Professor Jim Hunter, from the University of the Highlands and Islands refined the debate from national perspective alone, to a community interpretation of heritage as a tool to building a stronger economic and social future. He explained how Highland communities had used natural and built heritage to turn around the perception that to get on, you had to get out, and had instead created a thriving community that welcomed immigration and integration.

He argued that by seizing their heritage and feeling entitled to use it, had moved from the historical position of 'Colonialism's victims' to understanding that alternative identities existing together to build a Scotland that can offer more to its population than one dominant identity alone.