Abstract

The West Highland Survey was a British government-sponsored project to examine the causes of the problems that beset the Scottish Highlands. The Survey was a broad interrogation of the interrelationships of humans and environment and identified 'misuse' of the land as the fundamental cause of Highland problems. The paper considers the international exchange of knowledge and ideas which took place between the author of the study, Frank Fraser Darling, and ecologists and environmental thinkers in the United States. It argues that Darling proposed a new vision for the Highlands, partly borrowed from the interdisciplinary analysis he experienced in the USA.