A COALITION of land workers are staging a demonstration at a forest owned by BrewDog in protest of “green land grabs” by big corporations.
Campaigners have accused the Scottish Government of giving “millions in public money” to businesses to help finance their carbon offsetting projects.
The Landworkers’ Alliance, a UK-wide grassroots union of farmers, foresters and land-based workers, have claimed that through these green initiatives, large companies have been able to gather a high concentration of land ownership in Scotland.
The group, which has around 280 members in Scotland, is gathering at the drinks giant BrewDog’s Lost Forest on the Kinrara Estate, near Aviemore, on Saturday to call on a fairer share of government support and to highlight the “uphill battle” for access to land.
In a statement from the Landworkers’ Alliance, the group claims that instead of supporting the “backbone” of community food resilience in Scotland, the government is “throwing millions” at big corporations to finance their carbon offsetting projects.
“In recent years, buying up vast swathes of the Scottish Highlands has become a trend for big multinational corporations. Why? To plant trees for carbon offsetting projects,” the statement read.
“These ‘green land grabs’ are not only greenwashing the dubious activities of big businesses, but they’re also perpetuating the high concentration of land ownership in Scotland, and to make matters worse, the Scottish Government is paying them millions in public money to do it.”
The group said that BrewDog’s Lost Forest is a “perfect example” of how government subsidies are favouring the interests of big business.
In 2021, the craft beer firm bought 9300 acres in the Highlands and rebranded the former Kinrara Estate as the Lost Forest. The company promised to plant half a million trees at the site in a bid to make the company carbon neutral.
However, within the first year of being planted, more than half of the trees died, with some species of trees suffering a “very high mortality”.
Figures released in a Freedom of Information request to The National earlier this year showed that BrewDog is to receive a total of £2.7 million worth of public money for the Lost Forest project.
Scottish Forestry confirmed £1.1m had already been received by the firm, with a further £1.6m agreed for a second, separate stage of planting.
Last year, BrewDog left the carbon credit market, a scheme which funds third parties to undertake projects like forestry management and tree planting, which are purchased by companies to offset their carbon footprint, as they claimed it “became unsustainable”.
The Landworkers' Alliance said it believes that instead of financing the “controversial greenwashing efforts” of companies like BrewDog, the Scottish Government should be using public money to support small farms, crofts, and new entrant farmers who want to grow food to feed their communities.
The statement ended by saying: “As the Scottish Parliament considers a new Land Reform Bill, we have a crucial opportunity to call for land to be held and used in the public interest, with workers and communities at its heart.
“This event is part of a much broader series of events which aims to build a grassroots landworker-led movement for radical land reform in Scotland.”
The Scottish Government and BrewDog have been approached for comment.
