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In Scotland’s search for roots, a push to restore wild lands

By Caroline Fraser - posted Tuesday, 12 October 2010


With Carrifran maturing, the Trust has set its sights on the historic Ettrick Forest, where William Wallace rallied Scots to attack the British in 1297 and where the infamous Border Reivers - cattle rustlers - hid stolen herds in a glen known as the Devil’s Beef Tub. Grazed centuries ago, the Ettrick Forest is no more, but the BFT plans to do something about that, raising 700,000 pounds to buy a farm that includes the Tub. The property will forge a near-connection to Carrifran, less than two miles away, restoring three valleys and another major catchment.

In stark contrast to this carefully considered, incremental project is another approach, one that has been wildly controversial. In 2003, Paul Lister - English heir to a multi-million dollar furniture fortune - bought Alladale, a 23,000 acre Highlands estate. Scottish hunting properties have become a trophy acquisition for the super-rich. But Lister was different. Inspired by South Africa’s private game reserves, he brashly announced plans to turn Alladale into Great Britain’s first wilderness reserve, replanting native forest and reintroducing native predators, including the wolf. In 2006, he suggested the wolf reintroduction might be accomplished by 2009.

It hasn’t happened yet. Lister learned he would have to apply for a zoo license under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which he did late last year. But the plans remain mired in contradictory requirements: While EU regulations encourage reintroductions, the zoo licensure makes it illegal to keep predators and prey in the same area. Meanwhile, ramblers object to electrical fencing required to contain the animals, a violation of the roaming act. The British press has made a meal of it, gleefully reporting that locals call the place “McSerengeti”.

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But Lister has remained unfazed, consulting with biologists at Oxford WildCRU (Wildlife Conservation Research Unit) and wolf specialists in Romania, creating 18 jobs at Alladale, said to be the most on this land since the Clearances, where workers have built an unobtrusive hydroelectric plant to power the fully-restored lodge. A herd of Highland cattle have stepped in for the extinct auroch, and an 800-acre enclosure houses an experimental group of boar. The boars’ rooting destroys bracken, improving soil quality, so WildCRU undertook a study to establish the size of their territories. Two bemused-looking moose, Hercules and Hulda - immigrants from Sweden - have settled into another enclosure. While a previous owner began small-scale reforestation, Lister has planted 150,000 native trees - Caledonian pine, rowan, birch, oak, willow, and aspen - with an additional 250,000 planned. There are restoration plans for capercaillie, Britain’s largest game bird, and red squirrel.

Alladale may seem the opposite of community-based, but the land - vast stark valleys cut by torrents of peat-black water rushing over stone - has already claimed the dedication of the rangers who work it. They tackle everything from tree-planting to deer stalking (halving the number on the estate), guiding groups of local children who have never had a chance to fish or hike on the property’s rugged expanse.

Innes MacNeill, Alladale’s lanky reserve manager, has spent 19 years working at Alladale, where his father and uncle worked before him. He passionately defended the restoration efforts. “The land’s been raped and that’s a fact,” he said fiercely, as we stood in the open door of the garage, watching rain pour from the sky. “I don’t want to wait for things to grow. The scientists, the boffins, they say it will regenerate naturally. But that’s bullshit. For me, it can’t happen quick enough. That’s why I’m big into tree planting.” While granting that true wolf reintroduction into the wild would not happen in our lifetimes, he praised “the boss” for challenging the status quo. “Wolves,” he said, staring across the property. “Put them out there tomorrow.”

Ronnie MacLeod, a soft-spoken ranger with 30 years on the estate, was no less invested. After a visit to nearby Croik Church - famous for the messages scratched into its windows by homeless crofters who sheltered there during the Clearances - he described tree planting as a kind of solace. Sitting in a wooden badger hide set into the bank above a stream - an area where he himself had planted thousands of trees - he said, “It’s very personal. On hard heathery hills you plant Scots pine. Aspen like to grow by the river. You’re creating a forest as you go along. It’s very, very satisfying.”

This is happening across Scotland. Trees for Life has bought 10,000 acres west of Loch Ness, where more boar are hard at work, rooting and repairing soil. At Glenfeshie, 45,000 acres within the new Cairngorms National Park, deer are being culled and restoration is under way. In the end, it may take every kind of approach - from Carrifran’s deliberate march to the radical challenge of Alladale - to achieve “Caledonia! stern and wild,” a place that was a fantasy even when Sir Walter Scott wrote it, in 1805.

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First published by Yale Environment 360 on September 16, 2010.



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About the Author

Caroline Fraser traveled on six continents to write Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution (Metropolitan Books). Her first book, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, was selected as a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book. She has written widely about animal rights, natural history, and the environment, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker and Outside magazine, among others.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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