Plastering Balquhidder with plastic – the inspirational leadership of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority

March 25, 2022 Nick Kempe 9 comments
Tweet 17th March

Unless tree shelter manufacture has been revolutionised recently it looks remarkably like the Chief Executive of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) was celebrating the erection of hundreds of plastic tree tubes along the River Larig in Balquhidder last week.  Incredibly his tweet – fake news about conservation – got 49 likes

Close up, they look even more like plastic tree shelters

As the plastic tree tubes start breaking down plastic particles will enter the River Larig and thence to the Firth of Forth and the North Sea. That is unless a big flood sweeps away the lot before then.  The River Larig, above Loch Voil, is part of the River Teith Special Area of Conservation and supposed to be one of our most protected freshwater systems,  Conservation has reached new lows when the Chief Executive of a National Park Authority believes that lining both banks of this river with hundreds of plastic tree tubes is inspirational.  David Attenborough’s films and all the publicity about plastic pollution appears to have passed Mr Watson by completely.

This is not nature conservation. But when their Chief Executive shows so little understanding, it is no wonder that the LLTNPA has so far failed to take a single action to ban or remove plastic tree tubes or failed to follow the example being shown by Forest and Land Scotland and organisations like the Woodland Trust which have in the last year pledged not to use them.

It is hard not to feel sorry for the “green trainees” who have presumably been brainwashed into thinking that its fine to bring up hydrocarbons from beneath the earth’s surface to plant trees.

 

The LLTNPA’s conservation failure

The reason the LLTNPA has been helping to fund the use of plastic tree tubes along the River Larig is the consequence of a much wider conservation failure.  In their twenty years of existence they have failed to reduce significantly historic overgrazing by sheep and deer in Balquhidder and intense rainfall associated with climate change has triggered a number of serious landslips in the upper glen and flooding below.  There is a major conservation problem in Balquhidder and by planting trees the Forth Rivers Project is hoping to strengthen the river banks and reduce flooding.

This, however, fails to address the cause of the problem.  Slowing down water once its reached the floor of the glen is too late.  Conservation needs to start from the summits of the surrounding hills and tackle overgrazing by sheep and deer but this is being ignored.  Tree shelters down in the glen may offer some temporary protection against browsing but as soon as the first tree shoots emerge, they will be at just the right height for deer to nibble them: unless, of course, hungry deer learn to knock over these shelters to eat the trees inside them before then.

9 Comments on “Plastering Balquhidder with plastic – the inspirational leadership of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority

  1. Perhaps the Authority can volunteer how much of the overall cost of this highly visible display of tax money spent has been allocated to purchase of thin wooden stakes and the plastic tubes themselves. Which firms have profited,- apart from the tree nurseries themselves ? The audit of a breakdown of this expenditure would be most instructive.
    Of course loss of saplings planted without stakes is normal and would be expected …factored in…..But money for plastic.. might instead have been available, to fund part-time jobs for NP woodland management works teams. Student Patrols in holiday periods could be employed to weed within plantations, infill with fresh trees, replace any lost to disease during the first few years, clear underbrush, even thin weaker examples where necessary.?
    How much of the project budget has been set aside to fund teams to visit to tidy this plastic mess up ?
    After promoting this..This LLTNPA chairman in person should be required to revisit this eyesore mess in a couple of years and in full view of the press be seen among a similar group who then collect up every one of these tubes again. It is easy to speculate that most of totally unnecessary tubes will by then be empty – sapling gone, stem broken off or tangled up in underbrush , the tubes split and fragments trampled down, after 4 years or so.

  2. “Plasticizing Balquidder” would probably be a more accurate title! The Woodland Trust have said that they “intend” to stop the use of plastic tubes when they find a suitable alternative! I suggested that they use wire mesh instead but got no reply to that one. Ebay lists 5 x 1.2m tubes with stakes for £24.40, roughly £5 each, although buying in bulk is obviously cheaper, so, if anyone has a rough idea of how many were used then we know a maximum cost.

  3. Gramme Pringle has the simple solution to this problem on his croft of land. Simple fence the area off to provide protection from wild deer, plant some semi-matured scotch pines to act as a source of seeds and just wait. Letting a few dear in after a while can also have benefits as their feaces can transport seeds.

  4. Great idea, unfortunately, this is not what all landowners want and they have the final say at the end of the day and the landowner here wanted stock fencing and not deer fencing. This means tree guards must be used. While access to more green alternatives was considered, they were not available for purchase as they are produced on small scale.

  5. It is interesting to note that in many places where plastic tubes have been used, there is a healthy growth of natural regenertaion between the tubes – negating the myth that plastric tubes are essentiial in all situations. Come to mind – new bypass at Crianlarich, planting around the Lang Crags above Milton ( Glasgow) and some planting I noted recently near the A703 ( Moffat to Selkirk) road. However tree tubes seem to heve entered into Forestry and Landscpe mythology as necessary to the existance of trees! And they are never removed – resulting in the d. eath by strangulation of many trees and a landscape of old plastic

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