A month before large areas in Strath Nethy and Glenmore were consumed by fire, I went for a short walk to have a look at part of the Caledonian pinewood around Glen Brown which also lies within the Cairngorms National Park.  This fragment of Caledonian pinewood is located on the Dorback Estate, which was purchased by Oxygen Conservation (OC) towards the end of 2024. At the time OC described their purchase, which was not vetted by any public body, as ‘one of the most significant natural capital acquisition (sic) in history’ (see here).

After a visit to the southern part of Dorback in January 2025, I had argued OC’s acquisition presented the opportunity for the Caledonian pinewood at Abernethy to expand northwards through natural regeneration and to save the capercaillie by removing deer fencing (see here).  Ron Summers, who had previously worked as a scientist for RSPB at Abernethy, later alerted me to the parlous position of the Caledonian pinewood on the northern part of Dorback.  He then suggested to OC, and their advisers TreeStory, that there was an opportunity for it to expand southwards through natural regeneration and eventually connect with Abernethy.

Having never visited the pinewood, I was keen to do so and stopped off on the former military road between Tomintoul and Grantown on my way back from my stay in Glen Livet (see here and here) .

In the past intensive grouse moor management, including extensive muirburn, have served as a major constraint on the ability of the surviving Glen Brown Caledonian pine to spread back onto moorland naturally. OC announced they would stop ‘shooting birds’ as soon as they bought Dorback, creating a major opportunity for the pinewood to regenerate and expand naturally.

Scots pine seed blows uphill far more readily than is recognised in the literature and I saw evidence of that below the old military road.  I have been unable so far to ascertain why the Scots pine along the Allt Catanach, the burn that runs below the road, are thought not to meeting the accepted definition of Caledonian pinewoods, i.e. that they are the “lineal descendants of those of early post-glacial times” and “have been regenerated naturally from ancestors of like origin”.

Establishing the origins of scattered Scots pine, however, and deciding what should be included in core zones of Caledonian Pinewood Inventory (CPI) sites like Glen Brown can present quite a challenge without genetic testing:

 

(You can view CPI sites for anywhere in Scotland, including the rest of Dorback, on Scottish Forestry’s map viewer (see here) – go to layers and then choose ‘Surveys and Inventories).

There are more Scots pine in the core zones along the Alt Lornadaidh than there are in Glen Brown which is why I chose to visit there. .After a look around the woodland along the Allt Catanach, I headed to the track and to the Scots pine (tree 5) which is located just inside the Dorback estate.  The new native woodland scheme on the Dirdhu estate had been planted right up to the deer fence and this mature Scots pine.

Whether or not this Scots pine is a direct naturally regenerated descendant of the Scots pine which colonised this area after the last ice age, with grazing pressure reduced by fencing, it was surrounded by numerous naturally regenerated seedlings among the planted trees. There was no reason for planting here but Scottish Forestry map viewer shows (Case Ref 20FGS54325) that it paid out forestry grants in 2022 to plant this area with Scots pine.  That was both a complete waste of public money and a completely unnecessary intervention within what was supposed to be a buffer zone to protect the Caledonian pinewood.

Driven by planting targets, the risk is that Scottish Forestry now agree to similar planting proposals from OC on the Dorback estate.

Approaching the ruin at Rynelrich there was a small herd of sheep grazing by the edge of the largest Caledonian pinewood core zone. Whether these sheep belonged to OC or had managed to find a way through the extensive fencing, it appears that OC have failed to protect this Caledonian pinewood for which they are now responsible.  Searching around the Caledonian pine on the right of this photo, it was hardly surprising I was unable to find a single Scots pine seedling.

 

This conservation management failure on the part of OC is not a one-off,  as I have also observed sheep grazing along the River Dulnain on their land at Kinrara.  This is where, according to what OC and TreeStory staff told Vicky Allan of the Herald last month (see here), OC are now in discussions with the Spey Catchment Initiative about planting more native woodland between the fenced blocks paid for by Scottish Forestry (see here).  The way the system works is that if the land is grazed to bits, it much easier for landowners to get grants for planting.

The largest group of Scots pine (12 trees) included in the CPI core zone were just to the west and above Rynelrich croft. Their survival, and that of the tree below the croft, are unlikely to be an accident, but because the people who used to farm here wanted to retain some trees.  Whatever the explanation for their survival, I found numerous seedlings in the heather moorland and along the track to the north of Rynelrich, some beyond the 100m regeneration zone shown on the CPI.

This regeneration process is not new but in the the last couple of hundred years every time a seedling has popped its lead shoot above the surrounding vegetation it has been eaten.  With OC allowing sheep to remain on site, that process is likely to continue. Once they have exhausted the grassland, the sheep will move into the heather and eat what they can find. It would not surprise me if none of the seedlings I saw fail to survive to next year –

 

OC’s plans for the Glen Brown Caledonian pinewood area

In April 2026 OC published (see here) what they describe as a masterplan for Dorback.  This has a section native woodland expansion, which starts with the Caledonian pinewood on the estate, including Bridge of Brown:

“It is our aim that Dorback Estate will be the site of an ambitious native woodland expansion project across the landscape from the Braes of Abernethy to Bridge of Brown. We are the custodians of two remnant Ancient Caledonian Pinewood sites (of only 84 that remain in Scotland), from the eastern portion of the Abernethy Forest to small pockets down Glen Brown and the Allt Lomadaidh. Our vision is to connect these fragments through continuous habitat progressions of native Scots Pine and mixed broadleaved woodlands, transitioning to open structured Montane Birch and willow dominated woodland at higher altitudes. We are aiming to enable the natural colonisation and spread of woodland and to plant native tree and shrub species, including Aspen, Birch, Scots Pine, Alder, Oak, Rowan, Willows, Bird Cherry, Hazel and Holly to expand the woodland further.

 

The key point to understand about this business model is that investors expect a return on their money.  OC and TreeStory were good enough to meet Dave Morris, Ron Summers and myself in Spring 2025.  At the meeting we made the case for co-operating with the RSPB to remove the deer fence with Abernethy (see here) and for allowing the Caledonian pinewoods to expand through natural regeneration, including the point Ron raised about linking the Glen Brown and Abernethy sites through natural regeneration.  The staff were quite open, informing us that natural regeneration would not be quick enough to generate the returns that were required by investors, unlike planting.  Where we disagreed was on the impacts of planting.  The need to pay investors a return explains why the areas allocated for natural regeneration in Dorback’s subsequent woodland expansion plan only meet minimum requirements.

The full impact of OC’s finances on their conservation practice, however, only became apparent when when Andy Wightman revealed a few months ago that OC had paid  £28,495,220 for the Dorback estate (see here).  My understanding is that typically wealthy private investors expect returns of around 10% on their money and I have found nothing in anything I have read from OC suggesting they have agreed lower ‘conservation rates’.  I could be wrong of course but if that is the case at Dorback, it would mean the estate would need to generate around £2.8m in profit each year, primarily from the sale of carbon credits, to satisfy their investors.  That is a huge sum to make out of nature.

The previous owners of Dorback had planted an area around Baddoch Hill, which they registered under the WCC. Sales of Pending Issuance Units from this could potentially provide a return to investors in the first few years after the standard initial interest/repayment holiday on investments.  However, the only way to meet those financial commitments in the medium term is to restore peatland (which OC have started to do),  with a view to selling peatland carbon code credits, and plant, plant, plant with a view to selling Woodland Carbon Code (WCC credits)..

The contradiction which in my view lies at the heart of OC’s business model, is that planting does not create the sort of high quality natural capital assets they are claiming but instead, as with their proposals at Glen Brown, is undermining the potential of natural processes to restore nature.

It is worth highlighting that a similar contradiction lies at the heart of Scottish Forestry: as regulator SF are responsible both for protecting and restoring the woodland listed on the CPI they are also expected to deliver Scottish Government planting targets and oversee and promote the WCC as a means of meeting these.

The future of OC and the Caledonian pinewood at Glen Brown

A recent post by Richie Stockdale, Chief Executive of OC on Linked In makes very interesting reading (see here).  It starts with the claim that:

Oxygen Conservation has been a data and technology company from before we were founded — the modelling work that became CLAUDIA predates the company itself. We built our AI and data infrastructure before large language models became a household concept, before every fund slapped “AI-enabled” on its pitch deck, and before the race to layer intelligence onto broken operating models became the defining feature of corporate strategy in 2025.

CLAUDIA ingests biophysical data, land registry records, soil carbon assessments, ecological surveys, planning designations, hydrology models, and natural capital pricing dynamics – in total more than 100 individual datasets. She models restoration potential across every land parcel in the UK.

Mr Stockdale’s openness about OC’s internal systems – many would treat this as a commercial secret – is to be commended, but the outcome at Dorback is what appears to be another fairly standard native tree planting scheme that undermines the potential of nature to restore itself.

A quote from the end of the post, under the heading ‘The Structural Bet’ is equally significant:

‘The investment logic is simple. If you believe that land will continue to appreciate, that carbon and nature markets will mature and reprice upwards, and that verified, high-integrity natural capital credits will command a structural premium over alternatives, then large-scale Scottish landscape is more than a good investment. Right now, it is the correct allocation: long-duration, inflation-protected, regenerating in value as the natural systems recover under management.

We built CLAUDIA to find the opportunities others haven’t modelled. We built Portfolio One to hold them. And now we’ve built the platform to replicate that process as we begin building Portfolio Two.’

The current evidence on land prices and the pricing of carbon markets suggests that OC may have bet wrong.  If correct, that would mean it will have great difficulty repaying investors and will be vulnerable to financial collapse.  The consequences of that are difficult to predict but might not necessarily be a bad thing, it could re-open the door to nature restoration driven by ecological science, not money.