserve covering extensive areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and have been the focus of debate regarding their legitimacy from moral, political, economic and social perspectives ever since their establishment in the nineteenth century. In recent years, a growing debate about sustainable land use, access to the countryside, ‘blood sports’ and land reform has led to sporting estates being subjected to a continuing critique from environmentalists, land reformers, crofting tenants, community interests and politicians. The sporting estate is thought to be unique in modern industrial democracies and, as the legal, political and social framework which governs much of the hunting economy, perhaps has its closest parallels with the private game reserves of some African states. Certainly, in comparison to other European countries, where they do not exist, sporting estates are a distinctively Scottish phenomenon. Owners and managers of sporting estates are increasingly finding themselves drawn into a debate about the role and validity of such estates. The re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999 led to the emergence of new public policy agendas on rural development and land reform, topics which were neglected at the UK level owing to a shortage of parliamentary time and the vested interests of the many landowning members of the House of Lords. This article offers an analysis of the role of sporting estates in recreational land use. Is hunting a form of recreation and, if so, what is the relationship between hunting and sporting estates? For the purposes of this analysis, the article concentrates on evidence derived from deerstalking, which represents the most widespread and historically dominant form of hunting, the one with the closest association with the sporting estate phenomenon, and the one which has been subjected to most (albeit still limited) research and analysis. Importantly, the article does not concern itself with the question of the legitimacy or otherwise of hunting as an activity. Its purpose is to examine the influence which the sporting estate as 51css04.qxd 22/03/2002 12:25 Page 53