The Right Trees in the Right Place – or – The Wrong Trees in the Wrong Place.
Given my interest in forestry, a friend from the Shieldaig area contacted me a few months ago and during the conversation mentioned ‘The Road to Nowhere’.
It seemed that locals were intrigued with the work going on with excavators and fencers South of the River Balgy/Loch Damph. It seemed that there was a lot of head scratching going on wondering where this newly under construction hill road was going. A month or so later during a visit to the area I took time to stop and have a look around. My first thought was, why such a fine forestry style road cutting through the landscape, where, clearly it was not the place to try to plant trees.
For the life of me I cannot understand the thinking behind laying turves on the middle of this fine road? Hardly a deer path or track, can anyone enlighten me?
For more my previous blog ‘Ben Shieldaig’ is available here .
Also a post by Robin Noble on the same subject around the same time on Linkedin here
So it was a bigger surprise to hear that the Woodland Trust for Scotland were continuing their planting regime over the hill into Glen Shieldaig, this I had to see. In November we had a meeting to attend, so on route to that, a two night stay at Shieldaig allowed for a visit. To be honest I was not surprised with what I saw but hugely disappointed to see that nothing had been learned from the previous planting scheme.
It was better weather way back in April on my previous visit, this time the weather could not have been more depressing. Dismal , springs to mind. In my previous life before ‘Rona’ I worked for Scottish Woodlands Ltd and worked on a few projects in this area, in fact removing Tully tubes and stakes from the very field below this gate. On that occassion those trees had failed miserably but to be fair it was better ground and I do not think there had been much previous maintenance.
Away from there up in the Shieldaig Glen, it is a hard bit of ground for sure, thin acidic soil, very few trees at the South end of the Glen. Not a great opportunities for any regeneration, there is little seed source until you get to the North of the Glen then you reach the well known Pine Forest on the East side of the road, just as you enter Shieldaig itself. With the prevailing wind coming funnelling down that Glen there would be little chance of Pine getting established in the Glen. In fact my host told me of a huge fire around 40+ years ago that swept through the pine forest, although a disaster at the time it is obvious from where I was standing that there are many even aged pines. I would suggest this age grouping are a result of that fire. The older ‘ Grannies’ seemed to have missed the inferno, I guess it travelled fast enough through the existing forest so as to ‘miss’ them.
It is interesting to consider how these forests came to be, I could say survived, but survived from what? Steven and Carlisle/Native Pinewoods of Scotland tell us about a working sawmill in the 1930s and fencing in the late 1800s to keep grazers out. It is a fascinating Scots Pine Forest and possibly because it was ‘worked’ that it survived. Across the road is Kinloch Estate, with existing Scots pine and a long term regeneration scheme, with added planting, now bordering Woodland Trust ground. There is some growth coming very slowly in their regeneration scheme, but it used to depress me when I previously passed to see orphan calves running the fence: https://kinlochwoodlands.org/
Coille Creag-Loch
The first phase of the Woodland Trust ‘Forest’ on the Ben Damph side has been criticised and quite rightly so. Over the hill in Glen Shieldaig I could not think how it was going to be more suitable for planting. If anything it would be a bigger struggle here for any tree.
It was too poor a day to get out of the car on the way to Shieldaig but I saw enough to see that work was under way. Bundles of fencing had been put out along the road, my first thought was that if both sides of the road are fenced that will cause the deer to be more of a road hazard as they are denied movement and access to ‘their’ winter/summer grounds. There was much disturbance on the West side with a new track which I was told had to be put in because it was too soft and initially it turned into a real mess. Without the Forest Plan I should not comment but have asked for a copy. Along the roadside across the burn on the West side, there were many mounds turned over by the machines on the knolls, the soil was particularly thin here and I wonder if there will be sufficient tilth there to support a planted tree on these prepared mounds.
These are pretty thin mounds, in fact many were just scrapes.
We walked onto the site despite dire warnings from the Scottish Woodlands Ltd signs of dangers and just a short walk up off the road we came upon the fence line marker canes, again I wondered how the deer would fare once this created corridor is finished. It seems that the drier knolls are getting mounded and the deeper peaty areas in between are supposed to be not, although I did see the 360° digger way out on the moor lifting bucket loads of peat and dropping them whilst we were there (I will return), but, to be fair we were quite a distance away. Further investigation on a better day in the future I am sure will confirm this, there is no way that the diggers can avoid it. Looking up onto the ridge of Ben Shieldaig I spied that a part of an old fence had been removed and a new fence had come over from loch Damph. Running along the face for a while then turning down into the Glen. I would wonder that rocks might fall against this fence, why not come straight down?
The 360° digger mounding not on a knoll, more like peat.
You may wonder why I feel the need to comment, especially when I had in a previous life involved in many forestry establishment projects, mostly Commercial I may add. But even back in the day I used to wonder why are we doing this or that, a question to our forester would be met with a shrug of the shoulders and told to get on with it, Don’t Ask!!! I was often told!!! I don’t grudge the Contractors work, I was one, but I honestly question many of these schemes on a landscape that clearly is not in any way a good prospect for a forest. Is this a PR stunt for the Woodland Trust, as it most certainly will fail to do anything like their vision. It will take many decades (and I will not be around) to see anything remotely resembling a natural forest here, I feel the land will reject the folly anyway.
Furthermore, I do not see or hear of the The Woodland Trust doing much in the Community, are they employing many ‘long term’, are they giving up land for affordable housing, are they encouraging a younger working generation to come in on the back of these schemes. The big question, Could the grant money being spent here be better applied in this remote(ish) community to better effect. I think so.
But ultimately are the Woodland Trust despoiling this landscape. It is not the wrong trees in the wrong place it is trees being forced by the hand of man and fertiliser to be falsely grown in the totally natural landscape, Leave it alone.
The Bare Glen Shieldaig Hillside
