Did you know that there is a shortage of suitable native tree seeds to help restore natural forests across Scotland, especially in the Highlands? You can help us turn this around.
We need your help to raise £25,000 to help fully fund our new project to collect wild tree seeds.
It is vital that we plant trees grown from seeds that have been collected as locally as possible. This ensures the trees are well suited for their local environment and that the wide genetic diversity of natural forests are maintained, helping them stand a better chance of withstanding new diseases and the impacts of climate change.
We plan to build on work started by Woodland Trust Scotland to solve this problem by involving volunteers in collecting the seeds needed to support forest restoration projects across Scotland. The volunteers will go out and collect the seeds, send them to us for processing and then they will be grown in tree nurseries – like the one at Dundreggan – for future planting.
To ensure this is a success, we need to train the volunteers so that they can identify trees and only pick healthy seeds, which can be successfully grown into young trees. Some of the volunteers will work in groups so they can collect in very remote areas, so we need to ensure this is done in a safe way too. And we also want to be able to reimburse the volunteers’ expenses, especially their mileage.
Thanks to support from the People’s Postcode lottery, Woodland Trust Scotland is providing £55,000 a year for the next three years, but we need your support to find the final £25,000 needed to make sure this project can happen.
With your help, we will be able to recruit, train and support the volunteers, cover their expenses, and be able to process the seed collected quickly so it can be sown to create the next generation of trees in the recovering wild forests of Scotland.
The project will also help support the efforts of our tree nursery at Dundreggan. We will be able to grow a wider variety of trees for us to plant across the Affric Highlands area in which we focus a lot of our work. Your support could mean that a new generation of crab apple trees provide vital winter food for birds, hazel trees provide nuts for red squirrels to eat and the nursery has a good supply of seeds from different places ensuring we can plant the right trees in the right place to continue our work to restore the Caledonian forest.
Can you help us ensure this vital project has the funding it needs to be a huge success by making a donation?
Any surplus funds raised by this appeal will be used by Trees for Life to fund other activities which will help rewild the Scottish Highlands.