June was an exciting month in the press for those associated with the Centre for Human Ecology. Graduate Myshele Goldberg published a feature piece in the Scotsman about the Human Ecology MSc (full text on the CHE website), and the 10-year anniversary of the Eigg community land buyout attracted attention from the Herald, where graduates Norah and Bob Wallace were quoted (full article here). Additionally, fellow Alastair McIntosh shared his thoughts on the buyout, providing BBC Radio Scotland's "Thought of the Day" (text below).

Thought for the Day - 0725 Tues 12 June 2007 - BBC Radio Scotland
Alastair McIntosh, Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology at Strathclyde University

Good Morning,

In a couple of minutes I’ll be leaving Glasgow and heading North for celebrations on the Isle of Eigg. It’s exactly a decade since seven generations of landlordism there came to an end. Ten thousand donations from around the world brought the island into community ownership, and a sea change rolled in to Scotland.

I vividly remember how a journalist asked a farmer’s wife what it felt like. “Yesterday,” she replied, “I had a house, but today, I have a home.”

And for me, that sums up the importance of Scotland’s land reform. It deepens people’s sense of belonging. It gives folks something to take responsibility for, and that stimulates businesses, social housing and nature conservation – all of which strengthen a sense of community of place.

Ten years ago in a marquee symbolically pitched on the ex-laird’s tennis court, Brian Wilson, then an MP, got up and declared “game set and match to the people of Eigg!” He also announced setting up the Community Land Unit within Highlands and Islands Enterprise. So far this has helped over 150 communities to bring a third of a million acres under their control – and that’s an amazing two percent of the entire Scottish land mass!

But as Eigg celebrates, let’s also remember Scotland’s pioneering Victorian land reformers – Mary MacPherson, John Murdoch and the Reverend Donald MacCallum - to name but three.

They understood that land is about more than just agriculture or economics. It’s also a bond that is psychological, cultural and even spiritual. As the Bible puts it, “The profit of the Earth is for all,” and as Dougie Maclean sings, “You cannot own the land; the land owns you.”*

That’s the historical character of Scotland’s land reform, and I do believe we need that spiritual depth just as much for the future - or else, quite literally, we’d risk - losing the plot.

[* Ecclesiastes 5:9 in the King James (Authorised) Version; Dougie MacLean, Solid Ground]