ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns people's perception of, attitudes towards and management of their local environments. In pre-modern societies there is little distinction made between society and nature. Landscape is a term that has been widely appropriated by different areas of academic research, which has taken the term beyond that which is most widely understood as meaning a view over a relatively extensive tract of land. The interest of Queen Victoria in the Highlands of north-east Scotland had a significant influence on developments there, both objectively in the realm of landownership and land-use, and also in the wider construction of images of Scotland. The issue of fox hunting revolves more centrally about the notion of socially acceptable practices than the BSE crisis. The pro-hunting lobby bases the acceptability of fox hunting on a range of factors, including the rural economy, habitat and landscape management, and its ethical superiority as a method of pest control.
