From conflict to collaboration: finding common ground
To see healthy and thriving forests which host an abundance of wildlife, we need to bring balance back to our landscapes. Deer numbers in Scotland are often too high for the land that supports them. Without natural predators, they eat tree seedlings and trample peatlands, preventing the natural recovery of our landscapes.
However, for many deer stalkers, the scale of deer reductions called for by rewilders can seem like a direct threat to their jobs and their way of life. With some wanting to manage deer numbers to enable nature’s recovery and others wishing to maintain populations for income from sport shooting, this has created conflict and scarred relationships across the Scottish uplands. The level of collaboration needed to manage deer populations across the large ranges they use, often feels a long way off – a situation no one is benefitting from.
Yet, new hope is emerging. Three years ago, a group of key voices from both sides of the deer debate came together in a project called Finding the Common Ground. The intention was to have different, forward-looking conversations to find the areas of unity beneath the aged disagreements. The Centre for Good Relations, a civic mediation group, stepped in to help. People were able to make connections across the divides and have difficult conversations on the issues that matter – conversations people had long since given up on.
Trees for Life has been the environmental voice on the project’s steering group. It has been a privilege and a huge learning experience to witness how people with very different perspectives on deer came together. We’ve gradually built trust and found the capacity to cope with the ups and downs of establishing new relationships against a backdrop of change and conflict.
The deer sector recognises that change is inevitable. The Scottish government is expected to pass new legislation on deer management in 2025. There is potential for the creation of new regulations and, we all desperately hope, the provision of funding support needed to deliver change on the ground. As ever, there are differing views on these changes and the relationships we’ve built will likely come under new tensions.
Now titled the Common Ground Forum, the forum has defied everyone’s expectations in making positive connections between people with very different views on deer. We have a Common Ground Accord - shared principles which set standards for respectful behaviour across the upland deer management sector. And, in developments unthinkable three years ago, sporting and conservation interests have met jointly with ministers and government officials to argue for support for the venison industry, skills training and maintained standards in deer welfare.
Crucially, the forum has made real headway in bringing deer stalkers into the process. Many are keen to be part of shaping the changes to come and how their skills, so vital to the future, can be sustained in a future with smaller deer populations.
Looking ahead, securing funding is essential to sustain the forum’s work. Attention is turning to how we can resource three to five years of capacity building to help embed a new, positive culture in the deer sector. The future for deer, and all of us who care about them, remains uncertain. But there is also a fresh sense of optimism that those directly involved at least have a choice of how to respond to whatever comes at us next.
The Common Ground Forum currently comprises more than 100 people, including private landowners and managers, deer stalkers, the Scottish Government and statutory agencies, environmental NGOs, the agricultural sector, foresters and community trusts.
