By : Adam Watson, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Banchory
Fencing to keep red deer, sheep and cattle out of naturally regenerating and planted native woods has long been controversial and more so in the last few years. Fencing has usually been thought necessary for a maximum timber crop. However, growing a maximum timber crop for a “strategic reserve” is no longer an objective for UK forestry. Subsidising maximum home production of commodities to save imports is increasingly abandoned for steel and other industrial goods, and US threats of a trade war at the GATT talks led in 1992 to EC cuts in subsidized maximum home production of farm crops. Subsidised timber may yet appear on the GATT list, so beware.
In any case, the proportion of native woodland is so tiny that it would make no maternal difference to UK timber production if we stopped felling there altogether far less stepped aiming for a maximum crop there. The public interest in wildlife, landscape and amenity is new the main reason (many think the sole justifiable reason) for spending taxpayers money on grants for native woods. It is therefore timely to assess critically whether fencing for native woods benefits that public interest or harms it.
The assumption that fencing is often still regarded as necessary is evident in the Forestry Commission booklet “Native Pinewood Grants and Guidelines” (1989 p4) “The adequate reduction or complete removal of grazing animals whether deer or domestic stock is a pre-requisite for successful regeneration. The normal method of reducing numbers will be by fencing.” For new native pinewoods the assumption is also obvious (p6) “In almost all cases standard deer fencing will be essential.”
In fact, complete removal of deer and domestic stock is not a pre-requisite for successful regeneration. However, everything hinges on what is mean by “successful”. If it means regeneration sufficient to provide maximum timber production in the short-term to owners in a hurry to make private gain using taxpayers’ money, then the booklet is correct. But if it means regeneration sufficient to maintain the wood as a wood in the long run, extend it, and
provide a sustained yield or else no yield because of the wildlife and landscape interest, then the booklet is incorrect.
The defects of fencing boil down to a reduction in the woodlands natural qualities. Individual defects, not in any order, are that fencing :
- is visually intrusive in wild landscapes;
- blocks easy access to walkers, skiers and gamekeepers with dogs;
- lends to lead to a dense wood inside because of no browsing, contrasting with little or no regeneration outside;
- increases browsing pressure outside unless stocks of browsing mammals outside are correspondingly cut;
- increases bare ground, run off and soil erosion immediately outside, as fences concentrate movements of deer. sheep and cattle;
- if fenced areas are big and deer stocks are not cut in compensation, leads to red deer suffering in snow (and so probably more starving and dying) because of removal of their traditional sheltered wintering grounds;
- causes unacceptable injuries and high mortality of birds flying into wires,
particularly notable with the scarce capercaillie and black grouse; - blocks animal trails used by mammals and birds on foot;
- generally entails damage to vegetation and soils by vehicles carrying fence materials, even where helicopters take out the main dumps;
- is expensive to taxpayers especially so with deer fences;
- leads to snow and ice breaking wires and drifts burying fences, allowing red deer an easy entry but making their exit difficult;
- entails expensive fence renewal at high altitude because fences there become dilapidated in 20 years, by which time the slow-growing trees there are only 2m high and still needing protection;
- often leads to planting and not natural regeneration, as the use of one kind intervention (fencing) tends to go with thinking about another (seed collection in case it may be needed), and so another (the planting that is likely to follow), and others cultivation and fertilising;
- encourages owners to fence in the knowledge that taxpayers will pay, so putting off for years the reduction in numbers of red deer and sheep that is necessary for sound long-term management of UK hill land.
Fencing is justified only as a last resort when the native wood is so scarce, scattered and moribund that it is on danger of extinction in the next decade. This is the case in a small number of places such as the few old birches on the slope above the Colonel’s Bed in Glen Ey, and the public road beside Newbigging in Glen Clunie. It is not the case at the big native pinewood of Ballochbuie, where a 7 km fence was erected with taxpayers’ money in 1992. It is not the case at the native pinewoods of Glenfeshie and Mar, where major fencing schemes over the next few years have been agreed or at Amat, where a slope beside the old pinewood was fenced and planted in 1992.
A well publicized fencing project is that by the “Trees for Life” group from Findhorn Foundation. In a printed leaflet in July 1990 it was slated that volunteers had collected cones from pines in Glen Affric, and that several thousand seedlings were growing at a nursery. “In 2 or 3 years’ time when the seedlings are large enough to transplant they will be planted out in an area which we plan to fence about a mile from Collie Ruigh na Cuileige. There are no mature trees at all there at present and hence no possibility for natural regeneration to occur so planting is the only way to bring the forest back there.”
The above phrase that no natural regeneration is possible where there are no
mature trees is assumption not fact, and moreover is invalid assumption. “Native Pinewood Grants and Guidelines” (p5) stated “Appropriate silvicultural systems will recognise that normally seed dispersal is limited beyond a distance of one and a half tree heights.” However any observant person standing beside scattered native pines and birches in a winter gale will have seen pine and birch seeds flying in the wind for a distance of many tree heights. Any good observer skiing or walking on hard icy snow will have seen pine and birch seeds blowing with drifting snow for long distances on the surface with many up to 2 km. I have seen the resulting naturally regenerated pines on heather moorland at Kerloch near Banchory, where I had earlier noticed seeds on the snow.
Thousands of pines have grown in Cairngorms, Northern Corries up to 1 km beyond the upper line of mature trees and many up to 2 km following a major reduction in deer numbers. These prove the point, as do the pines that have colonised big areas of grouse moorland far from mature trees in mid and lower Deeside and mid Donside. Rowan seeds are dispersed by migratory birds, which can be swallowing Rowan berries in a wood one day, an defecating the seeds on treeless hillsides later. The vigorous trees of various species on gorges and low crags out of reach of browsing animals and far from mature trees, also prove the point.
Other good evidence comes from the remarkable natural regeneration that is evident soon after serious practical reductions in deer numbers. An early striking success was at Glen Tanar. Good recent examples are at Inshriach, Greag Meagaidh, and Abernethy (begun by the Nature Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy Council, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).
The recreation of big areas of native forest as near natural as possible is an attainable objective. It can he achieved only from existing remnants of native Forest. The alternative result, creating fenced plantations of native pines or else fenced areas with dense natural regeneration inside and no regeneration outside, cannot be called near-natural boreal forest. The UK’s treatment of its boreal forest remnants is being criticised at international meetings to discuss the conservation of the worlds boreal forests and the problems facing native peoples who live there.
The frame work used to guide policies for our native woodlands needs changing. The time is ripe for fresh opportunities, with new grant structures. These would encourage land managers to switch to enhancing and expanding our existing native woods, especially our boreal forest remnants without fencing. It is an exciting prospect.
Letters, etc. 