Firm buys historic 15,000-acre Scottish Highlands estate to 'rewild' and sell carbon credits

Records show it’s the third time the estate has changed hands in about 300 years.

A company with a view to rewilding land and selling carbon credits has bought a Highland estate sprawling over 15,000 acres across the Cairngorms National Park.

Oxygen Conservation, based in Exeter, secured ownership of Dorback Estate, a former shooting estate near Aviemore. Reports show it is the third time the estate has been bought in about 300 years.

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The company claimed the purchase was “one of the most significant natural capital acquisitions in the history of the UK” when the sale was completed last month.

Dorback estate sits in the western side of the Cairngorms National Park Dorback estate sits in the western side of the Cairngorms National Park
Dorback estate sits in the western side of the Cairngorms National Park

The three-year-old firm now owns 12 estates spanning 43,000 acres across the UK.

These include the 12,000-acres Invergeldie estate in Perthshire, Blackburn and Hartsgarth, two upland farms near Langholm in the Scottish Borders totalling 11,366 acres, and 500 acres known as ‘Dog Bank’ in the Firth of Tay, near Dundee.

The company used a £20 million loan to buy the land from Triodos Bank over the past few years.

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Oxygen Conservation’s pledge is to commit to “scaling conservation to deliver positive environmental and social impact, in an attempt to save the world”, according to its website.

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The Scotsman contacted the company to ask what that means and what it has planned for Dorback, but is yet to receive a response.

The website said the company would spend the next year focusing on “learning about the estate in depth”, which will involve “conducting detailed surveys, gathering ecological data, and engaging closely with the estate team and local community, whose knowledge of the land is invaluable”.

In a podcast hosted by the company, founder Richard Stockdale said the “entire team” that was employed on Dorback estate had decided to stay, including the estate manager, two rangers, a house keeper, an eco-tourism lead and a gardener.

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He said the company would cease shooting and any species the team considers non-native would go.

Given the change in policy under new owners, nearby farmer Ruaridh Ormiston, from Kingussie, has assisted in taking in a herd of Pottok ponies, a mountain horse of the Pyrenees and a rare breed, that were resident at Dorback since 2015.

In the podcast episode, which was filmed at Drum Lodge, a house on the estate, Mr Stockdale revealed a few more details about plans for Dorback.

He said while it was early days, tree planting with “the right tree in the right place” was one of the goals, adding: “I do want to look out this window and see a heck of a lot more trees than I currently do.”

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He said the company “doesn’t do commercial forestry” and is “about broadleaf and native woodland”.

Mr Stockdale said the company would sell carbon credits, adding: “Whoever a carbon credit buyer is, they’re going to have an impact on the planet. When we come to sell carbon credits, which we haven’t done yet, we are going to do a heck of a lot of due diligence on these people.

“We’re going to insist on them having a measured plan to reduce their carbon footprint and make steps towards being net zero. We believe carbon credits can form a part of that journey.”

Carbon credits can be bought by organisations or individuals to offset emissions that cannot be avoided. Each carbon credit leads to the permanent removal - or avoidance - of one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, for example through land use change or renewable energy generation.

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Carbon credits have proven controversial, with critics saying it is a poorly regulated market and vulnerable to “greenwashing”.

The company already has rewilding plans underway at Invergeldie estate, including tree planting initiatives and plans for a windfarm developed by Low Carbon, a renewable company founded by one of Oxygen Conservation’s directors.

The proposal for 21 200m-high turbines has proven controversial with locals who have raised concern over the resident golden eagle population in the area among other issues for the surrounding environment.

Historically, Dorback was one half of the Dorback and Revack Estate, which formed part of the large land holding owned by the Grant Clan of Strathspey.

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From the mid-14th century to the mid-16th century, the Grant Estate grew through a combination of land purchases and royal charters. It remained in the Grant family for centuries to come, more recently operating as Seafield Estates.

In the late 1990s, the-then owner Lady Pauline Ogilvie-Grant Nicholson, daughter of the 12th countess of Seafield who was said to be the richest woman in Scotland after the Queen, put the land on the market as whole estates or in seven lots, reports say.

According to records, Dorback, the largest of the seven lots, was bought in 2000 by the Rebilly family, from Belgium, under whom it was primarily used as a shooting estate until it was sold in December.

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