[Closed] Tree planting 'threatening' Scotland's grand vistas

My colleague always says if trees gave out free WiFi they would be planted everywhere. But they don't. They only give us the oxygen we breathe and store our co2.

Doesn't sound like tree farms, so if its done well.....I'm in!

Heard a bit of that on the radio this morning, Gamekeepers are in on it too, which automatically raises suspicion....

They need to replace the trees cut down to allow some wind farms to be built, there is real concern in the timber industry re lack of replanting I believe.
Here in D&G large areas of forests have been harvested/culled due to Larch disease in an attempt to prevent its spread.
We either grow our own wood/trees or import it and it is good for the environment....

If their goal is to increase the area of woodland cover from 17% to 25% they can pick and choose which tress to plant and where, it's a completely different goal to the one which lead to planning tightly packed conifer farms for timber.

I feel no great cynicisum towards them, it's worth noting that since they've deimated the forrests in South Wales because of the blight, they're not replanting rows and rows of conifers again everywhere - they're planting native trees.

Sounds great in principle - let the trees spring forth. Would support a similar program for the Peak district and its banal moorland.

Agree it's all in the implementation - lashing acres of Sitka spruce around the place plus some logging roads is not woodland you really want to walk around in.

P-Jay - Member
I feel no great cynicisum towards them, it's worth noting that since they've deimated the forrests in South Wales because of the blight, they're not replanting rows and rows of conifers again everywhere - they're planting native trees.

this is not the mass planting of sitka spruce post war - this is the replanting of the great caledonian forest which has been going on for a decade. Its native trees at natural population densities and of course would not be on the tops anyway. Gamekeepers are worried because their barbaric pastimes are under increasing pressure and their monoculture grouse moors are increasing seen as detrimental to biodiversity. be nice to plant some trees on thee green deserts

finally scotland was heavily wooded up until a few hundred years ago - you can see the evidence when you walk

so yes - you are wrong OP

tjagain - Member
so yes - you are wrong OP

That's me had my knuckles wrapped! 😆

I give it 4-5 pages of Ninfan and TJ

No, you had your knuckles [i]rapped[/i], so that's you wrong [i]again[/i] 🙂

Nickc - nah - I have had enough of destroying his arguments. Might just post up raptor persecution figures by gamekeepers again tho 😉

But why are Mountaineering Scotland opposing tree planting? And why have they signed a joint letter with the gamekeepers? Does it match the views of the members they are supposed to represent?

I think they are looking for detail on the next phases of this and are worried about more sitka plantations - also there is a NIMBY element in the MCofS

Put the bloody woods back before Scotland ends up a desert! Scotland's "vistas" are all man made anyway when they cut all the trees down originally!

this is the replanting of the great caledonian forest which has been going on for a decade. Its native trees at natural population densities and of course would not be on the tops anyway.

Its a strange act of national pride (planting a 'great' forest) so that we can transform the absolutely unique landscape and habitat we have in scotland into one just like any other bit of hilly countryside on the same latitude. Wipe out one unique habitat so that its lost for ever, replace it with something ubiquitous.

Conservation is very fashion-driven isn't it

The MCofS spokesman doesn't have a clue.

Mr Reid added: "They talk about this landscape, they don't talk about going for miles long wanders through woods.
"You can see the hills around you, you see the shape of the landscape and it's also relatively benign for walking across."

Nothing unique about the degraded and impoverished landscape that is a lot of the highlands. anyway we are only talking about a small % of the country and a lot of this planting is going in the central belt

I think the MCoS are concerned about the views. I did a three day walk in NZ a while ago, first day went from sea level to about Munro height and all you saw till just before the top was trees. Anecdotally the treeline is moving up the hills around here but I think it'll be nice open woodland.

Conservation is very fashion-driven isn't it

I think conservation is trying to live by best practice isn't it? As theories and evidence change over time, then the way we look after the world changes and matures, no?

sweepy - Member

Given where the natural tree line is in Scotland this will only "spoil the view" for those wedded to their cars.

OTOH it will increase biodiversity, allowing many native species to flourish and will help reduce the amount of flooding.

It would be great to see an end to the wet desert caused by tree felling and over-grazing by the antlered vermin.

MCofS out of touch - again.

Years ago I had an interview for a phd on reintroducing native woodland to the Scottish uplands. I asked how it would go down with the public as it would change to look of the areas they said it wouldn't matter as it wasn't like the Lake District!! Seeems I may have had a point!

Keepers should be well up for this - it will provide keepers jobs for a few years in slaughtering red deer en-masse on the open hill, and then for decades ahead in the impossible task of trying to stop the booming roe (and likely muntjac) population from eating all the regen.

Or we could reintroduce the wolves. (which I'm 100% behind.)

Funny that has not happened in areas where the regeneration has been going on for decades. Plenty of unfenced regeneration going on in areas where the deer numbers have been reduced.

A few lynx and some wolves could do it for us!!

Mountaineering Scotland said people were not interested in walking for miles through woodland

Just for the record, I wouldn't mind.

I give you Rothiemurchus Forest, one of the most visited and highly praised parts of Scotland. Paths, for all abilities, criss-cross it. Pine marten, red squirrel, wildcat, crossbill and a very unique anto can all be found here and you can still look through it to see the mountains. A Great Scottish Woodland that replicated that would be superb.

I'll just put in an ad for Carriran Wildwood here...

http://www.carrifran.org.uk/

A few lynx and some wolves could do it for us!!

It would certainly make dot watching the HT550 more interesting.
[i]
"Is he lost, or is his carcas being dragged off the trail by the wildlife?"[/i]

Glen Feshie was transformed when deer numbers were massively culled. Before that I read years ago "expert" opinion that it was impossible to regenerate pine/birch/juniper forest without fencing. More of that and I'm all for it.

2004

The Deer Commission ordered the cull, claiming the deer had to be killed in a bid to protect the regeneration of the native Caledonian Pine Forest.But the move has been branded "heavy handed" by objectors including staff at the Cairngorms National Park

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3462713.stm

2016

Eventually, in 2006, with the purchase by its present owner, Anders Povlsen, a new future for Glenfeshie emerged, one based upon a vision of a much reduced deer population allowing the landscape to regain its full natural splendour as the vegetation slowly recovered from low ground to high tops. The changes over the last ten years have been dramatic. Glenfeshie is blooming: young trees, wild flowers and wildlife abound. The increased vegetation and more porous soils absorb more carbon from the atmosphere and slow the flow of flooding waters to the sea.

http://treesforlife.org.uk/blogs/article/glenfeshie-reborn/

But anyone who has visited Glen Feshie over the last 20 years can see the evidence with their own eyes. It is unmissable.

So good forestry yes, inappropriate block plantations no.

*nudge*

So to summarise:

Some people: "Please don't plant trees all over!"

ScotGov: "Ok then"

Problem here is that it appears to be Scotland in general which is being discussed, which of course is always going to get someone's back up. The reaction is very similar to if someone suggested putting up another however many wind farms in as yet unidentified areas, or open cast sites, or nuclear power stations, or anything really.

Plenty of space for some more forestry I reckon. Clever bit is working out where it fits the best - of which ecology/conservation is just one part.

Hmm, situation in Glen Feshie is only one example, have a look at the Mar Lodge report to see the difficulties they faced in trying to achieve effective regeneration. (For what it's worth, I was involved in some major fenced regeneration projects that were really successful, and now one of gage target areas for lynx reintroduction, which will be a great thing)

Problem here is that it appears to be Scotland in general which is being discussed

Indeed, huge differences across the board, very different potential outcomes in different areas.

Pissing off MCOS and gamies? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! Seriously though; it isn't like the commercial farming they did and until the fires didn't look too bad on the slopes round the Torridon area.

Mar lodge is doing OK considering it was hamstrung by the transfer of ownership including ( IIRC) a caveat as to keeping it as a shooting estate

Those of us that walk these hills see the regeneration happening all over the place. some by removing the deer and some by excluding them. Interestingly remove the deer from one valley system and they take many years to come back from other areas - a surprising finding

As a forestry consultant primarily involved in woodland creation, I'd call some of the scepticism here wide of the mark.

The soil types present in the majority of higher elevation sites would preclude the planting of commercial conifer crops. Most of any planting in these areas would be of the National Vegetation Classification categories W11/17 and W18 (upland birchwoods and native pinewoods respectively), which are usually planted for more habitat-related objectives than commercial.

As an aside, only a small percentage of the original native tree cover remains in Scotland (cut down by humans over the centuries) and many of these open vistas referred to by the two interest groups mentioned in the article are only there as a result of intensive land-management, and would have been covered in forest were they left alone. The land management is usually in the form of heather burning which kills back young tree saplings.

Will no-one think of the midges?

Interestingly remove the deer from one valley system and they take many years to come back from other areas - a surprising finding

Not sure that is true.

The Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association (SGA) represents 1200 professional stalkers and keepers, the vast majority of the professionals in Scotland, and it takes a very different view.
Peter Fraser, a member of the SGA committee, says the Mar Lodge and Feshie culls have led to a serious shortage of deer on neighbouring estates including the one where he works.
“When you remove deer from an estate you create a vacuum, and deer from neighbouring estates move in to fill that vacuum,” he says.
“Everybody around Feshie and Mar lodge is feeling the effects. We are very short of mature stags now.

http://www.richardbanes.com/?page_id=125

This would suggest that at least some of the ongoing deer cull in Glen Feshie is animals migrating from neighbouring estates.

a serious shortage of deer

A few lynx and some wolves could do it for us!!

The ability to cycle at 12 mph for hours on end over all terrain would be helpful for HT550, not much good against ambush predators but excellent for keeping the very large dogs at bay.

irc - that was the findings when they wiped out the deer in one glen system. took many years for that glen to be recolonised. Of course shooting estates don't want reduced deer numbers.

Ninfan
"During the last 15 years, reduction of the deer population within wood-
land regeneration areas has resulted in slow progress in terms of
regeneration. However, in the last two years the impact of deer numbers on key habitats has reached target level and positive changes in the development of natural regeneration, particularly the emergence of seedlings above the height of surrounding vegetation,
are beginning to be observed, in the presence of lower numbers of deer."

The "Grand Vistas", as mentioned already, are not natural - rather wholly manmade through hundreds of years of deforestation. The gamekeepers don't give a crap about vistas, they're the ones maintaining the current desert for their own financial (hunting) gains.

Natural, grand vistas involve a lot of trees.

Because I can't post the picture from work, I'll describe it - go to Oregon, go walking or biking in their (re)forested mountains and take in their Grand Vistas then say that the Scottish landscape is beautiful and untouched. Nothing of the sort...

And just to reiterate - Mar lodge has a legal obligation to keep high deer numbers on the estate so cannot do a complete cull so are having to consider fencing

Looks like MCofS are having to [s]back-pedal[/s] clarify things a little.

https://www.mountaineering.scot/news/clarification-on-joint-press-release-with-sga

Some naiveity on show by letting themselves be linked to the SGA I think. A stand-alone letter to ScotGov would have avoided this hijack.

As I understood it the replanting is intended to be like what's on the east bank of Loch Lomond? Not a "plantation" but the re-introduction of native trees.

The Scottish Highland landscape is the result of the deforestation, then the Highland Clearances and the introduction of thousands of sheep instead of people.

The sheep then ate everything that was left that a bird could live in.

No bushes - no birds.

No birds - lots of midge.

If reforestation reduces the number of midge, that could only be a good thing!

And just to reiterate - Mar lodge has a legal obligation to keep high deer numbers on the estate so cannot do a complete cull so are having to consider fencing

It's not quite that simple, I would encourage you to read the report.

There of course is a commitment to retain sporting on the estate, but the reason behind that was, of course, to show whether an estate could be run in both an environmentally and fiscally sustainable fashion.

The one thing missing from many proposals put forward in other areas remains "how does it pay for itself?" If the planting isn't commercial, and the sporting isn't commercial, and the sheep are gone... then who funds the ongoing management costs? The taxpayer?

I have read the report.

Its was a condition of sale that it was kept as a sporting estate hence the need to keep unsustainable high deer numbers

But you are right in that something other than recreation is needed for the land ie something to earn money and to encourage keeping it in good condition. Otherwise it all becomes parkland and further depopulated.

I think this could be a number of models including deer stalking ( done responsibly) and (relativly) small farms that get a minimum income in return for strict environmental standards. grouse shooting has to go tho by and large - its an ecological disaster in many areas. Look at the lammermuirs for a classic example of the damage grouse monoculture does.

I'm always amazed at the enthusiasm there is to preserve the detreed, deraptored, heavily tracked grouse factories that used to be beautiful Caledonian pine forest. Really surprised that mountaineers share the enthusiasm of game keepers to keep it unreal.

When even the FC is trying to move away from blocks of haunted miserable sitka, I think it's pretty fair to assume that's not what they're talking about for reforestation. Scotland already has enough tree factories that they're not sure what to do with. And the percentage here doesn't imply any need to touch the most iconic parts

Course, naturalised woods are much harder to do, it's got to be a mix of manufacture and nature, and [i]patience[/i]. You can't just plant a rothiemurcus.

(me, I like naturalisation and native species but exotics, and diversification and redistribution, are worthy too- we're going to lose traditional environs for some geographically limited species over the next 100 years, without a doubt and once it starts it'll be too late to really act. So if we're going to plant millions of trees, let's make some of this a bunch of super-Kilmuns with huge, mental groves of redwoods and wollemi and monkeypuzzles and pinsapos, let's plant stuff that'll thrive in a potential warm wet scotand (or for that matter, a gulf-stream-less colder west coast) that'll be threatened elsewhere, and make it sustainable not just a garden... In 200 years we could have something beautiful and unique and just maybe a little liferaft for stuff that'd otherwise only be in seed banks and botanical gardens. (and also, in 100 years we could easily be having mass die-offs of species that don't like our new weather...)

(and let's not be so down on the poor ol sitka, big ones are lovely trees, there's some at drumlanrig and benmore that you'd barely even guess are the same tree)

xora - Member

Put the bloody woods back before Scotland ends up a desert! Scotland's "vistas" are all man made anyway when they cut all the trees down originally!

That's the conventional wisdom but it's been challenged a lot more recently, deforestation happened pretty uniformly including in lots of places where there weren't enough people to have done it- rannoch moor's the textbook example, but what happened there most likely happened elsewhere

I think we are in broad agreement TJ - I don't necessarily think that grouse shooting needs to go, but the intensive shoots are unsustainable. I don't think I've ever argued otherwise, in fact it's always been my case that totalitarian and over simplified arguments either way are false, and that sustainable game/sporting can and should work in conjunction with other uses, such as well managed forestry (again, something where intensive use is unsustainable - monocultures are nearly always a bad thing) as an effective way of funding both the land management and local economy.

Surely a big part of the problem is that monoculture blocks have given forestry a bad name. I'm all for a rewilding with natural forestry.

I have spent whole days walking below the tree-line in Japanese mountains, and it is a bit disappointing, but Scotland is so far off having a problem of too many trees spoiling the view!

Ninfan - you certainly gave the impression that you supported the intensive grouse farms - just being contrarian?

It is something the fundies don't always appreciate tho that without a proper use for the land and employment upon it then rural depopulatiuon will get worse and many areas would go to gorse and scrub

Reforestation could also be a more cost-effective means of flood management than the stuff that's currently being done in the likes of Elgin. No one doubts that there's a need to do that or looks for how it pays for itself.

Gorse is fine, not so keen on bracken though.

TJ, no, I've always supported sustainable management - what I've taken exception to are the totalitarian and over simplified arguments (e.g. all gamekeepers kill raptors/no raptors should ever be controlled/deer populations are too high as a blanket statement rather than it being valid for some areas - all being as incorrect as the opposite extreme))

Raptors should never be killed and gamekeepers are resposible for a lot of raptor deaths.

You should know - predator species only grow in population with a good amount of prey. so high numbers of predators is indicative of high numbers of prey animals not the other way round as many shooters would try to claim

When even the FC is trying to move away from blocks of haunted miserable sitka, I think it's pretty fair to assume that's not what they're talking about for reforestation.

The FC moved away from parallel rows of conifers years ago. I remember going to a school trip to Aberfoyle (yipee!) in the 90's where they explained to us how they were planting in a much more natural fashion.

But trees live a long time so there is still a lot of this old monoculture around. It creates a landscape every bit a sterile as the moorland "deserts". But diverse woodland is a wonderful thing. I'd definitely support having more of it.

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-38955586 ]Council apology over trees planted on football pitch[/url]

[img] ?strip=all&w=960[/img]

🙄

Pah!

[img] [/img]

http://amazing-post.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/460000-spent-for-two-games-of-forest.html

Well worth a watch if you haven't seen it:

£460,000 blimey what a waste, the tree infested pitch at least might develop another Archie Gemmill

fcs are moving from sitka because the wood is rubbish and only really good for pulp, which can be got cheaper.

All that mess left behind after cropping the forest will be too difficult to clear and very difficult to plant through to turn into a haven of arboreal calm. So the planting will take place where?

This map viewer may be of interest to anyone concerned about mountain areas becoming covered in Sitka etc

http://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/supporting/communication-consultation/map-viewer-guidance

in particular FCS Grants & Regulations> FGS (2014-20) Climatic Site Suitability and then click on tree crop of interest

Some lovely patches of oak and beech woods (but in different spots) down in South Wales.. hope they get around to reforesting down here too as I'd love to see more natural landscape.

one hundered - replanting where sitka has been removed is common - the brash is either left of chipped, the stumps are left to rot. Its not a 5 year thing - its 50 years

grouse shooting has to go tho by and large - its an ecological disaster in many areas.

Including the Pennines? Wasn't there something about burning grouse moors contributing to downstream flooding?

ratherbeintobago - Member

Including the Pennines? Wasn't there something about burning grouse moors contributing to downstream flooding?

Singletrack nearly got flooded out by exactly this- apparently a major contributor to the Hebden Bridge flood. In fact the drainage work was publically subsidised.

[b]Mountaineering Scotland[/b] said people were not interested in walking for miles through woodland

Yes - flooding is one aspect trees hold water and release it slower than short heather. also burnt heather leads to soil erosion. Then there is the loss of biodiversity where you have huge managed areas and the killing of predators both legally and illegally as well as scaring off raptors from the moors.

Can we lobby for a one in, one out rule?
For every tree planted, a deer is shot.

There might be a clue in there somewhere...
Vested interests, perhaps?

I'm curious if anyone can elaborate on why mountaineering and trees are incompatible? What are your thoughts countzero?

Beavers will be reintroduced before wolves and lynx.

Already done AA...

there is a clarification from MCofS somewhere on this thread. they are looking for details of the plans.

flooding is one aspect trees hold water and release it slower than short heather

Well, if planted without draining, which seriously limits the areas where you are able to grow trees and species you can grow

also burnt heather leads to soil erosion.

And unmanaged heather carries the highest fuel loads and wild fire risk.

There's already quite a few beaver populations in Scotland. They've expanded from the trial areas and set up new communities so would be great if we could get lynx and wolves reintroduced as well

Beavers will be reintroduced before wolves and lynx.

In a few places, too.