Allt na Muic Phase 2 Appeal

Please make a donation to support this project now!

This healthy young Scots pine (with the Allt na Muic gorge behind) shows the effectiveness of Phase 1 of this project Sally Kendall, our Field Projects Coordinator, beside a waterfall on the Allt na Muic stream in Glen Moriston. The plantation we plan to thin out and naturalise is at the top centre of the photograph Please give this overgrazed dwarf birch a helping hand! Your support will allow us to protect more dwarf birch on the Wester Guisachan Estate. Areas of Scots pine plantation like this beside the Allt na Muic stream will be thinned out to create a natural forest With your help, these beautiful cascades on the Allt na Muic stream will soon be re-clothed in native forest The simple, natural beauty of the Allt na Muic stream. Please help us complete the picture by making a donation today to help us restore native forest to this area.

Dear Supporter

I'm writing to you today to request your support in raising £15,000 for an exciting new phase of one of Trees for Life's most important projects - the Allt na Muic Forest Corridor, which aims to link the native woodland in Glen Affric with that in Glen Moriston to the south.

It was five years ago, in 2000, that we launched this project, and many of our supporters made donations to help fund an exclosure on the west side of the Allt na Muic stream, on the Ceannacroc Estate. Together with the Meall Cuileig planting project and a dwarf birch exclosure on the neighbouring Balnacarn Estate, and stock fencing to protect dwarf birch on the Wester Guisachan Estate, these formed the first elements or stepping stones for the forest corridor we envisage connecting the two glens. The young trees in the Allt na Muic exclosure are growing well, and we're ready now - with your help - to implement the next stage of this ambitious project, which is unique in the Highlands.

Allt na Muic Phase 2 - Connecting the forest patches

Our plan now is to develop the forest corridor through further work at both ends. On the Glen Affric side, we have approval to put up a 5 hectare deer-fenced exclosure to protect dwarf birch, while in Glen Moriston, we have agreement from the Forestry Commission to convert part of their plantation on the east side of the Allt na Muic stream to native forest. Once it has been naturalised, this section of the plantation will directly link the new native forest in the Allt na Muic exclosure with that in the Meall Cuileig exclosure further up the hill. Connecting these forest patches will assist with the spread of forest-dependent species such as wood ants, and will result in a healthy, diverse native woodland, which will complement the beauty of the waterfalls and sculpted rocks of the stream.

Please help us build on our success to date!

We need your help for this project because there are no statutory funding sources available to support it. The dwarf birch exclosure is not covered by the Scottish Forestry Grants Scheme, and neither Scottish Natural Heritage nor the Forestry Commission are able to fund the plantation conversion work. To cover the fencing costs and purchase some of the native trees which we'll plant (some trees will be grown in our nursery), we need to raise £15,000, and it is to reach this target that I'm asking for your help. Your support now will make a crucial difference in enabling us to restore more forest to this beautiful cascading mountain stream and in providing a vital link between the forest remnants in Glen Affric and Glen Moriston.

Here's the important practical restoration work that we'll carry out with your support:

• We'll replace the small stock fences on the Wester Guisachan Estate with a 5 hectare deer fence, which will give much better protection to the dwarf birch there. It will also significantly increase the area of this scarce montane shrub species that can regenerate in the absence of overgrazing.

• We will re-fence a section of the Forestry Commission's plantation on the east side of the Allt na Muic stream and begin the process of converting it to native forest.

• Volunteers will fell the planted non-native trees (which will be left to return their nutrients to the soil), and thin out the planted Scots pine, to enable the remaining ones to grow in a more natural distribution pattern.

• Volunteers will also plant a range of native broadleaved trees - birch, rowan, alder, aspen, juniper, willow and hazel - to restore the full diversity of the Caledonian Forest tree species to the site. Over a period of 2-3 years, we plan to plant almost 50,000 trees over an area of about 88 hectares.

Your support now will help us take these next steps with the Allt na Muic Forest Corridor!

This is an ambitious year for us here at Trees for Life, and I'm depending on all our supporters, like you, to help us take these next significant steps forward with our work. Please help us add a few more stepping stones of native woodland to the Allt na Muic Forest Corridor by sending a donation today - this forest link between Glen Affric and Glen Moriston is a vital, key element in our strategy of restoring the Caledonian Forest to a large contiguous area.

To make a donation online to this project, please go to our order form, , and thank you in advance for any contribution which you can give - your gift, no matter its size, will make a significant difference to us!

Yours sincerely,

Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive Director

If you would like to make a donation for a different aspect of our work, please see our Appeals for Funds.