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Part 2 - The South

Wild Land News no 65, Winter 2005/2006

Rewilding our forests

Article

Forestry policy is changing for the better. David Jarman considers the options for restructuring the plantations and suggests where they could be removed entirely.

This hillside temporarily resembles a bombsite immediately after clear-felling, but that is a price we have to pay is we are to reverse the damage to our landscape from 20th century forestry policy. Photo:John Digney

part 1 - the north

For years, many of us have railed in vain against the incessant spread of the conifer tide over fine moors, beneath great mountain ranges, and into remote glens. The scenic damage has been aggravated by the loss of freedom to roam. In the Lake District, most of the mountain core has been defended against evergreen encroachment, but nowhere has seemed sacrosanct in Scotland or Wales.

As we have reported in recent WLNs, forest rewilding is actually happening all over Scotland - but primarily for nature conservation reasons, restoring ancient pine forests and oakwoods. Now there are encouraging signs that Forestry Commission Scotland is becoming more willing to recognise that in some places afforestation has extended too far into the wilds, and that there is a landscape case for pulling back the boundaries. This is unlikely to be by premature fell-to-recycle except in special cases: rather, when the crop is harvested, the clearfell areas will simply not be replanted. Left unfenced, they will revert to open land, and when residues eventually rot, open access.

Through Scottish Environment LINK, we had an opportunity recently to meet with Forest Enterprise landscape architects and begin to explore the practicalities. Sandra Hanlon (who covers south of roughly Glencoe-Dundee) and Maggie Gilvray (north) showed us examples on Arran and Raasay, where conifer production is now uneconomic because of transport costs, and forest design is already shifting to a mix of native woodland and open ground. But there are three big practical problems in achieving true rewilding :

• it is very costly to clear brash, let alone stumps, so the visual appearance of the open land will remain unnatural for decades; 'whole tree harvesting' is now beginning to happen, and ought to become the norm as biofuel energy comes on stream, but this will be least economic in remote areas.
• where forest roads have been engineered, they are unlikely to be removed, and will remain intrusive - as we saw up Glen Affric.
• sitka regeneration will be difficult to control, especially where deer numbers are reduced, and where brash gives protection from browsing (though brash also aids native regeneration).

1. Glen Nevis - it has long seemed extraordinary to me that the culmination of the West Highland Way should be a descent through dense conifer forestry, obscuring views across to a modest lump called Ben Nevis or something. I have never walked this bit, but I have come off the west end of the Mamores via this forest, which was depressing enough. Time to think a wee bit bold - I would withdraw all the commercial forestry from Glen Nevis, in favour of native woodland dotting the slopes, with plenty of open ground around the paths and along the skyline. Progress up the glen would then be a glorious experience from the edge of Fort William to Steall, rather than an abrupt switch from artificial to wild half-way.
2. Glen Shiel - this could be almost as grand as Glen Coe, if the prominent swathe of forest most of the way along the upper glen were removed. National Trust for Scotland own all the upper slopes above the forest, and there is amazing scope for integrated management, with a natural transition from native woodland on the lower ground through montane scrub to open slopes. Plenty of space should be created for unhindered access to the Three Brothers and Five Sisters. Felling has only just commenced in Glen Shiel (with mostly sitka replanting), and this is an ideal time for a radical redesign. The benefits would be enjoyed by thousands of visitors on the main road to Skye; despite the road this is still a fine wild glen as soon as you get up the hill a bit. The views from the bounding ridges - especially the South Cluanie Ridge - would be immensely improved. PS - the forestry in Strath Croe round the corner beyond Morvich should be part of this Kintail rewilding package; it defiles the way in to that magnificent defile the Bealach na Sgairne, and has to be endured by people making the pilgrimage to the Falls of Glomach.
3. Achnashellach - most of the forest here is not unattractive, Glen Carron being quite modest in scale. But the finest hill path over the Coulin hills to Torridon starts from the station, with the first mile through the forest being an ad hoc mess. It would be wonderful to pull back the forest completely out of this small side valley below Coire Lair, and allow this great walk to feel wild from beginning to end, starting up through scattered oak and birch, with no sharp fenced boundary hemming it in.
4. Inverlael - this is a similar story, with the main way into the Beinn Dearg massif starting through a mile or two of conifers. When I first did this (it was Chernobyl week), the outermost flat ground was a stand of fine Scots pine and larch. Now that has been felled, with mostly sitka succeeding. I would not be averse to the grandeur of 'big trees' here - and a bit of shelter at start and finish of a rough day. But once into the narrow entrance to Gleann na Sguaib, the forest becomes alien; and it makes an intrusive dam across the mouth looking back down from the hills.
5. Glen Hurich - Glen Scaddle. At last, a really remote one for you wild land purists, which makes it interesting to try and justify as a priority, given that only a handful of gangrels will ever get anywhere near it. But the same is true of some of the native pinewood fragments being rescued in obscure spots. Glen Hurich is that deep clutch of narrow valleys behind Ben Resipol which has long been lost to dense Austrian-type forest. It is in the Ardgour hills, which are notable for their narrow winding passes from Loch Linnhe through to Loch Shiel, the best being at the head of Glen Scaddle. By a quirk of geomorphology, the watershed is not in the pass, but a short mile further east. As therefore is the FE march. And so, diligently using their assets to the full, about 20 years ago they extended the Hurich plantings into a pocket which in effect fills the natural head of Glen Scaddle and blots out the pass. To harvest it would need the forest road bulldozed on through the defile. This is all now clearly silly, so here is one good candidate for immediate fell-to-recycle before the task - and the amount of waste - becomes excessive. I spotted this incursion from the fine wee peaks above Maclean's Towel (Corran Ferry) : with the eastern Ardgour glens all free of coniferisation, to binocular the telltale dark fungus insinuating through from the west was decidedly creepy.
6. Glen Doll - my only nominee east of the A9, up the head of Glen Clova. By complete contrast with Ardgour and its narrow passes, the essence of the landscape over here is the blind trough-head, with paths ascending out of them to cross the Mounth plateau. My first visit here, in pursuit of some undulation like Mayar, was my last, principally because finding this magnificent collection of glacial scoops filled in with wall-to-wall forestry was just too disheartening. Forest redesign might soften the edges and free up the main paths, but for me nothing less than pulling right out of the corries back to a core of Big Trees around the road-end will do.

The Forestry Commission have rebuilt the path up Ben Ledi on ground that was until recently covered in dense coniferous plantation. The vegetation is now recovering well, and the open feel to the route makes it a far more enjoyable experience than the dismal trduge it used to be. Photo:John Digney

And pragmatically this is wise, because while a glut of cheap timber on world markets has made much of our forestry uneconomic at present, this will doubtless change, especially if bioenergy takes off. Now is the time to claw back the most grievous losses, and to set the location and design parameters for any future expansion.

Over to you - what do you think of these priorities for northern Scotland, and what are your candidates for southern Scotland? Note we are not yet looking at private forests - where in the north, my prime candidate has to be Glen Pean / Glen Dessary, which must surely be uneconomic to extract anyway.

Here are the first reactions one member (Keith Miller) to get the debate started:

• Glen Nevis has some of the highest natural woodland in Britain and the conifer plantations are appalling. Since first walking along the glen nearly 35 years ago I've always hoped that someday I'll see the complete removal of conifers from the glen; to be replaced naturally with native woodland habitats. I can clearly remember discussing these issues with my late father back in the early 1970s.
• Glen Shiel is definitely an impressive glen through which a trunk road passes and would be significantly improved if the conifers were removed.
• Glen Doll has another appalling area of insensitive plantation. Coire Sharroch has a wonderful area of montane scrub with populations of Salix lanata & S. lapponum. When you are amongst these relict willow populations it is easy to imagine what larger parts of the Highlands could have been like with a different pattern of land ownership and subsequent management. Then you look down and see what the public purse has done with the conifer plantations below.

Even where entire plantations have not been removed, they have been re-shaped as here above Loch Leven. The felled area is not be re-planted. Photo:Maggie Gilvray

At Glen Nevis, they comment that "there is now a real mix of species (birch, larch and spruce) within the younger areas that have been felled and replanted" - and that liaison with the Nevis Partnership has never suggested any more ambitious rewilding - a challenge we will pursue !

Many thanks to Hugh Clayden at FCS (whom we met in course of LINK input to the Forest Strategy Review) for opening up this line of discussion, and to Hugh Insley at FE for putting his staff onto the case : their positive and imaginative responses to suggestions that would probably have been condemned as heresy a mere decade ago are refreshing. We now hope to be consulted (via LINK) on Forest Design Plans for the more sensitive areas as they come up for review.