Peter Cairns

Louise Ramsay

Rewilding in Scotland

The Irish Wildlife Trust

Following on from our Rewilding in Ireland seminar, we hear from two of Scotland's best known advocates for rewilding.

Trinity Long Room Hub

In a joint collaboration, the Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities and the Irish Wildlife Trust invite you to an evening of lectures, debate, and discussion. Following on from our Rewilding in Ireland seminar last month, we hear from two of Scotland's best known advocates for rewilding.SpeakersPeter Cairns is an independent commentator on rewilding and wildlife coexistence. He is co-owner of Ballintean, a nature-focused accommodation and hospitality business in the Cairngorms National Park, where he is rewilding 120 acres alongside the River Feshie. Building connections between people and wild nature has been at the heart of his work over the last 30 years. He is author/co-author/producer of books, films, and multimedia campaigns including SCOTLAND: A Rewilding Journey (2018), Highland Tiger (2009), and Why Not Scotland? (2023). He engages with a diverse range of stakeholders in Scotland's land management sector, often discussing contested issues such as deer management, raptor persecution, or species reintroductions. Such conversations have convinced him that while different perspectives are inevitable, common ground can always be found, providing a fertile platform for change.Louise Ramsay and her family run the Bamff estate in North East Perthshire. The estate consists of around 1,300 acres of woodland, wetland, pasture, and hill. Since the 1980s, they have gradually rewilded the estate. The beaver reintroduction project at Bamff, which started in 2002, was the first of its kind in the UK. In 2021, thirteen southern fields were freed from sheep farming to become the first new components of the Bamff Wildland Project. Since 2022 herds of large herbivores, acting as proxies for primitive grazers, are to be seen roaming across them. Bamff is funded through a combination of farming practices as well as eco-tourism, such as holiday lets and beaver tours. The estate is located right on the line between the Highlands and hill habitats, providing a diversity of interesting habitat types and wildlife.