Scotland’s history is romanticized for centuries of bloody feuds, warfare, and forced displacement. In the glens today, unfinished business is fuelled by modern agendas: well-meaning rewilders, urban land reformers, and distant corporates plundering carbon markets.
Reminiscent of the Highland Clearances of the past, Indigenous communities are increasingly an inconvenience for the urban political class and their vision of progress. The targets are farmers, gamekeepers, ghillies, and deer stalkers whose families have been working the land, in some cases, for centuries. The land provides jobs and wages which they use to buy food and pay bills; keep families living in small communities filling local schools with children; and providing active wildlife and habitat management.
It’s a war for control, a class warfare where traditional wildlife conservation may become as much a victim as the fragile rural communities themselves. The Highland Clearance was a thing of the past but is cultural genocide a part of the future? The answer is echoing through the Glen.
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For almost two years, Tom Opre, filmmaker and founder of The Shepherds of Wildlife Society, traveled to the heart of the Scottish Highlands, exploring contemporary wildlife management issues and their impact on the local, rural communities.
In The Last Keeper, Opre illuminates the plight of gamekeepers, ghillies, and stalkers who see their traditional role as stewards of the land threatened. The film follows their fight to ensure healthy ecosystems while preserving their cultural heritage and right to a livelihood.
Now, Opre takes his film viewers into a book that covers everything in the film and what ended up on the cutting room floor. "The Last Keeper: Deep Dive" highlights the making of the film. Opre and the team embedded themselves within these communities, capturing their perspectives and challenges. "The Last Keeper" ignites conversations about human rights, wildlife management, and the importance of collaboration in achieving a healthy planet for future generations - and the book offers more even more narrative to help spur conversations.
The Last Keeper: Deep Dive (epub)
A way of life, a heritage is being removed from the land. Gamekeepers are loosing in a war over land use and ownership.