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Wild Land News no 61, Autumn 2004

Wood Notes Wild

Article

As you progress beyond the head of Loch Affric into the wilder and bleaker glen proper, there hangs up on the south side a slanting side valley, hard to see against the light and obscured by shapeless foothills. No path leads to the well-hidden stalkers footbridge, although it is only a step from Athnamulloch, its springing ribs of massive schist boldly sculpted by ice and then by the eddying Allt na Ciche. From it I have twice made my trackless way up into the mouth of Fraoch-choire, on route to the cone of the Mullach which stands precisely above its head. This is the finest approach to one of our best 1100m peaks, but invisible to the guide writers because it is felicitously split over three maps.

On the way in, as so often, there are a few scraggy birches clinging to crag or gorge, and in the first flush of April some seedlings in the short grass hint at the verdant glen this could be without so many herbivores. On the way out, after a spine-tingling circuit over A' Chralaig, wildness ceases abruptly in the greatest tributary of Affric, secluded because devious and blind-headed, Gleann na Ciche; for it has been roaded and filled with young and alien conifers.

Or this was the story only twenty years ago. Since then two miracles have occurred that were beyond foreseeing. The conifers have been 'felled-to-waste' ('felled-to-recycle' is the well-spun term now preferred !), and within their fences are vigorous birch and rowan thickets. And those scraggy birches now reside within an extensive network of exclosures, so that their progeny, no longer nipped in every bud, are spreading rapidly.

These are remarkable achievements, rare beacons of hope against the taming of wild Scotland. They are all the greater for being achieved by our oft-maligned Forestry Commission on its own commercial estate; the story is told by other contributors. Without detracting from the overall success, there are of course issues to be debated as we encourage emulation.

Fencing

Thesis:	fence
Antithesis:	gate
Synthesis:	stile

If our thesis is 'wild wood' and our antithesis is 'wild deer' (not to mention the sheep which come over from Ceannacroc), perhaps IHF would approve of the synthesis being the hunter/shepherd. I am indebted to my brother (in the other National Trust) for this glaringly simple nostrum. While fencing creates intermittent contract work which may or may not go to local people, it would be good to see a shepherd/stalker or two resident at Athnamulloch again (at least until we get the wolves back.).

Talking to Keith Miller of JMT over anti-midge fires at Inbhir Dhorrcail brings home how vexing a challenge this is. On Knoydart, he believes the miles of fencing should be removed even before it rots, allowing the native deer back in to browse the oaks I planted, providing their numbers are managed as a sustainable resource for the whole community, at levels which will allow some 'natural' level of continuing regeneration over the longer term.

Here in Affric, and in less-sensitive wild places which would naturally be better wooded, I am prepared to put up with a certain amount of fencing to kick start a process where this is politically necessary to win support and show some results, but early removal must be written in. The ideal is fenceless woodland regeneration.

Planting

On that shapeless lower ground which obscures Fraoch-choire, Trees for Life have planted Scots pine. They have done it beautifully, with a good eye for the terrain, in an authentically random scatter (the hardest pattern to plan). It is remarkable to see many of them establishing vigorously, on ledges and knolls. But there are no old native pines left this far west in Affric, and I wonder how we will feel in fifty years, knowing they were planted to fulfil a dream of restoring the 'natural' pinewoods to places from which they have long been absent. Richard Tipping writes cogently on this elsewhere in this issue.

The north side of west Glen Affric is now owned by NTS, and they have fenced one medium chunk, fairly unobtrusively, to allow relict birch a chance to regenerate. I asked James Fenton (our host for last year's AGM) about this 'political' dilemma of having to show quick results. He says "I cannot see what planting trees has to do with 're-wilding'; such obvious intervention management in a previously unmanaged landscape (although not necessarily unused), with prescriptions for more woodland and woodland species, is the antithesis of letting the land go wild! To let the land be truly wild we have to get rid of our preconceptions and see what nature comes up with: it may be trees, but it may not be; why worry? However, the current soils and climate indicate that nature will come up with large herbivore populations and an open moorland landscape that is unique in European terms, and one of the wildest (in terms of vegetation pattern) in Europe. Let us be proud of that, and not let our atavistic chimpanzee inheritance make us see trees as the acme of ecology!"

Stirring stuff, to which I would only add that the herbivore population might be rather larger today than nature would come up with. Both James and Keith are talking the new language of 'indeterminacy', or not trying to engineer predetermined landscape and ecological outcomes to suit our current tastes - Adam Smith would approve. Actually, as a planner to trade, I know one of the toughest challenges is to create the circumstances in which good things can flourish spontaneously, with a minimum of regulation and intervention. It can be done - see Lowland Crofting in West Lothian.

Tracks

And why is there a path, which follows an annoying pigeon-flight up and down every knoll and dip? Because quad vehicles were used to get the fencing squad in, and blazed a trail which is now indelible because the lush vegetation channels everyone onto it. They even took a machine in to excavate safe passages across steep side slopes - including the toe of the landslide (handy for geologists wanting to see inside it, but not good practice in wild land).

Of course, access into the recesses of Gleann na Ciche was also greatly aided when the forest road was built. Indeed I biked up it, saving 6 km of dull trudge when I explored the shrinking ridge of A' Chioch. I asked Malcolm Wield of FCS if he had any plans to remove it. He would love to - if someone provided the funds. I think this should be urged as a priority - why leave incomplete the landmark achievement of removing the commercial plantations by leaving the road in the middle of this remote glen?

Did I say remote? It is, if you have to bike in from the public car park, as I have every time except on our AGM visit (such privilege!). But on the strictest SNH test of remoteness, the whole of Glen Affric fails to count as 'wild' because of the landrover track to the youth hostel at Alltbeithe.

A final perversity: our splendid AGM walk with 'Trees for Life' Alan took advantage of an unfenced gap between the fell-to-waste and the new exclosure. We picnicked amongst a few of those scraggy old birches, on short-cropped slopes. Our botanists and entomologists were in seventh heaven, and I learned more wildflower names and boring-insect habits than I ever knew before. The herbivore-free places seemed duller by comparison, and rank ungrazed vegetation may suppress the more delicate plants until a more natural balance can be permitted to evolve.

So let us have many more Affric rewildings, but let us approach them humbly and allow nature its fullest say, in both space and time.

Oh, and just in case you think I am a hopeless purist like Hamish Brown (of Carnach River crossings), I found the footbridge over the pool of polished schist had been handsomely replaced - and rejoiced.

David Jarman