BrewDog has sold its 3,764-hectare Kinrara estate in the Scottish Highlands, drawing a close to the company’s widely publicised “Lost Forest” rewilding project. The move comes amid growing scrutiny over corporate land ownership and its impact on rural economies, including those connected to game and countryside management.
Purchased in 2020 for £8.8 million, the Kinrara site was intended to serve as a flagship environmental project through which the brewery aimed to plant millions of trees and claim carbon negativity. However, the project encountered numerous challenges, including reports that up to 250,000 trees died shortly after planting and that BrewDog later retracted several claims relating to the estate’s size and carbon sequestration potential.
The venture also attracted criticism after receiving more than £1.1 million in public funding from Scottish Forestry, prompting accusations of “green land grabs” and raising concerns about large-scale acquisitions by non-land management businesses seeking carbon credits. Such projects have been met with scepticism from parts of the rural economy, including land agents, moorland managers and shooting estates, who warn that rewilding without active management can lead to habitat degradation and limit access for traditional countryside activities.
BrewDog’s CEO, James Taylor, confirmed that the estate has been sold to Oxygen Conservation, a company specialising in nature restoration. For rural and shooting businesses, the sale serves as a reminder of the complex balance between commercial sustainability initiatives and the realities of managing land for both biodiversity and economic productivity.