Wester Ross school kids kick off native woodland planting drive to protect Scottish rainforests
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Wester Ross school kids have helped kick off a woodland creation drive at Gleann Shìldeag Estate between Torridon and Lochcarron.
The planting days on the week of March 18 were hosted by Woodland Trust Scotland (WTS). Over the week, over 150 pupils came together from Applecross Primary, Plockton Primary, Shieldaig Primary, Gairloch High, Plockton High and Lochcarron Primary. They got to work planting the trees alongside other volunteers, and MSPs Maree Todd, Ariane Burgess and Rhoda Grant.
Ben Shieldaig in Strathcarron hosts a pine rainforest on one side, with a birch rainforest on the other. In total, this covers 100ha - the equivalent of 100 Murrayfield pitches. Over the next five years, WTS plans to create 345ha of new native woods, in the hope that the plants from the rainforest habitat will move in.
Nearly half a million native trees will be planted in total, with species such as: Scots pine, birch, willow, oak, aspen, alder, hazel and juniper.
Almost all of the trees will be grown from seed collected on or around the site, so that the saplings will be suited to local conditions.
George Anderson of Woodland Trust Scotland said: “A massive thank you to everyone who came along to help us get the first trees in the ground. The weather over the week was mixed but it didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits.
“We are facing a climate emergency and a nature crisis. Planting trees is one of the simplest and most effective responses to both challenges. We hope the youngest participants in the past week will remember playing their part, as they watch the forest develop in the years ahead.
“Scotland’s rainforest is made up of the native woodlands found on our west coast in the ‘hyper-oceanic’ zone. Here, high levels of rainfall and relatively mild, year-round temperatures provide just the right conditions for some of the world’s rarest bryophytes and lichens. But Scotland’s rainforest is in trouble. As little as 30,000 hectares remain – a mere two per cent of Scotland’s woodland cover and only a fraction of the area that has climatic conditions suitable for rainforest.
“Scotland’s rainforest is one of our most precious habitats. It is as important as tropical rainforest, but even rarer. Yet few people in Scotland know it exists and fewer still know how globally significant it is. If we don’t start taking serious and urgent action to support and protect our rainforest, we face the risk of losing this internationally important habitat completely. The longer we wait, the harder it will become.
“Planting trees does not create an instant rainforest, but because we already have the habitat at Ben Shieldaig it means the mosses, ferns, lichens and other species will have a good chance of colonising these new woods. Given time we hope they will become fine new native woods, and ultimately new areas of Scotland’s rainforest. All the while soaking up carbon as part of the fight against climate change.”
