Mountain Forest Restoration Project Appeal

Please make a donation to support this project now!

Restoration of a complete mountain forest, from valley bottom to montane scrub.

Dear Supporter

In the past several years, one of Trees for Life's most innovative and successful projects has been our work with dwarf birch. Thanks to the donations of supporters such as yourself, we've carried out extensive surveys for this rare montane shrub species, and have established several small restoration schemes for it on the Balnacarn and Wester Guisachan Estates, between Glen Affric and Glen Moriston. This is the most comprehensive work ever carried out in Scotland for dwarf birch, and it has placed Trees for Life in the forefront of efforts to restore treeline vegetation here.

I'm writing to you today to invite you to support an exciting new development with this project, which will expand it significantly in scope and scale.

Restoration of a complete mountain forest, from valley bottom to montane scrub

Dwarf birch is part of the montane scrub community, the transition vegetation between the forest which grows at lower elevations and the higher altitude, treeless zones. This community is in itself almost completely absent from Scotland today, and, as a result, there are no examples anywhere in the country of the complete progression from valley bottom forest up the mountainsides and through the montane scrub into the open ground beyond.

Because of the experience we've gained in the past few years, we have a great opportunity to take a lead in addressing this problem, by extending our existing project to encompass the whole transition of forest communities in a mountain environment. We've identified additional sites in our 600 square mile target area where dwarf birch is known to occur and we plan to survey them this summer. We'll then use the results to determine which ones offer the best potential for linking up with native forest at lower elevations to achieve the restoration of a complete progression of mountain forest.

Please help us fill in the gaps in Scotland's mountain forests!

I'm very inspired by the opportunity which we have now to pioneer the return of the full range of forest types in the mountains of our target area - this also forms a key step in linking up the isolated forest remnants in neighbouring glens. To implement this project, we need to raise £12,215 to cover the costs of field surveys, meetings with landowners, site visits, collection and propagation of dwarf birch seed, and the purchase of a laptop computer compatible with our GPS unit (a handheld device for pinpointing locations from satellite signals). We're ready to move ahead with the work, but we need your help to provide the funds to achieve all this.

Here's what your support will help us do:

This summer we will carry out further surveys to map the extent of dwarf birch on the Balmacaan Estate in the southeast of our target area, and on Forest Enterprise land at Inverwick and Portclair in Glen Moriston.
Based on the results of these and earlier surveys, we'll identify priority sites to reestablish the complete progression of forest from valley bottom to the montane scrub zone. We'll develop plans to achieve this and seek the agreement of the relevant landowners for implementing them.
We'll establish some trial plots for assisting natural regeneration of dwarf birch on the Balnacarn Estate in Glen Moriston, to determine the most effective way of enabling this species to recover in areas where it is already present.
We'll expand our programme of propagation for dwarf birch in our nursery at Plodda Lodge, to provide enough young plants for planting out in key areas as part of our plan for the restoration of a complete mountain forest progression.

We've recently been given a GPS unit by Mike Brown, one of our supporters, and that is an important and vital contribution to this project. With your support as well, we can fill in the gaps in the forests like that shown above.

Our supporters, like you, are essential to the success of our work!

Throughout its growth and development, all that Trees for Life has accomplished has been due to the contributions we receive from supporters like you. Thanks to your assistance, we've been amongst the pioneers in the work to restore Scotland's native forests during the last 12 years. I invite you to help us take another significant step forward now by sending a contribution to this pioneering project for the return of a complete mountain forest.

To make a donation online to this project, please go to our order form, and thank you in advance for whatever contribution you can give. Your support now will enable this project to go ahead this summer!

Yours sincerely,

Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive Director

Please click here to make a donation to the Mountain Forest Restoration Appeal via our secure server.

We can also take your donation by phone: tel. 0845 458 3505. Thank you.

P.S. Every donation, no matter the size, will help us reach our target, so please respond with whatever contribution you can afford. Thank you!