Glen Affric Woodland Appeal

With your support we can take a stride forward for mountain woodlands in Glen Affric this year.
CAMBAN BOTHY. GLEN AFFRIC. It’s a beautiful spring day not long after I’ve come to work for Trees for Life in 2015 and I’m pinching myself that I get to walk deep into this glen, assessing the progress of woodlands planted over the previous twenty years and call it ‘work’. Near the bothy, behind a deer fence protecting the habitat, I’d been startled and delighted to find some classic woodland plants, like bluebell, wood sage and bugle, growing amongst young trees planted by volunteers over the previous twenty years. These forest floor plants have emerged from a seed bank amidst a landscape almost entirely blanketed by uniform heathers and grasses. They’re an inkling of the diversity this land could sustain.
RHS ImageI look up and across at the Fionnglean exclosure on the far side of the glen. At Camban, the glen is vast and steep sided, peering westwards down the valley we see towards the sea at Morvich and Loch Duich. The opposite side of the glen holds another young woodland planted by Trees for Life and landowners, the National Trust for Scotland. I can’t get there today, but from here, Fionngleann looks like it’s coming on nicely, with birch and alder prominent behind the shelter of a deer fence. Higher up though, some empty crags tell a less encouraging story.
Glen Affric has some of the rarest mountain woodland species in the UK. Steep crags, unreachable by browsing animals, hold colonies of rare willows. These ‘wee trees’ would once have been part of a much more extensive forest network, stretching well above our present treeline. These high altitude habitats provide a naturally rich transition between hillside woodlands and the wind-battered heaths clinging to lofty mountaintops. They’re a source of food, shade and shelter for wildlife and soil. They offer a final sanctuary to mammals, birds and bugs before pushing over to the next glen in the quest to reach new territory. Now absent from so much of our landscape, mountain woodlands are a missing link in nature. The question in my head that spring day at Camban was: ‘when do we start restoring that?!’ It’s been four years since then, but perhaps there’s finally an answer.
We have successfully secured a major funding contribution to allow us to take action for Glen Affric’s mountain woodlands. Although we can’t reveal this funding source yet, we can say that the project needs to raise an additional £20,000 to be viable and we are appealing for your support to help us with this.
We need your help to raise £20,000 to protect Glen Affric’s mountain woodlands - Donate
LHS ImageBy working in partnership with the National Trust for Scotland, we plan to establish new seed sources for specialist and rare montane trees on Trust land in Glen Affric. Parts of the Glen hold some of the rarest remaining montane willow colonies in the UK. These colonies are fragile, but we have a chance to strengthen their Affric foothold by establishing three new clusters in West Affric.
We will plant the dwarf birch and montane willows that once formed a widespread and rich transitional habitat between hillside forests and mountaintop heaths. We must protect the planting from deer browsing, so we will erect fencing to allow these ‘wee trees’ to grow and disperse seed onto the crags above. Here, rocky ledges offer natural shelter from browsing and will give the trees a chance to cement a long term presence in this mountainous country.
Here’s the plan:

Our nursery team has already grown a supply of mountain willows and birches from seed collected by a specialist climbing team from the crags of Gleann na Ciche.

Mick, our Field Officer, will work with Willie from NTS to plan and oversee specialist contractors working within the Government’s Coronavirus operating guidelines to extend the deer fencing at three suitable sites in West Affric.

Once the fences are up and it is safe, we will plant the newly fenced areas with species like downy willow, tea-leaved willow, whortle-leaved willow and dwarf birch.

The project will also secure some suitable ground for trees such as aspen, rowan and downy birch.

We’ll continue to work with NTS to maintain the fences and give the trees every chance of spreading to the crags above the fences where they will also be safe from deer browsing.

Your support now will enable us to rewild yet more of the Scottish Highlands.
Click here to donate
Non-Float ImageAlan McDonnell
Conservation Manager

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