From: Adam WatsonTo: Debbie GreeneSent: 17 July 2014Subject: SNH approval of RSPB application to plant trees in South Abernethy
Dear Debbie
Many thanks for your letter and for sending the attachments.
I should explain that although I have publicly criticised the decisions of SNH and FCS to approve the RSPB’s application to plant many trees in Abernethy south, and shall continue to oppose this planting and the decisions, I am not the main critic involved. I wrote to Des Thompson about this matter last August, and was surprised to learn that he had not heard of the SNH approval until I told him. He replied that he would look into this matter, and this is why I wrote to him recently asking for clarification of SNH’s role and his role within SNH on this issue.
You have sent useful information, but I still believe strongly that the RSPB should not have done this U-turn and that SNH and FCS have made a serious error of judgement in approving large-scale planting. You should of course know the obvious point that any planting is bound to change the genotype, which has evolved naturally for millennia, in unpredictable and unnatural ways. This alone, as well as other reasons, was a clear warning to avoid large-scale landscape gardening, irrespective of any human political rather than scientific new policies on pinewood expansion, and irrespective of any support for these by governments.
However, as I said earlier I am not the main person involved in criticising this case, and therefore I will not be taking up your offer of a meeting. Likewise I will not be continuing further with this correspondence and hearing any further inadequate excuses from SNH for deserting long-established policies on natural regeneration in favour of planting that has not been justified and flies in the face of the RSPB’s own findings on natural regeneration. I shall therefore forward your letter and attachments to others. I remain a scientific adviser to them.
Planting in our woods precludes future options that nature might have selected without human interference, says Adam Watson
At Glen Quoich by Braemar in 1942 I first walked in Old Caledonian pinewood. Vividly do I recall the height and girth of the ancient trees, their rough reddish bark, their dark green needles.
In the Scots tongue we called them firs, not the English pines. Every tree was an individual – in size, shape and form. Dead standing pines rose, pale ghosts without bark.
Lichens covered dead lying pines. I saw no saplings, bar one where a seed had settled on an upturned stump, above deer mouths.
Above soared Beinn a’ Bhuird, snow patches gleaming in the sun. Ants scurried up and down trunks, returning with resin to put on an anthill. When I put my face close, they squirted burning liquid in defence of their city.
Turbulent ran the Water of Quoich amongst boulders, but a pine had blown across, so I crawled over dry-footed.
That day still excites me. Old Caledonian pinewoods are a rare treasure. People should respect them. Let us hand them to later generations in a better natural state than now.
By the 1950s I knew all the Old Caledonian woods and began studying them.
Counting rings revealed that many pines began life 200 years ago, and some veterans centuries before. Soon I saw that the Scottish Caledonian woods form part of the boreal forest of Eurasia and North America.
Our woods are unique, however, because they have adapted genetically to Scottish environments. They are of priceless value for landscape, wildlife and human recreation.
Britain ignored its responsibility for decades. When the Nature Conservancy designated the Cairngorms National Nature Reserve, a wise principle was natural evolution of environments with minimum human interference.
The minimum was understood to be reducing unnaturally many red deer, which prevented natural regeneration by eating young trees. Powerless sat the Nature Conservancy, for it did not own the land.
During 1959, HM Steven and A Carlisle in The Native Pinewoods of Scotland showed that the woods had continued for millennia since our last glaciers melted, by seeds from older pines.
They wrote, “To stand in them is to feel the past” and “The native pinewoods are one of the most important living historical monuments of Scotland”. However, most were in poor shape because deer or sheep ate almost all seedlings.
At Caledonian woods bought with taxpayers’ money by the Forestry Commission (FC), workers felled, fenced and planted, including alien American conifers. Several private owners used FC grants to fence, plough and plant underneath ancient pines, often with aliens.
These excesses have now ended. The FC at Glen More removed aliens. The Nature Conservancy’s successors, Nature Conservancy Council and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), cut deer stocks at Inshriach. Natural regeneration of pines followed.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) did this at Abernethy, as did owners at Glen Tanar, Glen Feshie and Mar Lodge.
Since 2011 there has been a turn for the worse. The RSPB have started planting at Abernethy. They and Trees for Life at Glen Affric request donations to “expand and restore Old Caledonian Forest”. One cannot expand or restore natural woodland by unnatural methods. The government’s statutory advisers SNH, the FC and Cairngorms National Park Authority approved Abernethy planting.
A common error is that Old Caledonian pinewoods should contain more broadleaved trees such as birch and aspen. The FC demand at least 15 per cent broad-leaved when grant-aiding planted pinewoods.
They should realise that broad-leaved trees are scarce in Caledonian pinewoods because the fertile soils that suit them are scarce. They should visit Scandinavia, where broad-leaved trees are absent on acidic bedrock or excessively drained sands.
Choosing seeds and nursery work involve selection that is unpredictable. Nursery plants are more nutritious from fertiliser and rich soil.
When transferred to poor soil they become tasty morsels for deer, which can find them from afar. Such planting wastes money.
In Caledonian pinewoods, planting is landscape gardening, not nature conservation. Why hurry to “deliver” precise “targets” and “visions”? This signifies arrogance that man knows best.
Why not wait, and admire what nature provides without a penny from donors and taxpayers?
Planting reduces naturalness. It precludes future options without planting. If owners then decide to return to natural regeneration, it will be too late. Those who plant or back planting will have squandered naturalness for ever.
It’s not too late for statutory guardians FC, SNH, CNPA to end this damage and go back to respect for nature.
1. Irrespective of what NTS does at its other estates in eastern and southern Scotland, NTS has a particular obligation at MLE to respect and conserve the natural podzolic soils, the associated acidic heath-dominated ground vegetation, and the remaining standing trees, indeed the entire Scots pinewood ecosystem, as a local example of the circumpolar boreal northern coniferous forest zone and its climatic soil type the podzol. At MLE, most soils under woodland and under nearby plantations and heather moorland have not been subject to prehistoric or later cultivation, and hence are in a natural state. By contrast, most NTS estates elsewhere are on cultivated soils whose properties and influence on the ground vegetation are anthropogenic, unnatural, and radically different from the natural podzols of MLE. Hence, some might well argue that large timber machines and their damaging unnatural impacts are acceptable on unnatural cultivated soils that are, if freely drained, better able to withstand the damage and its effects on vegetation. The same persons might well criticise this for the natural fragile podzols of MLE that are the foundation stone for the pinewood ecosystem, and that have evolved and developed for thousands of years since the warming after the last ice age.
2. These pinewood podzols across the boreal forest including the relics in upper Deeside support a heath-dominated ericaceous vegetation with blaeberry, cowberry, heather, and bell heather, along with specialised pinewood mosses such as Hylocomium splendens, and reindeer lichens (Cladonia species). Large timber machines disrupt and destroy the podzols, replacing them with anthropogenic soils alien to the pinewood ecosystem. Severe compaction and rutting lead to permanent standing water, and on imperfectly drained and poorly drained soils the rutting and water-logging frequently disrupt the ground water-table over large tracts, leading to water-logging at the surface in the growing season and not just seasonally in winter.
3. Even on freely drained soils, modern large harvesters and forwarders cause severe damage to vegetation and soils if the works are carried out when the water table is temporarily at or near the surface, as occurs in summer during and immediately after heavy rain. A good example of such severity of damage can be seen in upper Glen Tanar now, after works in intense rain during late August 2013. Such conditions are frequent in winter following intense rainfall as in early December 2012, and during long periods of snow-lie above wet soils, as in February 2013. This is exacerbated when upper soil horizons are frozen, preventing water from rain or melting snow from percolating vertically downwards. A good example of severe damage to vegetation and freely drained soils can be seen from the North Deeside Road just west of Dinnet village, in pinewood and nearby grass pasture to the west. This includes severe rutting and some standing water. Even the horse-loggers at Birkhall avoided using horses to haul logs during rainy days last autumn, and used such days for marking and felling trees.
4. In turn the new soils are not acidic enough and often too wet to support ericaceous vegetation, and instead hold alien species such as grass, rushes, and bracken. After a few years the vegetation becomes dominated by creeping bent grass, rushes and Sphagnum on imperfectly and poorly drained soils, and by bracken on freely drained soils. The destruction of the podzol is irreversible and irreparable. Likewise, the effects of this destruction on vegetation, water-logging and windthrow of nearby standing trees, and on failure of self-sown tree regeneration on waterlogged soils are also irreversible and economically damaging to the landowner.
5. Another reason why MLE should be treated differently is that most of the Old Caledonian pinewoods along with the nearby pine plantations and heather moorland are designated within the Eastern Cairngorms SSSI, the Cairngorms SPA, the Cairngorms SAC, the River dee and catchment SAC, the Cairngorms National Scenic Area, and the Cairngorms National Park. Better standards are expected, demanded, and necessary there.
6. In autumn 2011, Derek Pyper, Sandy Walker, Rodney Heslop and I met David Frew and Peter Holden at ML, before going with Peter to look at a feature which I thought was likely to be of archaeological interest in lower Glen Quoich. During the trip, Sandy raised the issue of timber machines destroying the podzol by compaction, and allowing colonisation by bracken and other plants atypical of the pinewood ecosystem. He hoped that MLE would not use the big machines. Peter said MLE would not use them in the old woods, only in plantations. This at first sight seemed a useful compromise. Later, however, Sandy and I realised that NTS are intending that natural seeding from the ancient trees will spread into nearby plantations and nearby moorland. If machines have destroyed the podzol in the plantations and nearby moorland, then pines will continue, but not the unique irreplaceable boreal pinewood ecosystem. Hence, within ancient pinewood and on nearby plantations or moorland that forms a potential expansion zone, NTS should use horses to minimise damage to soils and vegetation.
7. The UK Forestry Standard 2011 and the UK Forest Stewardship Standard 2012 require compliance of woodland owners who wish to maintain certification for both schemes. Out of many scores of woods that I have inspected since 2005 and especially since 2011, where large timber machines were used, the conditions of the two UK standards were breached in every wood, usually involving 8 to 10 conditions in any one wood. This last statement about 8 to 10 conditions includes two MLE woods, near Black Bridge in Glen Lui during 2011, and near Bridge of Ey in 2012.
8. There are also protected riparian buffer zones in published guidance by the Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), and regulations by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) about machines crossing watercourses. Machine drivers ignored the riparian buffer zones in 2012 on one private estate in mid Deeside, another in Upper Deeside, and on one FCS estate in Strathdon. Large timber machines run by DWP Harvesting Ltd (as demonstrated by their signs) in 2012 crossed watercourses without protection such as temporary bridges, at five watercourses on one estate in Upper Deeside, and two at an estate in mid Deeside. On the former, a forwarder travelled more than 200 m along the course of two streams.
9. Only at one wood did operators not breach any of the above conditions. This was the wood at Birkhall where horse-loggers thinned pines in autumn and early winter 2012.
10. Instances of woods where conditions have been breached will be reported, by textual descriptions and photographs, to Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), and SEPA, and to the press if these three bodies take no action. Also I have written a book with more than 100 photographs of the severe long-term damage by timber machines and on the minimal damage by horse-logging, and an international publisher will publish it. It would be good if the public, whose taxes pay for this damage to our woods by the FC and private owners, come to realise how their taxes are being misused.
11. Large machines churn the soil and the surface of forest roads, leading to rapid run-off and diffuse pollution by silt. On one Upper Deeside estate where DWP were the contractors, as shown by their signs, this led in 2012 to silt entering a stream, which is an offence according to SEPA regulations and published guidance by FCS. At Bridge of Ey on MLE, silt from a large timber machine in the nearby pine plantation led to silt as far as the public road and very close to the Ey Burn. If an observer had been present during a torrential rainstorm, it seems likely that some silt or other mineral matter would have passed into Ey Burn.
12. Rack-felling by large timber machines is often euphemistically and misleadingly called “thinning”. It is really clear-felling along a linear route, which damages many standing trees on either side by skinning their bark and breaking their roots, and in wet places by increasing the risks of wind-throw due to the root plates becoming filled with water from nearby severely compacted racks with standing water. Also, between the racks it leaves trees in a stagnant condition, untreated and uncut. Further, it creates open straight corridors where funnelling winds increase the risks of wind-throw. Traditional internationally accepted principles of thinning involve removing poor trees, including misshapen trees or thin trees in clumps at high density, and giving more space for the better-formed trees to do even better. This is impossible with large machines. Out of numerous woods that I have visited since 2005, the only one with proper thinning carried out was at Birkhall in 2012 with the horse-loggers commissioned by HRH the Prince of Wales.
Possible proposals to increase natural tree regeneration
The Mar Lodge Estate’s Independent Review Group stated in their report (p28) possible options for artificially increasing regeneration by burning and cutting heather, by scarification, and by planting. The implication was that NTS should consider using these in different areas. Fire is natural in the boreal forest, but the others are unnatural intervention. ‘Scarification’ is a euphemistic term by the Forestry Commission, giving the impression of a scratch, but in fact entailing a machine with a sharp metal tine that rips through the upper soil horizons, disrupting them and bringing up material from lower soil horizons to the surface, as well as tearing and bruising the vegetation.
The founding principles of the Cairngorms National Nature Reserve in the mid 1950s involved allowing its ‘natural evolution with a minimum of interference from man’s activities.’ This is a sound philosophical rationale for all protected areas that include Old Caledonian pinewoods. Obviously it excludes the use of large timber machines, scarification machines, cutting heather, planting trees, and exclusion fencing, because none of these is necessary for maintaining and expanding the pinewoods. The minimal human interference that is both necessary and sufficient for maintaining and expanding the pinewoods is a reduction of tree browsing by red and roe deer, achieved already by NTS as well as in examples elsewhere at Inshriach, Creag Meagaidh, Abernethy.
From: Adam WatsonTo: David BaleSent: 29 October 2012
Dear David
It is now a full week since this email and others with photographs at Glen Tanar were received at SNH Aberdeen. I have had no acknowledgement to the emails, by anyone at SNH Aberdeen. I am aware that you may have been on leave, but the first email went to tayside_mailto:tayside_grampian@snh.gov.uk, FAO Dr David Bale, so it should have been seen by someone in your office. I should say that my first inclination was to give this story to the press and other media, because the photographs clearly reveal such a severe breach of conservation within a site that is in the highest category for designations. Instead I got in touch with you first, partly because of our long-standing cooperation and friendship as colleagues at Glenshee ski area and elsewhere.
However, I now write to say that my patience is wearing thin rapidly. Unless I receive some response, even a holding acknowledgement, in the next few days, I will let the media know about the scandalous damage to the Old Caledonian Forest.
From: Adam WatsonTo: David BaleSent: 19 October 2012
Dear David,
I have been concerned for several years about the severe damage being done to trees, understory vegetation, soils, and water tables by the use of large timber-harvesting machines and the large forwarder machines for transporting felled logs to loading bays. The damage has increased and become widespread with the rapid increase in use of these machines. In particular I have become alarmed by the use of these machines in native pinewoods in Deeside, and especially in the Old Caledonian pinewoods. I will send you photographs by my old friend Derek Pyper in Glen Tanar on 17 October 2012, taken from the roadside by the Half Way Hut, apart from a shot at Etnach. Two show a very wide forwarder route with much mud and also some standing water. Another shows an old granny pine damaged with branches ripped off, and other photos of a narrower track show a harvester route. Because there is not a scrap of plant life in the tracks, this is good evidence that the works were done this autumn, after the growing season. Mr Pyper, a notable Aberdeen mountaineering enthusiast for decades, was appalled to see the mess beside the Half Way Hut while he was on a cycling trip up the glen. Because he knew of my interest and concerns in the subject, he sent me the photos at once. You will see that the machines have skinned bark off nearby trees, which results inevitably in fungus entering, causing rot and eventual killing the tree. Large branches were ripped off a fine old granny pine that stood beside the machine routes.
I have checked that the affected ground beside the Half Way Hut lies entirely within four designated sites, SSSI, NNR, SPA, SAC, Cairngorms National Park. According to the designation details of the first four, available on the SNH website, the damage left by these machines constitutes an unlawful action and flies in the face of the admirable words on maintaining the integrity of the qualifying interest such as the native pinewood. I write to inquire whether the landowner requested consent from SNH, and, if not, what action SNH proposes to take. I regard the damage done as the worst I have seen in many woods over recent years, and particularly reprehensible because it is in a beautiful section of ancient pinewood. I regard it as land vandalism on a large scale, and I and Mr Pyper will do out utmost to ensure that the public media know what has happened. First, however, I wish to give SNH an opportunity to inform us, because I am aware that the landowner may have gone ahead with the machines even though not informing SNH or receiving the required consent from SNH.
You may be interested to learn, as I was recently, that the Prince of Wales has commissioned two expert men with horses to work for three months to thin an old coniferous wood near Birkhall. The loading bay is at the side of the South Deeside Road, just past Knocks Cottages, and the men leave their vehicle at the side of the road there. I have seen for myself that the horses with these two men are pulling out logs with minimal superficial damage to soils and vegetation, no disruption of the water table, and no skinning of bark from nearby trees. Immediately opposite on the east side of the South Deeside Road is a spectacular contrast where timber machines caused severe damage to soils, water, and barking of nearby trees while felling along linear routes in August and early September this year. I believe strongly that horses should be used for removing trees cut by power saw in the Glen Tanar designated site, and that further use of machines must be prohibited forthwith.
By chance I happened to meet the Prince when I visited the two loggers on Tuesday afternoon and we had a useful discussion. I have sent Derek Pyper’s photographs to the Prince via his assistants and also to Simon Lenihan who is working the horses along with his son Ian.
From: Adam WatsonTo: David BaleSent: 19 October 2012Subject: Damage to Caledonian Pinewoods
Dear David
I have been concerned for several years about the severe damage being done to trees, understory vegetation, soils, and water tables by the use of large timber-harvesting machines and the large forwarder machines for transporting felled logs to loading bays. The damage has increased and become widespread with the rapid increase in use of these machines. In particular I have become alarmed by the use of these machines in native pinewoods in Deeside, and especially in the Old Caledonian pinewoods. I will send you photographs by my old friend Derek Pyper in Glen Tanar on 17 October 2012, taken from the roadside by the Half Way Hut, apart from a shot at Etnach. Two show a very wide forwarder route with much mud and also some standing water. Another shows an old granny pine damaged with branches ripped off, and other photos of a narrower track show a harvester route. Because there is not a scrap of plant life in the tracks, this is good evidence that the works were done this autumn, after the growing season. Mr Pyper, a notable Aberdeen mountaineering enthusiast for decades, was appalled to see the mess beside the Half Way Hut while he was on a cycling trip up the glen. Because he knew of my interest and concerns in the subject, he sent me the photos at once. You will see that the machines have skinned bark off nearby trees, which results inevitably in fungus entering, causing rot and eventual killing the tree. Large branches were ripped off a fine old granny pine that stood beside the machine routes.
I have checked that the affected ground beside the Half Way Hut lies entirely within four designated sites, SSSI, NNR, SPA, SAC, Cairngorms National Park. According to the designation details of the first four, available on the SNH website, the damage left by these machines constitutes an unlawful action and flies in the face of the admirable words on maintaining the integrity of the qualifying interest such as the native pinewood. I write to inquire whether the landowner requested consent from SNH, and, if not, what action SNH proposes to take. I regard the damage done as the worst I have seen in many woods over recent years, and particularly reprehensible because it is in a beautiful section of ancient pinewood. I regard it as land vandalism on a large scale, and I and Mr Pyper will do out utmost to ensure that the public media know what has happened. First, however, I wish to give SNH an opportunity to inform us, because I am aware that the landowner may have gone ahead with the machines even though not informing SNH or receiving the required consent from SNH.
You may be interested to learn, as I was recently, that the Prince of Wales has commissioned two expert men with horses to work for three months to thin an old coniferous wood near Birkhall. The loading bay is at the side of the South Deeside Road, just past Knocks Cottages, and the men leave their vehicle at the side of the road there. I have seen for myself that the horses with these two men are pulling out logs with minimal superficial damage to soils and vegetation, no disruption of the water table, and no skinning of bark from nearby trees. Immediately opposite on the east side of the South Deeside Road is a spectacular contrast where timber machines caused severe damage to soils, water, and barking of nearby trees while felling along linear routes in August and early September this year. I believe strongly that horses should be used for removing trees cut by power saw in the Glen Tanar designated site, and that further use of machines must be prohibited forthwith.
By chance I happened to meet the Prince when I visited the two loggers on Tuesday afternoon and we had a useful discussion. I have sent Derek Pyper’s photographs to the Prince via his assistants and also to Simon Lenihan who is working the horses along with his son Ian.
Sandy Walker, Adam Watson, Derek Pyper, Dinnet, the Cairngorms National Park
Introduction to the summary notes below
In October 2012 I sent an earlier draft of this summary to Dr David Bale of SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage), after informing him of severe damage to soils, ancient pines and understory vegetation by heavy timber machines in August 2012 within the Glen Tanar National Nature Reserve. It was manifestly clear from his reply and subsequent correspondence that staff in the north-east region of SNH and Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), as well as on Glen Tanar Estate, were not fully aware of the long-term adverse implications of such damage. This was also the case for the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA). My summary was intended to be a factual account for their benefit and, I hoped, ultimately for the benefit of the Old Caledonian ancient pinewoods of Scotland.
Summary notes explaining the Scottish pinewood ecosystem including soils and understory vegetation, within an international context
The deep ruts and mud along the tracks of timber machines are well known impacts on landscape and scenery. Here I describe impacts that are less well known, but insidious, severe, and likely to be catastrophic to the pinewood ecosystem in the long run. I have been studying these impacts in the field since the late 1990s, with numerous photographs which also show changes in the same sites across some years.
Deeside, Speyside and neighbouring areas are within the podzol zone in the world’s main climatic soil zones, shared with most of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and northern North America. There, an excess of precipitation over evapo-transpiration in a cool climate, combined with acidic bedrocks or acidic glacial deposits from such bedrocks leads to a podzol soil type. This has developed for thousands of years since the last Ice Age under the boreal or northern coniferous forest. In Norway, Sweden, Finland and northern European Russia, this is dominated by Scots pine on freely drained areas and by Norway spruce on poorly drained areas such as bogs. In Scotland it is dominated by Scots pine naturally, with Norway spruce occurring only where it has been planted.
Apart from several well known exceptions, the typical soil resulting from the cool wet climate and acidic bedrocks in northern Scotland as elsewhere in the boreal zone is a podzol. The exceptions are a) where gravity on steep slopes or severe disturbance by mammals such as rabbits has prevented soil development to a podzol, b) where a parent material of base-rich bedrock or glacial deposits derived from it has led to other soil types such as a brown earth, c) where flushing from groundwater springs brings a continual supply of nutrients, d) where alluvial deposits from streams have led to nutrient-rich surface soils, and e) where prehistoric cultivation or other anthropogenic disturbance of surface podzolic horizons has led to surface horizons that resemble a nutrient-rich brown earth with earthworms and molehills, above an anomalous clearly podzolic orange-brown B2 horizon and a paler brown B3, the B horizons being often loosely called ‘subsoil’ by laymen.
Underneath the B horizons is the C horizon, often called the ‘parent material’ because it has not been affected by biological and chemical activity further up and hence resembles closely the original material laid down by the glacial ice during the main Ice Age. Rivers coming from the ice washed out much of the clay and silt in the glacial deposits under or beside the glacier, resulting in excessively drained sands and gravels.
On such excessively drained soils, and on skeletal soils composed mainly of rock particles, and on freely drained gravels, one pass of a timber machine compacts the soil greatly within each wheel rut. This can be seen well at the mature planted Scots pinewood at Craigendinnie on Glen Tanar. The compaction destroys the upper horizons of the podzol as separate recognisable horizons or layers, including the humus horizon and the classic ashy-grey A2 horizon that gave the podzol its Russian name. Heavy timber machines also invert the horizons frequently, so that the upper horizons are moved underneath lower ones. During site inspections at Glen Tanar pinewoods in June 2007 with head ranger Eric Baird, capercaillie expert Dr Robert Moss, soil scientist Sandy Walker and myself, Sandy Walker said that any ground disturbance disrupts the very acidic horizon in the upper soil of pinewoods, which would be adverse to heath and would favour other species. He added that the measurable exchangeable cations of the important nutrients were almost zero in undisturbed pinewood soils.
All ruts from timber machines as from any vehicles lead to bare ground, and consequently increased water runoff and soil erosion. However, the main effect of compaction, via the disruption of the very acidic upper horizon of podzols as described by Sandy Walker in the previous paragraph, is to destroy the podzol’s ability to support the classic pinewood understory vegetation, This is dominated by heath species such as blaeberry, heather, bell heather, cowberry and pinewood mosses. The compaction along with the disruption of the original horizons including frequently their inversion, leads to colonisation by a wider variety of plants atypical of Scots native pinewood, such as bramble, wild raspberry, creeping bent, rushes in wet spots, and bracken. Inspection several years later reveals no material change outside the ruts, if they are on freely drained or excessively drained soils. This amounts, however, to a substantial proportion of the wood when machines are used to clear-fell. Even when they are used to ‘thin’ (in fact clear-fell along linear routes that are separated by untouched unthinned trees) and the routes are commonly about 10–20 yards apart, the next round of ‘thinning’ doubles the area affected by ruts. Hence, after a third or fourth round, a high proportion of the surface is affected greatly.
During a visit to Craigendinnie at Glen Tanar in 2007, as part of the site inspections reported two paragraphs back, I showed the ruts and underlying soils, and the soils on unaffected ground nearby, to the party. Sandy Walker was very concerned, and said that the use of the machines was a severe threat to the maintenance and integrity of the Old Caledonian pinewoods. The podzol was the foundation stone for this ecosystem, and the destruction of its key acidic upper horizons would be irreversible. Mr Baird was then Deputy Convener of the CNPA, and Mr Walker pleaded with him to take action to reduce or ban machines in the old native pinewoods at Glen Tanar and more generally in the National Park. We subsequently heard nothing further.
In autumn 2011 I organised a site inspection on Mar Lodge Estate, owned by the National Trust for Scotland, after Derek Pyper and I came across a feature that seemed to me to be probably of archaeological interest, while on a walk in lower Glen Quoich. I phoned senior ranger Peter Holden to tell him what I had found, and we agreed to have a site inspection. We discussed this with property manager David Frew in a meeting room at Mar Lodge, when Peter introduced me to David Frew and I introduced Derek Pyper to Mr Frew, and also soil scientists Sandy Walker and Rodney Heslop. After we had finished the preliminary inspection of the feature, Sandy Walker said to Peter Holden that he hoped the NTS would not use large timber machines in the Old Caledonian Forest because of the irreversible damage to the pinewood podzols. Mr Holden assured us that the NTS would not use such machines in the Old Caledonian remnants, and had used them only in plantations. This seemed a satisfactory reply at first sight.
Later, however, it occurred to Sandy Walker and me that the NTS, through its reductions of the population density of red deer, aimed for the spread of Old Caledonian remnants at Mar Lodge Estate into the plantations by self-seeding. Hence, although Scots pines would continue, this was only a part of the pinewood ecosystem, and the machines in the plantations would have destroyed the podzol, disrupted the water table, and changed the vegetation so that it no longer fitted that of the circumpolar natural boreal forest and instead had become an anomalous southern unnatural anthropogenic type. So far, only a small proportion of the plantations has been damaged by large timber machines. However, the portents for the long run are gloomy, unless the NTS were to ban further use of the machines and instead use horses for proper thinning with minimal impacts on soils and vegetation.
On imperfectly drained gravels, such as at an old planted pinewood at Brathens near Banchory, owned by FCS, ruts were deeper but generally still restricted in the first year to wheel tracks. At the end of the first growing season. intact pinewood-floor vegetation remained in the middle between the tracks and on the outer side of each track. The A2 and humus were clearly evident in the vertical face exposed at the top of each rut.
However, it became obvious in later years that compaction in the ruts had disrupted the water table. Within a few years, water destroyed the podzol horizons, and plants typical of wet conditions replaced most of the heath, such as rushes, sedges and Sphagnum. The aim had been to increase natural pine regeneration by thinning, but one can now see that no young trees are growing on the wet damaged soils, whereas patches of unaffected ground that still has heath vegetation show prolific natural regeneration of pine. In many places, ruts and hollows have become pools with standing water, often permanent. The disruption of water tables and increase of standing water cause water-logging, and in turn this leads to wind-throw of trees with roots in the water, as well as poorer growth of nearby standing trees.
In many other pinewoods, impacts of the machines are severe also on poorly drained soils or very poorly drained soils, with ruts up to two yards deep, serious runoff and soil erosion, and creation of extensive wet bogs and expanses of standing water where none existed before. Recent examples can be seen at the FCS woodland in Glen Nochty of Strathdon. This inevitably will depress future tree growth and lead to premature wind-throw.
SNH, FCS, CNPA, and other influential conservation bodies such as the NTS ought to have been aware of the above impacts and ought to have taken action long ago to restrict the use of machines and to ban their use in sensitive sites such as Glen Tanar with its Site of Special Scientific Interest, National Nature Reserve, National Scenic Area, National Park, and EU conservation sites Special Area of Conservation and Special Protection Area. I hope they will do so now, because every year of new destruction puts in greater jeopardy the pinewood ecosytem, the pinewood landscape, and the many specialist pinewood wildlife species that are an integral part of that ecosytem and that depend on it.
In Scotland, much is stated by FCS, SNH, CNPA and government ministers about sustainability and about sustainable forests and sustainable forestry, indeed stated far more often now than 10 or 20 years ago. This is also the case with the Forestry Commission in England. Such usage is inaccurate and misleading hypocrisy. The increasing use of timber machines is the very antithesis of sustainability, and the frequent emphasis by FC, FCS, SNH and CNPA on the terms sustainable and sustainability is an insult to the public, including the taxpayers who fund these organisations.
British Deer Society, Deer Vol. 10, No. 5, 1997
By : Adam Watson, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Banchory
Summary
After fences for tree planting excluded Red deer (Cervus elaphus) from wintering grounds in woods, low moorland and old fields, numbers on Cairn Gorm’s unwooded north slope and high plateau fell rapidly in 1945-54, to zero. Much tree scrub then colonised the moor. Two decades later, Red deer that had got into the plantations increased greatly, and deer else where in the Cairngorms generally had increased. In l985-86 the main fence at the upper plantation edge broke. Red deer then spread to the north slope’s moorland and alpine land, where annual culling began. In 1995 came the first ones on the plateau’s main central block for forty-two years.
Introduction
This paper describes the vanishing of Red deer from Cairn Gorm plateau and nearby land in the north-east Highlands. It collates field observations by me and rangers, information in publications and interviews with old residents. A summary of my deer data is in a scientific journal (Watson, 1997), but a fuller account is justified here as events were so unusual.
Study area and Methods
The area covered 34km2o n Cairn Gorm’s north slope and plateau (Figure l), near Aviemore on Spey, l00km west of Aberdeen. Cairn Gorm is in the Cairngorms hill range between Aviemore and Braemar on Dee. The north slope is above woods on Glen More and Rothiemurchus. Glen More was a deer forest before the Forestry Commission (FC) bought it in 1923 and called it Glenmore Forest Park. Forest Enterprise (FE) now owns the north part. The south part, transferred in l97l to the Highlands & Islands Development Board (HIDB) as Cairngorm Estate now belongs to successor Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE). Red deer were easily seen and counted on the area’s moorland and alpine land.
Figure 1
Results
Deer-shooting bags
Glen More yielded fifty stags shot per year in the late 1800s, though fewer about 1890 due to less shooting and not scarce deer (Grimble, 1896). McConnochie (1923) noted a bag of forty. Mrs Dolina Macdonald told me forty stags and twenty-five hinds were shot per year in the 1920s and 1930s. The prel939 stag bag was thirty to forty (hinds unrecorded), falling post-war to thirty-one of both sexes (Whitehead, 1960). Stalking was let until 1954.
Other early notes on Red deer and land use
A gamekeeper before 1939 spoke in Gaelic of the Coire Cas snowbed (now at the top of the ski area), translated: “The weather’s getting better, the Curved Wreath’s black with the deer lying”. (MacGregor, 1995).
D. Nethersole-Thomson told me many hinds and stags summered on the north slope and plateau in 1933-44. Gordon (1925, 1948) noted hinds in summer and autumn on the north slope and 150 on the plateau.
In the 1930s up to 300, mostly stags, wintered on old fields at 340m at Badaguish, where they were fed hay and other feed in snow, fifty more stags on old fields at 320m at Glenmore Lodge, and 300 hinds in unfenced parts of the woods and low moor (Mrs Macdonald). In l98l she showed me a photograph of many stags being fed on a snowy field beside Badaguish in the 1930s. She and her gamekeeper husband at Glenmore Lodge kept four cows and twenty sheep on fields enclosed by a wooden deer fence and now under a campsite. Using two horses they grew oats and turnips for winter feed. An under-keeper and ghillies were employed for the shooting season and helpers for muirburn. Red grouse were shot on Caim Gorm’s moorland and the Kincardine Hills, and ptarmigan high on Cairn Gorm. Donald Smith told me the farm stock rose in 194M7 to ten cows, a bull and 120 sheep summering mostly on the Kincardine Hills. Perry (1948), who lived in Speyside in the late 1940s, saw a stag with thiry-five hinds and followers in Coire Cas in September 1945, and later (1979) wrote of the two corries to the west as traditional rutting areas.
From 1924, fences for tree planting kept Red deer from some sheltered low wintering grounds, but big unfenced areas remained till the late 1930s. In 1939-45, artificial feeding ended and many deer were shot in the woods. Aerial photographs show that the south deer fence at the upper plantation edge, rising up to 470m, was complete by spring 1946, except for a 280m gap at the Allt Mor defile, which was closed in 1947-48. Some deer got in at a broken fence on the west march, but FC staff repaired it in 1948 after chasing them into Rothiemurchus. In 1945-47, I noted oats still being grown on deer-fenced fields at the Lodge.
In 1953 the Reindeer Company built a fence that excluded Red deer from the last tract of unfenced native pinewood, and from much low moorland with tall heather (Calluna vulgaris). It rose to 610 m, and was later extended east almost to Allt Mor.
Observations on deer numbers by me, rangers, and others
Each year in 1943-53 I saw deer (mostly hinds) on the plateau, but they were decreasing fast. In 1943-54 the mean number seen per summer day per year declined with year, as did the percentage of summer days per year with Red deer seen (Watson, 1997). My last record was of twelve stags and hinds at Feith Buidhe in early October 1953. Each year in 1954-94 I saw none (387 day visits in May-early October, sixty-eight in winter).
I saw stags and hinds on the north slope annually in 1948-53, with up to forty at a time each year till 1948 and then fewer (nineteen day visits in summer and twenty-five in winter). My last record was of fifteen stags and hinds in upper Coire Cas on 29 November 1953. D. Nethersole-Thompson said he saw deer on the moor there in winter until the early 1950s.
Charles Ferguson, on Reindeer Company staff after 1953 and then FC ranger, told me that Red deer on the north slope became scarcer in 1939-45 and then declined rapidly, with none seen after 1953, and none seen inside fenced plantations after 1946. He and D. Smith said the fenced-out deer moved in the late 1940s and early 1950s to winter lower on Rothiemurchus, Kincardine, and Abernethy in woods and arable farmland without deer fences, where many were shot. In June-July in the late 1950s, B. Nethersole-Thompson told me he saw up to twenty (mainly stags) at night on the plateau’s centre, but none on its north half or on Cairn Gorm’s north slope.
Philip Macrae of Dr F.F. Darling’s deer survey did a count in June 1954 (letter at ITE). He saw none on the Kincardine Hills, ten hinds in Coire an Lochain towards the west march, and twenty stags and twenty-eight hinds in Coire na Ciste towards the east march. A stag was inside the plantation fence north of the lodge. Some fences were in bad repair, a few stags had got into the planted area, and in hot weather “we saw their tracks along the fences where they had been looking for a place to get out higher ground.” Counts by Red Deer Commission (RDC) rangers in late winter 1967 showed none on unwooded land in Glenmore Forest Park. Outside, they saw ll3 in Strath Nethy and ninety-one on the Abernethy side of the Kincardine Hills, all but thirteen being hinds and calves.
Mr Ferguson saw a few in the mid-1970sin side the now big dense coniferous plantations. Tracks showed that they had come from Rothiemurchus when snowdrifts lay against the fence. They increased to be fairly common there by 1980, especially on roadside grass at night. In summer l98l I saw thirty stags at dawn on grass by the campsite. FC rangers shot some then, and in each year since.
Meanwhile in 1954-96 I saw none on annual visits on 478 summer days to the north slope’s alpine land, except after 1990 (below). In 1954-85 I saw none on annual visits (394 summer days) to the north slope’s moorland, except for five to thirteen young stags near Coire Cas car park on six occasions (Watson, 1979) in two successive summers in the late 1970s, when Tom Paul often saw them grazing on fertilised reseeded patches. I saw none on annual visits to the moorland (102 winter days).
Their virtual disappearance from Cairngorm Estate was well known to Estate rangers and the ski company staff. The HIDB (1987) Management Plan stated: “Today, there is a scarcity of red deer on Cairngorm Estate …….. Virtually none are seen on the central area, between Coire na Ciste and Coire an Lochain, or on the plateau. The Cairngorm Ranger has noticed small parties of hinds in recent years, usually in October, at the far north-east corner of the Estate, where they have presumably strayed from Strath Nethy. On one occasion only, a group of 8 stags was seen on the Estate’s western boundary.”
In 1985-86 the south fence at the top of the plantations broke and deer were seen moving from the wood to the moor. Others came at night from Abernethy to the north and Rothiemurchus to the west, even though none resided on the Estate, except perhaps some hinds near the Rothiemurchus march (Highlands & Islands Enterprise, 1995). Meanwhile, they had increased on most of the land in the Cairngorms area up to the mid-l980s (Youngson & Stewart, 1996), so their near total absence on Cairngorm Estate was a clear exception. Each summer and autumn from 1986 I saw hind and stag groups up to thirty at a time at Creag an Leth-choin, nearby Miadan Creag an Leth-choin, Coire na Spreidhe north-east of Cairn Gorm, and above Coire Laogh Mor (all near the Estate’s edge and outside the plateau’s main central block).
In 1989, RC staff noticed many at dusk, night and dawn, moving through the Estate’s lower parts and damaging young trees. In May 1990, usually fifty (but once 135) stags were in the Reindeer enclosure. Up to twenty hinds moved from west and east to graze at night on roadside banks reseeded with fertilised grass in the lowest parts of Coire Cas and nearby Coire nu Ciste to the east. RC staff once saw a stag group on Creag an Leth-choin (Mrs E. Smith, Cairngorm Estate Liaison Meetings). A count in February 1992 showed 140 stags in lowest Coire Cas, and many grazed reseeded patches there at night. About ten to twelve stags grazed by day in summer 1991 near Coire Cas car park, staying even when walkers on a path came to 6m (T Paul).
Culling was begun on Cairngorm Estate, with culls of eight to ten in 1989-90 fifty-five stags and twenty-five hinds and calves in 1990-91, fifty-seven and thirteen, fifty-three and twenty, fifteen and none, seven and one, and fourteen and none in 1996. In 1993, most stags were shot on reseeded roadsides, and some there in other years.
The FC’s cull in the woods, up to sixty per winter in the late 1980s, was forty in 1989-90. It comprised twenty-five stags and twenty-seven hinds and calves in 1993-94 (Cairn Gorm Estate Liaison Meetings), and in the last two years about forty from a total of 180 estimated by dung counts (D. Jardine, in litt.). Most are in woodland, but at times up to seventy on moorland on the Kincardine Hills.
A count in late October 1994 showed none on the Estate, and twelve stags, thirty-one hinds and nine calves on FE’s unwooded land. An RDC count showed none on the Estate in early January 1995 (Cairngorm Estate Liaison Meeting 1995).
In October 1995 I saw a roaring stag with hinds east of Coire na Ciste car park, and others in upper Strath Nethy (km square 0204). In late September 1995, twenty hinds and calves grazed just outside the plateau’ east edge, at 010 027, 960m above Loch Avon, and fresh faeces inside at 007 027. These were the first signs on the plateau’s main central block for forty-two years.
In September 1996 I saw two hinds east of the last spot and a hind and calf at Ciste Mhearad, east of Cairn Gorm, and fifteen hinds and calves at nearby Coire na Spreidhe. In October a hind and calf were on the upper White Lady ski run of Coire Cas, and a freshly browsed bush of eared willow (Salix aurita) was seen. On I October I saw twelve hinds and calves at 982 000 on grass north-west of Ben Macdui and fresh faeces and trails to the north, on the plateau’s south part.
Discussion
Disappearance/major decline of deer herds
The vanishing of the deer that summered on Cairn Gorm’s north slope and plateau followed their exclusion from all sheltered wintering areas in woods, low moorland and old fields, by fences for tree planting and reindeer enclosures. Marauding and heavy shooting followed on lower farms and woods.
A similar less drastic case was in Kincardineshire. In lower Glen Dye I saw 300 wintering stags being fed on sheltered land at 100m until at least 1947. Others wintered on the Fasque hills and woods near Fettercairn (Whitehead, 1960). In the 1950s, fenced plantations kept them out of most low land on Glen Dye and Fasque. Later, deer still summered on Glen Dye, but many wintered on farmland and woods in Glen Esk and above Fettercairn, where farmers and foresters considered them marauders and shot many. The herd declined greatly (Staines, 1970), though not becoming extinct. It has since increased again greatly.
Exclusion from sheltered nutritious grassland
On Cairn Gorm moorland, nutritious fine-leaved grass grew only on narrow strips of alluvial soil along streamsides and very small patches elsewhere. It was fairly common on alpine land on Cairn Gorm and the plateau, but unusable in winter due to snow and wind.
However, it dominated river alluvium and other former arable farmland in Glen More. The only fields excluded from deer were a few beside Glenmore Lodge, still used for farm crops and stock up to 1947. Other former arable fields near the Lodge and Badaguish were open to deer, and much used in winter in the 1930s. They had the only big areas of thick fertile topsoil (the A-horizon) available to wintering deer. Although covering a tiny percentage of total deer range, a thick A-horizon and the grass on it provides nutritious winter, as in sheep (Eadie, 1970).
Colonisation of pine scrub
Many scrubby young trees have spread since 1950, mostly Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) with some broadleaved species and junipers (Juniperus communis), on moorland on the north slope (Pears, 1967). Colonisation rose from nil in 1945-47 to a 1969-71 peak, and then fell (French, Miller & Cummins, 1997, who attributed it to fewer deer due to human disturbance after the early 1950s (especially following the road and chairlift), to fencing of the wood, and to culling).
However, the wood was fenced in the 1940s and culling began after 1980 (fifteen years after deer vanished from the unwooded north slope). They vanished there by 1955, years before the 1967 peak of colonising trees. French at al., found a big fall in tree colonisation down to l98l-83 but it cannot be attributed to Red deer as there were no sightings in these years.
Acknowledgements
D. Jardine of FE sent a useful letter, many named in the text gave information, and B. W. Staines commented on the manuscript.
References
CRAMOND RD. 1990. Cairngorm – conservation and development: living together. In: Caring for the High Mountains. (Eds) Conroy, J. W. H. Watson, A & Gunson, A. R., pp. 15-29. Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen
EADIE, J. 1970. Sheep production and pastoral resources on Animal Populations in relation to their Food Resources. (Ed) A. Watson, pp. 7-24. Blackwell, Oxford.
FRENCH, D. D., MILLER, G. R. & CUMMINS, R. P. 1997. Recent development of high-altitude Pinus sylvestris scrub in the northern Cairngorm mountains, Scotland. Biological Conservation 79, 133-144.
GORDON, S. 1925. The Cairngorm Hills of Scotland. Cassell, London
GORDON, S. 1948. Highways and Byways in the Central Highlands. Macmillan, London.
GRIMBLE, A. 1896. The Deer Forests of Scotland. Kegan Paul, London.
Native Woodlands Discussion Group, Newsletter 18, Spring 1993
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.
Native Woodland Discussion Group, Newsletter 16, Spring 1991
By Adam Watson, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Banchory, Kindcardineshire
People interested in native Scottish pinewoods agree that the largely natural “Old Caledonian” woods must not become extinct, but differ over how to get sufficient natural regeneration to replace or extend them, whether by fencing out browsing deer and sheep or by reducing their numbers without fencing. Some people think pines should be planted there, but this view carries increasingly less influence and I hope will soon die. Indeed, the Forestry Commission’s management guidelines (1989) describe planting as “the last resort”, not to be allowed until natural regeneration has been tried for 5 years and been “found wanting”.
There are 2 views about tree species other than Scots pine in these woods. One says the forest should develop as a natural ecosystem, with no soil disturbance and no planting. If birch, alder aspen, holly, willow, rowan, juniper and others are there, fine. If not, they may come after deer and sheep browsing are reduced. If they do not come it does not matter, let Nature take her course.
The second group says what we now see is a degraded relic, deer and sheep have removed broadleaved species so that none remain to supply seed. We should therefore intervene and plant the missing species, which will later lead to natural regeneration.
This second view has some influence on the Forestry Commission’s booklets Native Pinewoods (really the Old Caledonian relics) and New native pinewoods, issued in 1989. Native pinewoods states :
It should be borne in mind that past management has often resulted in under-representation of broadleaves. A pinewood ecosystem is incomplete without other native tree and tall woody shrub species such as bitch, alder, aspen, willows, rowan, holly and juniper … Natural regeneration from certain species may be prolific. Other appropriate species may be scarce or absent and management may be required to increase scarce species or reintroduce desired species no longer present … At least 15% of planted stock within the pinewood should be of other native trees and woody shrubs. The appropriate level of other native species will vary between pinewoods. In pinewoods where there is already a significant presence and diversity of other native species, this percentage may be reduced.
These demands, which are not made of natural regeneration but are applied where pine is being planted, rests on unstated assumptions, not sound evidence. For example “A pinewood ecosystem is incomplete without other native tree and tall woody shrub species.” This is incorrect, there are many cases abroad, as I show below*. Then “At least 15% of planted stock within the pinewood should be of other native trees and woody shrubs”. One might ask why 15%, and not some other figure?
New native pinewoods makes similar statements, such as “Over most of the area of the former Caledonian forest, birch, aspen, willows, alder, rowan, juniper and holly were the commonest woody species other than pine”. It then demands “Provision must be made for some of these species in all schemes” and “At least 15% of planted stock should be of these species”.
These statements leave no room for a landowner who wants something different. He must comply or do without the grant. The booklets should be less dogmatic. Provided that there are measures to secure regeneration sufficient to replace the forest within its lifetime, the difference between the two groups boils down to speed. The first group says Nature will supply truly missing species without intervention, if we wait long enough. The second group is in a hurry, wanting the missing species within a decade or so.
Some of them are keen to show their improved woods to the public, who pay for nature conservation and forestry through taxes. They think the public will prefer a showpiece where they can see change overs short time, and so will back nature conservation more strongly. But they provide no evidence of this.
Meanwhile, I have not heard the first group give the following important argument. Let us leave Scot1ands small Caledonian relics and consider the vast boreal forests in Scandinavia, Finland, the USSR, and North America, and the extensive scientific literature about them. here are many lessons relevant to Scotland. Visits there can shatter one’s assumptions and preconceptions about what is natural about Scottish woods.
In Fennoscandia, for example, aspen, birch, rowan and other broad1eaved trees, and juniper, are rare or non-existent on very poor, acidic soils over ice-smoothed granite. The only tree there is Scots pine, with no juniper. Another very poor soil is fluvio-glacial gravel or sand derived from granite or other hard rocks, and deposited in terraces, mounds or ridges by past glacial rivers. There too Scots pines are the only trees, with no juniper.
On slightly better soils, broadleaved species and juniper appear. Indeed, broadleaved trees predominate there in the early decades after conifer removal by fire or clear-felling, as natural precursors to conifer dominance later, so casting doubt on our grant schemes for either broadleaves or conifers. On richer soils on and near farmland in Fennoscandia, broadleaved species and juniper are permanently dominant. Vegetation under the trees differs too, with acidic, lichen-rich heath on the granite, lichen on fluvio-glacial soils, and a varied vegetation with some herbs on rich soils.
The lesson is that we should ca canny [Scots : go carefully] about planting broadleaved trees, junipers etc in every Scottish native pinewood. It is likely that not all woods would naturally have had a large component of such species. Some would probably have had few or none, for natural reasons. We should therefore not assume that we know best and that all woods should have these species added by us if they lack them at present. And if the public really want quick changes in a showpiece (and I have not seen evidence that they do), then we should tell them that Nature’s slower methods deserve more respect.
There has been a strong reaction to blanket afforestation with monocultures of dense conifers, usually exotic species. The current official schemes that favour broadleaved planting with higher grant rates are part of this reaction. But over-reaction is a risk. This is now obvious on many places where new plantings have a strip of broadleaved trees along the edge. If carried too far, this will produce its own new kind of monotony and artificiality.
There is nothing wrong about some woods being totally of conifers if these are right for the place. The mature planted woods of Scots pine at Glen Dye, Dinnet and Glendevan on Deeside and at Drumguish, Feshiebridge Loch Mallachie on Speyside are good examples of the right tree in the right place. These Woods resemble Scandinavian boreal woods on similar poor gravels and sands, and are an important part of our woodland heritage.
Despite this, such planted pinewoods have no protection, there are no financial incentives to keep them, and indeed the financial incentives have led to some owners felling them and replacing them with exotic conifers. They are not mentioned in the booklet New native pinewoods. It applies solely to setting up new Scots pine plantations, while encouraging natural regeneration and accepting any existing natural regeneration. Yet many older plantations have some of the wildlife characteristics of Caledonian pinewoods and have great landscape value, even though their seed origin is uncertain on most cases. It is unfortunate that they have been ignored. This was not because the point was not made. The Department of Planning on Kincardine and Deeside District council did so when consulted at the draft stage of Native pinewoods. Incidentally they also stated under “Other views expressed” and “Some areas of poor soil do not have this variety” of species other than Scots pine.
It would be unwise to plant broadleaved trees even on small numbers on these older plantations. Yet in an increasing number of cases this new happens. For instance, beside 2 public roads on Glen Dye that go through typical terrain for Scots pine, broadleaved trees including sycamore and oak have been planted at artificially regular intervals. These are out of place and detract from the interesting boreal landscape of the pines.
The booklet New native pinewoods also ignores natural regeneration of Scots pine, birch and other trees on land far from Caledonian relics. Only a few years ago at several places in Deeside, such new woods were destroyed or damaged by intensive afforestation practices, to be replaced by exotic conifers.
The Native Woodland Discussion Group could be useful in opening this field to objective discussion. This could influence policy, which is bound to change, whatever one’s preconceptions. Could we start by asking for terms to be defined better? The booklet Native pinewoods is about Old Caledonian relics, and New native pinewoods is about forming new Scots pine plantations. So how can existing plantations of Scots pine be described, whether old, mature, or planted just before the 1989 booklets, and how can existing natural regeneration of Scots pine far from the Caledonian relics be described? They obviously are not “New native pinewoods” but are not “Native pinewoods” either, as that term refers to the Caledonian relics! People must be confused.
– – – – – –
* I have personally travelled in a number of years from 1952-86 through boreal forest in Canada, Alaska, Minnesota, central Sweden, northern Finland, and east-central Norway. In each country, I saw that large tracts were devoid of broadleaved trees and junipers. This was the case on land with freely drained soils above acidic bedrock or with excessively drained sands and gravels on fluvio-glacial terraces. Biologists who lived in these countries were used to this and told me of its wider occurrence and ecological reasons for this, especially soils. This is confirmed by a large international literature from North America and northern Eurasia including Russia.
Letters, etc. 