Land Use Strategy

The RSA records, once again, sincere thanks for greatly valued support and input from SEFARI and the Moredun Institute. They have jointly enabled the event to happen.

Additional speakers will be confirmed in the next day or two. Those confirmed already include:

• Professor Tom McNeilly, Director, Moredun Institute, on the role of livestock in land use
• Katherine Pollard, Policy & Practice Lead, Scottish Land Commission
• Maisili van Looy, University of Edinburgh Law School
• Jayne Ashley, Head of Natural Capital at SOSE re the NCIZ
• Dr Leo Peskett, Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University
• Dr Alison Karley, James Hutton Institute, agroecologist and Head of the Ecological Sciences Department at JHI
• Diarmaid Lawlor, Associate Director, Scottish Futures Trust

Delegates will require to have had lunch prior to arrival, noting the only refreshments being provided are those during the mid-afternoon networking break. For reasons of Pentlands Science Park security, prior registration is essential, and the event is open only to those aged eighteen or over. In case required on the day, please bring photo ID.

Speaker biographies:

Professor Tom McNeilly, BSc, BVM&S, PhD, MRCVS is Scientific Director of Moredun Research Institute, Chief Executive Officer of The Moredun Foundation and an Honorary Professor at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh. Tom is a qualified veterinary surgeon, and an immunologist and infectious disease biologist with expertise in ruminant vaccine development and disease resistance. He has developed vaccines to control parasitic, viral and bacterial infections in both cattle and sheep, including those which have progressed to field evaluation and to market. He is also CEO of the Moredun Foundation, a charity focused on improving livestock health and welfare through research and education. He currently chairs the SEFARI Directors Executive Committee.

Jayne Ashley is Head of Natural Capital at South of Scotland Enterprise. Jayne has been a sustainability practitioner for over 30 years, advising, facilitating, and mentoring communities and the private and public sectors, from local to European level. She is creating and leading SOSE’s Natural Capital team, building on her knowledge and skills in community wealth building, creative and cultural industries, natural resources, tourism, and the creation of the Regional Land Use Partnership.

Katherine Pollard, Head of Policy at the Commission, leads the team responsible for policy advice, analysis and research to inform key areas of land policy. Together they provide advice to government, parliament and stakeholders. She has a background working on planning, environmental and nature finance policy working for the Scottish Government and third sector organisations. Since joining the Commission in 2018, Kathie has worked on a wide range of land reform topics including tax, vacant and derelict land and measures to address concentrated landownership.

Marsaili Van Looy is a Research Fellow for the CO2RE Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub, with a focus on the UK regulatory regime for greenhouse gas removals. It is about to complete an important report on nature-based climate solutions. The report has been built on extensive stakeholder engagement with government, civil society and industry including farming and forestry businesses.

RSA Fellow Diarmaid Lawlor, Associate Director, Scottish Futures Trust. Diarmaid is a designer, educator, and communicator who champions creative approaches to making better places. He has over 20 years’ experience working with communities and across sectors to make well-informed decisions about place-based policy and investment challenges. At SFT, Diarmaid leads on support to the Scottish Government Place Based Investment Programme, and works with public bodies across Scotland to shape place-based strategies for services, assets and investments.

Dr Leo Peskett is an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University. He is a catchment hydrologist with research interests in the links between land use and water resources. He has worked extensively on projects investigating the efficacy of natural flood management and on links between land use planning and catchment water resources management. He sits in the advisory group for the UK’s Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure (FDRI) and has also recently been a UKRI-funded ‘Landscape Decisions Fellow’ focussed on RLUPs and natural capital frameworks. Prior to academia Leo worked for a decade as a researcher and policy advisor on climate change impacts on developing countries focussed on designing and evaluating new policies for reducing carbon emissions in the land sector in the tropics (particularly REDD+) with UNDP and other multilateral organisations.

Dr. Pat Snowdon is Head of Economics and Woodland Carbon Code at Scottish Forestry. He has worked on land-use and forestry for over 30 years, including positions at the University of Aberdeen, Scottish Natural Heritage and then 17 years at the Forestry Commission. In 2019, devolution of forestry created Scottish Forestry where Pat has led a team that continues to support the forestry sector across the UK. The value of nature in the economy has been a consistent theme of his work, focussing initially on providing better evidence on the economic value of nature, and then on measures to deliver that value. Pat has worked on the Woodland Carbon Code since its inception over 15 years ago and strives to see it develop further as one of the world’s leading domestic carbon standards. Pat is a member of the Government Economic Service and the Institute of Chartered Foresters, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals.

Dr Alison Karley, James Hutton Institute, is an agroecologist and Head of the Ecological Sciences Department at JHI. She started life as a plant physiologist, then moved into plant-insect interactions research, studying insect pest population dynamics and biological control. Now, she collaborates across scientific disciplines and stakeholders to develop, test and deploy practices that diversify crop systems, with the aim of reducing inputs and the environmental impact of crop production and increasing agroecosystem resilience to climate and external shocks.

RELEVANT LINKS:

SEFARI is found here: https://sefari.scot/

Moredun Institute here: https://moredun.org.uk/

LUS here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-fourth-land-use-strategy-consultation/

ENRA here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/consultation-2027-32-environment-natural-resources-agriculture-enra-research-strategy/

CO2RE here: CO2RE

Scottish Futures Trust is found here: https://www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk

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