Recent activities include: the highly successful 2011 Rural Law Conference (attended by 150 participants over 2 days across a range of academic and practitioner disciplines), responding to Scottish Government consultations and continuing ongoing research on land law, land reform renewable energy and planning, as well as undertaking consultancy and CPD work in these areas. Recently completed commissioned research projects include:

• Barriers and Opportunities to the Use of Payments for Ecosystem Services, Contribution to report together with colleagues from Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability and James Hutton Institute, September 2011. available at http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=PESFinalReport28September2011%28FINAL%29.pdf (contribution to report by Aylwin Pillai)

• A review of monitoring, interpretation and case law in relation to Natura 2000 across Europe, Final Report, December 2009. (Principal investigator: A. Pillai. Contributors: D. McKenzie Skene, A.M. Slater and M.P.G. Smith. Research Assistant: S. Evans)