CAIRNGORMS CONNECT

Dave Windle

You might have seen an announcement that £3.75m is to be invested in the new Cairngorms Connect series of projects. This is a sizeable amount of money. What is it going to be spent on? In simple terms, it's very good news indeed.

Cairngorms Connect is a partnership between Wildland Ltd, Forest Enterprise Scotland, SNH and RSPB Scotland. They plan to match the £3.75m from the Endangered Landscapes Programme with a further £5.25m to give a total budget of £9m, to spend on connecting up fragments of the Caledonian Forest, restoring habitats in between so that wildlife can communicate and move around. Experience from old railway cuttings in London shows that wildlife is remarkably adept at using even narrow corridors. Connections on this scale should generate substantial improvements. The Endangered Landscapes Programme is a vehicle for the Arcadia foundation, funded by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

The project website, suggests that the money will be spent on the following;-

• Restoring water courses and floodplains
• Enhancing native woodlands
• Restructuring Scots pine plantations
• Restoring bog woodlands and blanket bogs
• Managing deer populations
• Expanding native woodlands to their natural limit
• Restoring high altitude woodlands and montane scrub
• Building understanding and awareness

This list is unsurprising but will lead to a whole series of real improvements in all sorts of areas. A purist might find a bit too much emphasis on "gardening" - humans planting and felling to create "more natural forests" - a contradiction in terms!

Hopefully, the urge to manage is restrained and natural processes encouraged wherever possible. It won¡¦t all be plain sailing, many people won¡¦t appreciate the amount of deadwood lying or half-fallen in a natural forest. There will need to be education. However, let¡¦s not be churlish. Eventually, you will be able to walk from the Gaick, through Glen Feshie, Rothiemurchus, Abernethy and on to the other side of Nethy Bridge in an essentially wild and beautiful landscape. That's something to look forward to.

Others will learn from the work. There are obvious parallels for the NTS at Mar Lodge. Imagine SNH having to work on deer management with Wildland Ltd (owners of Glenfeshie Estate), Forest Enterprise and RSPB; three parties who really know about managing deer numbers. SNH might learn something for their other reserves!

Please let the webmaster know if there are problems with viewing these pages or with the links they contain.