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To receive the complete copy of our newsletters, please Join Trees for Life as a Member – with your support we will also be more effective in our work to restore the Caledonian Forest. Time for a change of land use in the HighlandsAs I write this at the beginning of April, our work week season should be in full flow, with groups of volunteers out in Glen Affric and elsewhere, planting trees and carrying out other forest restoration work. This year is different, though, and for the first time in a decade we have no work weeks taking place in the main tree planting season of March and April. The reason for this, of course, is the epidemic of foot and mouth disease which has been afflicting domesticated livestock in the UK since February. The only cases of foot and mouth in Scotland are in Dumfries and Galloway, in the south of the country and a long way from Glen Affric, but landowners whom we work with, such as Forest Enterprise and the RSPB, closed the access to their land to help prevent the spread of the disease. The cancellation of our scheduled work weeks has meant disappointment for a lot of volunteers and delays in various projects we had planned for this spring, including the Allt na Muic project in Glen Moriston. Fortunately, access restrictions have now just been lifted, so we can proceed with the collection of aspen roots for propagation and other essential work which we can only do at this time of year, and our work weeks in May and June will take place as planned.
For me, though (and many others as well), this has highlighted the madness of our current land use in the Highlands, whereby almost all of the land has been given over to sheep grazing, which is only maintained by massive levels of subsidies from the government and the European Union. The sheep, along with red deer, prevent the natural regeneration of the native forest, and, through their consumption of nutrients from the vegetation and the subsequent sale of their meat in distant cities, represent a continued biological depletion of our already impoverished ecosystems. Now, this subsidised ecological insanity has prevented practical restoration work from taking place this spring, and has also seriously affected the largest income earner in the Highlands - tourism. I fully sympathise with the farmers who have been affected by this outbreak, and I support their right to make a decent living on their land. However, this needs to be seen in the context of ecological realities, and the positive result which can come from this crisis is to offer farmers a new role in restoring the land. Let's concentrate the sheep farming in the most favourable locations, where it makes ecological and economic sense, and everywhere else remove the sheep and redirect the subsidies towards practical restoration of our depleted ecosystems. The same subsidies can be paid to the same farmers, to enable them to make real and substantial ecological improvements to their land. In the past, conservationists and the farming community have often been on opposing sides. The time is ripe now to come together behind a common cause - the replenishment of the land, and the restoration of the Caledonian Forest - which is essential for the future wellbeing of the Highlands. Alan Watson Featherstone Spring - new life, new energy, new possibilities
Allt na Muic and Dwarf BirchThanks to your generous response to our Allt na Muic appeal last year and to a substantial donation from Taylors of Harrogate, the main part of this project was set to go ahead this spring. It was still uncertain as to how far we would be able to progress with work in the Forest Enterprise plantations and the ideas for fencing further areas for dwarf birch regeneration were sitting on the shelf awaiting a means of funding. Out of the blue I received a phone call in January from someone who had visited our web site and seen the Allt na Muic appeal. This person was closely associated with a newly formed trust fund set up to finance environmental projects and, within a week, we were promised almost £15,000! We are very grateful to this organisation, who wish to remain anonymous, for making it possible for us to pursue this project more fully. Working from the information provided by our dwarf birch survey of 1999, we will make another site visit to determine an appropriate area for further regeneration initiatives. This will be in the upper reaches of the Allt na Muic, creating another stepping stone for a woodland linkage between Glen Affric and Glen Moriston. In the same location we will also establish a number of small experimental trial plots to investigate the relative effectiveness of different methods of assisting the regeneration of dwarf birch. Within a range of different ground treatments, such as removing surface vegetation, disturbing the soil and perhaps burning, we will try broadcasting seed, planting seedlings grown at our nursery and, as a control, allow natural regeneration to take its course. Meanwhile, of course, the outbreak of foot and mouth disease has thrown all this spring's plans, including those for Allt na Muic, into disarray. I am reassured to know that we do have the means to progress this plan, and other work, when conditions allow but my heart goes out to all the farmers who are trying to cope with the terrible problems this disease has brought. We have had to cancel all our early work weeks and put several plans on hold until the access restrictions to land are lifted. Our intention now is to go ahead with the fencing and planting scheme at Allt na Muic in the autumn this year. Last year I sowed a trial batch of dwarf birch seed and was delighted at the emergence of a single seedling. This required a magnifying glass at first to determine that it was indeed a dwarf birch, but subsequently attained three inches of growth over the summer. It was overwintered on my kitchen window ledge and has now begun to open its new leaves. Anne Matthews has met with a greater degree of success with another batch of seed sown this spring. Each warm day has seen another little burst of activity in the seed tray and twenty tiny seedlings have germinated so far. Adam Powell The Trees for Life GIS ProjectThe use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is playing an increasingly important role in a wide range of professions, including conservation and forestry. A GIS is a computer-based mapping system, which allows large amounts of information to be stored and displayed on a computer. It enables the user to manipulate data and carry out strategic planning in ways which would not be possible with paper maps. In many parts of the world it has proven to be a valuable tool in ecological restoration work. Last year I was fortunate enough to have an initiation into the world of GIS as part of an MSc Environmental Forestry course at Bangor University. After learning the basics of how to use the system, I went on to write a thesis which assessed the fragmentation of woodlands along the Menai Strait. With the help of GIS I was able to explore the best ways to link up woodland patches and provide continuity of habitat, then passing the information on to Coed Cymru and Anglesey Council. It's great to have the chance to use that experience now to help with Trees for Life's project. Let's illustrate the usefulness of GIS with an imaginary example. Say we have a planting project in mind, but there are very particular constraints on where the planting can take place. Perhaps well-drained soil is needed, a southerly aspect and ideally a specific altitude. Maybe the planting needs to be within 100 metres of a watercourse, and, to add another complication, we want to make sure the fences involved are not visible from the road. By a process known as sieve-mapping, these constraints can be entered into the computer, and, hey presto, we have a map showing suitable sites in our target area. We can then superimpose this image onto a land ownership map to find out who we would need to approach to form an agreement for the project to go ahead. Trying to do all of this with conventional maps would be laborious, if not impossible! This fictional illustration shows just one of the many ways in which GIS could help us to plan our forest restoration work, and save enormous amounts of time and effort in the process. There is also great potential for GIS-based student research projects, and we have already had interest from students at a number of universities, including Leeds and Edinburgh.
We have the software, and staff trained to use GIS, but for it to be of real use we need maps to display on it. The snag is, this data tends to be very expensive. Over the last few months I have been tracking down good sources of data from various organisations. Fortunately, SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage) have supplied us with some digital maps free of charge. Furthermore, Forest Enterprise have created a GIS of their land within Glen Affric, which incorporates our survey data on a number of hazel and aspen stands, and we plan to expand on this work. However, to complete the project, we do need further funds, as we hope to acquire a PC and associated hardware dedicated to GIS work, as well as a full complement of maps (including land ownership, soils, land-use, climate etc). In the Field Office, we often enthuse about the possibilities that will open out once the system is up and running. Uttering statements beginning with "once we get the GIS running we could easily do....", we then go misty-eyed and drift off, soaring eagle-like over our target area; planning linkages, mapping rare trees, following regeneration patterns over the years - the list goes on! I am hopeful that this will soon become much more than a daydream. A fully functional GIS will be of great benefit to Trees for Life, taking us another step closer to achieving our long-term goals. Dan Puplett Glen Affric receives highest conservation designation
At its meeting in December, the board of Scottish Natural Heritage, the government conservation agency in Scotland, approved the designation of almost 15,000 hectares of Forest Enterprise land in Glen Affric as a new National Nature Reserve (NNR). This is the highest category of conservation protection for land in Scotland at present, and receiving this status is a reflection both of the importance of the native pinewoods in Glen Affric, and of all the restoration work which has been carried out there since the 1960s. For us, it's also an important affirmation of the effectiveness of the partnership between Forest Enterprise and Trees for Life, which has been in place since 1989, and under which substantial forest regeneration measures have been carried out. The requirements for NNR status are quite stringent, in terms of the management prescriptions which need to be in place for designated sites, and the plan being implemented by Forest Enterprise meets the criteria for this. All of the work which we do with Forest Enterprise in Glen Affric forms part of this management plan, and we're delighted by this new accolade, which gives Affric enhanced national and international recognition for its unique qualities and features. In practical terms the new designation will not result in any significant changes, but instead provides the basis for continuing with the work already underway, for the regeneration and expansion of the Caledonian Forest in the glen. Meanwhile, an official designation event for the new NNR will take place on site in the glen later in the year. See Caledonia Wild! Newsletters, for excerpts from other editions.
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If you have found the information on this page and/or website useful please consider making a donation, for example to our current appeal and/or becoming a member of Trees for Life, to help us further our work of restoring the Caledonian Forest. You can join or make a donation on-line via our secure server if you like, or contact Trees for Life by post, phone or email at the address below. Published: Spring 2001 | ||||||||||
