Early on Xmas Eve staff at Mar Lodge issued this tweet, sad news for a natural landmark but with reasons to be optimistic for the future. By coincidence the campaigner Andy Wightman appears to have written about this very tree in an article for Holyrood Magazine at the end of November (see here):
“Sitting high on the slopes of Glen Derry in the Cairngorms is a tree. I have walked past it many times over the past few decades. It is a so-called “granny pine”, a Scots pine that stands alone – all that remains of a once more extensive Caledonian pinewood that stretched across large areas of the Highlands.
Recent analysis by St Andrews University has revealed that the tree is one of the oldest in Scotland, dating back to at least 1477. It has lived through the Battle of Flodden, the Union of the Crowns, the Union of Parliaments and the industrial revolution.
For a century or so, this isolated but splendid living thing stood alone as the forest around it slowly died due to over-browsing by high numbers of wild red deer on what was then a prestigious hunting estate belonging to the Duke of Fife.
Now, however, a remarkable transformation is taking place………….. in front of the tree born in the 15th century, stand a number of young trees, all naturally seeded and given the chance to grow freely by the reduction in browsing by red deer.”
The Scotsman picked up on Mar Lodge social media post (see here), adding some further quotes from NTS staff, but without mentioning that it was the reduction in red deer numbers that had finally allowed its seed to get established before it died.
Instead the Scotsman quoted NTS staff on “the importance of our woodland restoration work in the areas around our old woodlands” before informing readers that Mar Lodge:
“has an extensive tree planting initiative underway called the Geldie Woodland Project. It involves planting some 120 hectares on the estate with more than 100,000 native Scots tree species along the banks of the River Geldie”.
The problematic narrative here is how “nature restoration work” is now equated by many people with planting trees with little awareness that if you bring deer numbers down, as in Glen Derry, woodland would recolonise areas and soils where it would occur naturally without the need for any other human intervention.
That public misunderstanding about nature restoration is made worse when, as in the article, people switch from talking about natural regeneration to planting as if they were the same thing.
The tree planting on the Geldie is about 10 miles as the crow flies from the granny pine and what is happening there is totally different, nothing to do with enabling native trees and plants to regenerate naturally by reducing grazing pressure but an attempt to impose new native woodland on the landscape. This is an area which, according to NTS (see here), “lost most of its native tree cover more than 2000 years ago”, unlike upper Glen Derry where there is a long history of woodland cover, as illustrated by the granny pine.
The planting on the Geldie is in the so-called “moorland” zone of Mar Lodge where deer density is close to 10 per square km (not helped by influxes from Atholl Estate) compared to the 1 per square km NTS aim for in the “regeneration zone” (see here), hence the need for the fences in the photo above . NTS’ planting – which was partly funded by a Scottish Forestry grant – begs two questions. If this really is a moorland zone why try to change that by planting trees? And if deer density is too high to enable trees to colonise these areas naturally over time, what impact are those grazing levels having on other vegetation and peat bogs?
The elision of two very different processes in public discourse, natural regeneration and planting, and description of both of these as “restoration work” is in my view very dangerous. It serves to conceal the role that overgrazing has played in reducing woodland cover in Scotland and consequently that all we need to do to reverse this is to reduce deer numbers and nature will do the rest (see here). It also serves to conceal the fact that it is landowning interests, in the form of traditional stalking estates, which is preventing that from happening at present. Hence the battle at Caenlochan involving the Royal Family which has resulted in NatureScot accepting a deer density of 10 per sq km for what was once – like Mar Lodge now is – a National Nature Reserve (see here).
The fenced enclosures on the Geldie moorland zone of Mar Lodge, which is the part of the estate where field sports are still practised, are no coincidence. It is important to distinguish between what NTS is getting right, its focus on keeping deer density at very low levels in the restoration zone, which means the granny pine that has recently died will have successors, from what it is still getting wrong. The wider challenge, illustrated by the Scotsman story, is to deconstruct the narrative which is conflating these two very different approaches and as a consequence describes native tree planting, however damaging, as nature restoration and a type of rewilding. Its not.
It is important not to be too ideological in our approach to these things. The terms “rewilding”, and arguably “nature restoration” as well, create expectations in our minds that there is only one way to do these things. A better way to think about it is to simply ask, “What is the objective here?”. If the objective is to increase the area of native woodland, and to inspire and educate others in how to do so, then you have to think about how to go about doing this, and over what timescale. The regeneration at Mar Lodge was very slow to get going initially, but is now really beginning to take hold, and in my opinion, will probably overtake Glenfeshie in the next five years or so as the most significant pinewood restoration project in the country. Deer reduction has been central to that, but pragmatism has also played a key part. Following many years of conflict, NTS reviewed their Mar Lodge operations in 2011, and installed a strategic deer fence which created their pinewood and moorland zones. The outcome of that has been successful regeneration and better relations with their neighbours. It has allowed them to continue to make some income from their land, and this will help to reduce the net costs of restoration. “HOW” to do restoration, and how to pay for it, is an important consideration. To me, this is being pragmatic. The other area of pragmatism is that although much of the regeneration taking place at Mar Lodge will be arising from natural & indeed. ancient stands of pine, a significant proportion of the regeneration will have arisen from planted Scots Pine plantations. You can see this clearly in Glen Luibeg on the way out to Glen Derry, and although I have not been up Glen Quoich for many years, I would imagine the plantations up there will also be adding to the overall mass of regeneration. Undoubtedly, there would be less regeneration and over a smaller area if these plantations did not exist. Planting a seed source for the future may well be a good thing to do in the moorland zone, if your vision for that is to have more trees there in the longer term. Something that I would like to see at Mar Lodge is to map the current regeneration extent, and make some sort of assessment where it has come from, maybe using monoterpene analysis or other suitable method. Walking up Glen Luibeg, I can see where most of the trees probably came from, but there are others which are much more difficult. It is important to try and understand all of this, because we can then do things better elsewhere. If we want more trees in a sensible time period, then a proportion of planting will be important. Even Glenfeshie have recognized this with their large (unfenced) pinewood extentions. The Carrifran people have planted, as have Trees for Life, and the large FLS plantings around Loch Katrine are now producing seed and providing options for having the next phase by woodland regeneration/ deer control. They have probably gained themselves 50 years by planting a seed source. It is also worth noting that if we do want more “nature restoration” in Scotland, we are not just talking about the large, high profile sites, but many smaller, “ordinary”, perhaps heavily compromized areas where smaller farmers, landowners and community groups simply do not have the scale of land to make deer control work properly, at least not in the short term. In those areas, some planting/ fencing may be required. We can all question the choices that people make, yes, but perhaps it makes sense in their circumstances. It is all about what you want, and on what timeline, and what is likely to work in your circumstances.
Interesting article. With regard to Victor’s comment re Glen Quoich I can confirm the regeneration is impressive.
In September 2015 a group of us took the late Adam Watson to the Quoich. He was visibly impressed, and said he never thought he would ever see such natural regeneration in his lifetime. Quite an accolade from a great man.
It’s one thing to highlight how the narrative by NTS at Mar Lodge will mislead the public in to believing it’s necessary to fence and plant trees to create woodland.
However is your article above on the subject and also the one by Andy Wightman you used as an example any better?
You referred to native pinewoods and Andy to the Caledonian pinewood, when surely it should have been native woodlands & Caledonian forest respectively? The forest which cloaked large parts of Scotland in the past was comprised of many tree species which made it ecologically important and by solely referring to only pines you mislead the public too, to what it was really like.
Also in the case of Andy’s article for the Holyrood Magazine, not just the public, but the decision makers too!
Dave, I have re-read the entire post and cannot find a single use of the term native pinewoods but several to native woodlands. What’s more the post includes a photo of deciduous trees high up in Glen Derry. And where in the quote from Andy Wightman was there any claim that the Caledonian Pine forest was the only woodland cover in Scotland?
Nick the headline is native pine woods. Any refers to the extensive Caledonian pinewoods.
Those comments are just as misleading to the general public about the Caledonian woods as the NTS comments are about how to try to readdress the loss.
Ok, I had forgotten about the title, mea culpa, but the content of the discussion, which was about natural regeneration v planting, is all phrased in terms of native woodland and applies to all woodland in Scotland, Atlantic rainforest – if you want to use that recently invented term – as much at the Caledonian Pine Forest. There are all sort of arguments of course about what to call different types of native woodland but to me that is a side issue – the issue is whether we continue to plant native trees behind fences (which ignores natural succession, damages soils, releases carbon into the atmosphere, kills wildlife) or cull deer and enable nature to do the job for us.
Native woodland planted inside a fence develop differently than trees that are allowed to regenerate naturally. I conducted research some years ago which firmly concluded that from an ecological point of view woodlands created through natural regeneration are far superior in ecological grounds to those established behind a fence. The research was published in a very good international journal so can be considered reliable. This is not ideology…its science.
I thought that NTS MarLodge was obligated by their purchase contract for the estate to maintain traditional sporting management (ie deer numbers of some level). on a part of the estate. I don’t know the details but I believe that this contract is at the root of the dual approach there? Similarly at NTS Ben Lawers, where the acquisition many decades ago maintained sheep grazers/’ rights, in spite of conservation objectives? I conclude that NTS swallow these limitations as an opportunity to do some good on the properties as a whole. I suspect that in doing so they are well aware of the attractiveness of natural regeneration, the ecological potential of moorland and the dynamics, past, and present and the uncertainty around climate change.
The important policy issue her, at least to me, is that the public grant subsidy for planted native woodlands is far higher than that given to natural regeneration. In turn this has meant that planted and fenced native woodland plantations are much more widespread than woodlands created naturally. On the basis of public benefits generated this is not very cost-effective as natural regeneration is far more desirable from an ecological, carbon, conservation and recreational perspective. Planting and fencing is highly favoured by owners and investors as it generates quick financial value and has much less impact on sporting interests aka land values.
The differing strategies in different parts of the NTS Mar Lodge Estate arise from the way the purchase of that estate wes funded. A large part of the money was a charitable donation, the acceptance of which required three conditions:
“1. The Trust shall manage the Estate so as to conserve its valuable ecological and landscape feratures in harmony woth its maintenance as a Highland Sporting Estatate for so long as field sports remain legal.
2. ….
3. The part of the Estate lying to the south and west of the River Dee … shall be sesitively managed to promote its proper conservation in terms of grouse habitat …”
[Quoted from Andrew Painiting’s wonderful book “Regeneration” anbout what’s going on on the Estate.