Rewilding. David Woodfall

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      Carrifran on a cold February day.

Carrifran Wildwood

       Philip Ashmole

      The vision of a restored wildwood in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, conceived by Philip and Myrtle Ashmole in 1993, was based on the conviction that a grassroots community group could purchase an entire valley and – by a science-led process of ecological restoration – recreate an area of upland wilderness. This had to be large enough to establish plant and animal communities comparable to those flourishing there 6,000 years ago – long after the loss of the ice sheets, but while the sparse human inhabitants had relatively small impact on their environment. That date was easy to choose, since it was the age of the oldest longbow known from Britain, found in peat high on Carrifran in 1990.

      Central to the wildwood concept was the idea that after planting and protecting missing species of trees and shrubs, we could gradually hand over management to nature, so that the wildwood would develop as a naturally functioning ecosystem, with a wide variety of beautiful habitats and a rich diversity of species.

      Establishment of the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust (MFST), an inspired offshoot of the National Lottery, triggered formation of the Wildwood Group in 1995. Members came from a wide range of backgrounds and occupations, united by a clear vision and a willingness to work for free. With other activists, we helped to form and become part of Borders Forest Trust (BFT) in 1996. However, a suitable site for the wildwood was hard to find, and lottery deadlines had passed by the time we had made a deal for the purchase of Carrifran, so the group decided to raise the funds themselves. A link with the John Muir Trust gave weight to our appeals, and there was an extraordinary response from members of the public, so that BFT was able to purchase Carrifran on Millennium Day.

      Carrifran is a spectacular ice-carved glen extending some 650 ha, and rising from 160 m by the road to 821m at the summit of White Coomb, the fourth-highest peak in southern Scotland. In 2000 the entire site had been grazed and browsed for centuries by sheep and feral goats. However, because some rare mountain flowers remained, it formed part of the Moffat Hills SSSI and is now also a Special Area of Conservation.

      For a grassroots group with an ambitious vision, gaining the confidence of relevant authorities is crucial. Planning the transformation of Carrifran began with a major conference in Edinburgh under the title ‘Native Woodland Restoration in Southern Scotland: Principles and Practice’. This was followed in 1998 by monthly meetings in a local pub of a diverse and lively planning group convened by our local volunteer Adrian Newton, a forest ecologist at Edinburgh University. The group developed a restoration plan for Carrifran which gained the necessary approval of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Forestry Commission late in 1999. Within BFT, we agreed that management decisions for Carrifran should be made by a Wildwood Steering Group and a small Site Operations Team, maintaining the grassroots character of the project. Ultimate responsibility, however, rests with the BFT Trustees, some of whom are also members of the Steering Group as volunteers.

      On Millennium Day more than a hundred supporters were piped onto the site to plant the first trees, raised in back garden nurseries. By the end of that month our Woodland Grant Scheme application had been approved, an extraordinary benefactor had agreed to pay for half a million trees (all of them to be propagated from seed collected locally by volunteers) and Hugh Chalmers had been appointed as Project Officer with funding from SNH. In the summer an 11-km perimeter stock fence and some temporary internal fences were erected with windfall funding from MFST, and that autumn most of the goats were rounded up and taken to sites in England found for them by Hugh.

      Over the next seven years 300 ha of broadleaved woodland were established in the lower parts of the valley, using contracts with individual planters and small groups. The rules of the grant scheme left us deficient in shrubs such as hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, juniper, roses and all the scrubby willow species that would be expected in and around ancient woodland, so tens of thousands more shrubs had to be added later. This planting has been the main role of a dedicated band of ‘Tuesday volunteers’ who have come to work at Carrifran each week, some of them for more than ten years. In addition, hill-walker volunteers have inspected and made running repairs to the perimeter fence almost every month since 2001.

      The great altitudinal range of Carrifran offered an unusual opportunity to establish treeline woodland and ‘montane scrub’, low-growing, wind-pruned shrubs growing in such exposed conditions that upright trees could not survive. This habitat is almost lost from Britain but widespread in Scandinavia and elsewhere. In the last decade about 30,000 willows and junipers have been planted high up at Carrifran, mainly during a series of 15 High Planting Camps in spring.

      In the main valley some of the trees are now 4 to 5m high and in some places the canopy is closed, favouring shade-tolerant flowering plants, such as ferns and bryophytes, and causing the retreat of bracken. Bluebells are rapidly colonising the woodland from a few places where they have survived for centuries, and some of the special mountain flowers have escaped from their prisons on the crags and spread down the burns, providing a wonderful floral display in summer.

      Other changes following removal of grazers and planting of trees have been revealed by formal studies at Carrifran and the adjacent valley of Black Hope, still grazed and functioning as a ‘control’ site. Vegetation surveys carried out in 2000/01 and 2013 showed extensive replacement of anthropogenic grassland by heathland and recovery of tall herb communities (especially along watercourses). Annual surveys of breeding birds show woodland species flooding in to reclaim habitats lost many centuries ago. Data of this kind are rare, and their publication generated a marked increase in visits by student groups and professional environmental managers. Furthermore, feedback from members of the public shows that Carrifran has now become truly inspirational, as we had always hoped.

      In the meantime, Borders Forest Trust has been developing a more extensive vision, ‘Reviving the Wild Heart of Southern Scotland’. In 2009 the Trust purchased the 640-ha farm of Corehead and Devil’s Beeftub, which now features both low-intensity sheep farming and 200 ha of developing native woodland. Four years later BFT purchased Talla and Gameshope, meeting the northern boundary of Carrifran and extending to 1,830 ha, more than half of which is above 600 m. Grant-aided planting on this site already covers 40 ha, and volunteers have planted thousands of trees, as well as starting to establish montane scrub on the 750 m summit of Talla Craigs.

      Of the 3,000 ha of hill land owned by BFT, a large proportion falls within one of only two ‘wild land areas’ identified in southern Scotland in a recent SNH project. BFT hopes that in the years to come, restoration work by the Trust and nearby landowners will ensure that the whole of the area becomes a truly wild and naturally functioning ecosystem.