300 years of land use and land cover change in Angus

Feeding the world sustainably requires balancing social, economic, and environmental concerns. The land use system concept guides the study of social and environmental processes that influence a range of ecosystem services, including food production, human wellbeing and habitat for wildlife. Human ecology conceptually offers insights into the social components of a system and its interaction with environmental change. This thesis set out to explore 300 years of land use and land cover change in Angus. Using a human ecology approach that adopts novel tools to help track drivers of social or environmental development that result in land use or land cover change.

This paper demonstrates how human ecology helps identify the dominant discourses that influence dominant social drivers in land use and cover systems. This is done through documenting the historical legacies of agricultural commodity production systems in Angus since 1700 AD, and the human and ecological implications of this history. The analysis shows the presence of a maladaptive system influenced by market-oriented food security as a dominant discourse. Earlier discourses focused on sovereignty and servitude, however these were marginalised by a transition from feudal, to mercantile and then capitalist society. The paper discusses how weak feedback processes provide possible intervention points in policy and locally, could engender community led activities to explore alternative pathways to sustainable production and ecosystem regeneration. The paper concludes with opportunities for further research where human ecology offers useful framework for advancing understanding of the local social and ecosystem and its impacts on land use and land cover change.