Brendan O?Hanrahan is an upland ecologist, land management consultant and community land use activist, who has spent most of the past thirty years living and working in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He is originally from Kilkenny, in the southeast of Ireland, but has mostly lived in Scotland since 1988 (with a four-year detour to Germany in late ?90s), the majority of the time in crofting areas in the Highlands and Western Isles. Although originally trained as a zoologist, he has mostly converted into a botanist and habitat mapping specialist since the ?90s when he worked on the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands Project for Socttish Natural Heritage. He has been very active in land reform, community land management and crofting projects and politics since 2013, having been a Board member at various times of ELKCAL (Elphin & Knockan), Assynt Foundation, Scottish Crofting Federation and the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust. He was also a board member of the Irish Uplands Forum for several years and has also been sporadically active as a humanitarian mapper with Standby Taskforce and Open Crisis since 2011. While based in the Knockan-Elphin (and more recently Ullapool) area of northwest Sutherland, he has been closely involved with community-based projects in that area. Recent or ongoing projects include agri-environment schemes, forestry planting, crofting and agricultural support proposals and local affordable housing.
