Media engage with community conservation in the Highlands

In September, The European Nature Trust  (TENT) hosted a press tour in partnership with the Highlands and Islands Environment Foundation (HIEF) visiting community-led and linked nature protection and restoration projects in the Highlands of Scotland. At TENT, we love connecting people to nature and making noise for nature to bring stories of community empowerment to a wider audience, inspiring hope and possibilities for the future.

Funding local nature regeneration projects to protect & restore the natural beauty & rich biodiversity of the Scottish highlands & islands.

We began with an in-depth exploration of a multitude of projects at Alladale Wilderness Reserve including aquaponic vegetable production, community engagement, environmental education, deer management, forestry and peatland restoration and conservation grazing. All this contributes to vibrant and diverse habitats supporting an increasing number of species, while drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

On day two of the tour, the first stop was our jointly funded Ardgay Tree Nursery, run by manager Marie Le Nepveu Stratton of the Kyle of Sutherland Rivers Trust. Since April this year she’s achieved a huge amount of work to establish the ‘tree hatchery’ and fill it with a forest of tiny trees.

Clementine Leemans, Riverwoods Project Officer with KSRT, introduced how the nursery will supply local provenance trees for riparian planting projects to shade warming rivers where the endangered wild Atlantic salmon are experiencing thermal stress.

But that’s not the whole story – the nursery is already becoming a vital public interface, connecting the community with the species that should be living alongside them, raising awareness and understanding of climate and biodiversity issues, benefitting physical and mental health, and empowering the next generation to make a difference.

Journalists from the Herald, Press and Journal, Ecologist and BBC Wildlife magazines, among others, got the chance to meet young volunteers and have a go at preparing seed and pricking out seedlings.

In the afternoon we travelled to South Clunes Farm where we learned about the West Loch Ness Farm Cluster from the wonderfully hospitable Swifts. Also HIEF funded, the cluster has brought together seven neighbouring farmers and one forest manager, to co-operate on nature restoration projects and regenerative farming practices at scale.

We saw first-hand the incredible difference bringing beavers into the land has made – creating new wetland areas and preventing flooding, as well as learning of new challenges raised by renewable energy generation infrastructure development that will see pylons imposed on precious recovering habitats.

Many complex issues are affecting nature in Scotland, but our journalists were beginning to appreciate how the efforts of lots of small-scale projects can combine to have a bigger impact.

For day three, we headed west to find out how a community fought a fish farm to save marine life in the loch they love.

After the development of nearby open-net pens designed to produce supermarket salmon, Friends of Loch Hourn observed increases in sea lice infestations and pollution events, reducing numbers and diversity of species in the sea loch they had lived beside for decades. A planned expansion of the scheme threatened to worsen the situation.

HIEF funded the community group who commissioned Tom Scanlon of MTS-CFD to produce a detailed hydrographic & biological model of the loch. The model simulated tides and currents to provide an overview of sea lice dispersal and consequent impact on smolt migration; mapped the cumulative interactions of adjacent salmon farms and how lice densities change over time; quantified the dispersal of chemicals used to control sea lice and their toxic effect on larval stages of lobster, crab, mussel and other crustaceans; and modelled the discharge of nutrients from fish faeces (especially relevant as Loch Hourn has a slow flush rate so these build up in eddies and backwaters) leading to algal blooms, depleting oxygen and killing marine life. See more.

On running the simulation, there was clear evidence that expanding the salmon farming operation would be damaging to populations of wild Atlantic salmon and other marine life. The Friends of Loch Hourn’s objection to the planning application was initially upheld, although this decision was overturned at the appeal stage by the Scottish government.

It’s important to keep the pressure on – small wins like this set a vital precedent, and the more nature-hostile activities are challenged, the closer we’ll get to effecting a change to nature-nurturing policies. All power to communities like the Friends of Loch Hourn!

Day four saw us heading to the Morvern Peninsula to meet Jenny Tweedie and Julie Stoneman whose work in both the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforests and the Common Ground Forum is inspirational. As Saving Scotland’s Rainforest communications and project managers, they facilitate the collaboration of 24 (unless I lost count) specialist nature conservation, land management and education organisations to address issues faced by our temperate rainforests and raise awareness of these among land managers and the wider public.

Julie also discussed her work with the Common Ground Forum on Sustainable Upland Deer Management which brings together private landowners and managers, deer stalkers, Scottish Government and statutory agencies, environmental NGOs, the agricultural sector, foresters and community trusts. In the context of priority and policy change, the forum recognises that everyone’s voice is important in devising strategies to meet carbon and biodiversity targets without limiting livelihoods.

As if meeting those two absolute queens of conservation communication wasn’t enough, we got to venture into the rainforest itself with Plantlife‘s lichen and bryophyte guru, Dr Oliver Moore, whose abject delight in showing us a variety of lower plants in this globally important habitat was infectious. He ably demonstrated the role of the specialist in ensuring effective identification, surveying and monitoring – essential elements in evidence gathering, which support the classification and protection of rare ecosystems.

We then met another two impressive role models – Ellen Bird, leading Saving Morven’s Rainforests and her colleague Helen Woolston, Tree Nursery Manager for the project. Ellen provided insights into how this RSPB led initiative is achieving landscape scale rainforest restoration through a network of land managers and local communities, and then Helen took us out to collect seed for the tree nursery that will provide native seedlings to enrich the regeneration enabled by eradicating rhododendron from the forest.

That evening we were treated to a sumptuous smorgasbord celebrating the best of local produce, prepared to perfection by Laura Martin at Ardtornish Estate, and hosted by leading environment advocate Hugh Raven – among other many things, co-founder of HIEF and chair of the Environmental Funders Network.

It was a delicious way to round off a truly inspirational day that highlighted the power of passion and collaboration – vital ingredients in the nature restoration recipe.For the grand finale of our joint press trip, we took our journalists into the underwater realm of Seawilding’s seagrass restoration project…literally!

Borne out of local lads, Phillip Price and Will Goudy’s original community association, Craignish Restoration of Marine and Coastal Habitats (CROMACH), Seawilding aims to restore keystone species such as carbon sequestering sea grass and native flat oysters, to marine ecosystems. Will now works as operations manager, having spent some time away from the area studying marine biology and managing the marine environment in climate change, while Phillip splits his time between active habitat restoration, and communication, education and film making.

What sets Seawilding apart from many terrestrial projects is that it engages, trains and empowers the local community, so they take the lead in this “battle for better, more sustainable management of inshore marine habitats”.

After a detailed and informative project introduction by Phillip, I joined the others in donning a 7mm wetsuit with hood, flippers and mask and we set off into the underworld. The full moon, approaching equinox, and high pressure, meant an unusually low tide, so it was easy to feel completely immersed in the underwater forest, with pale pink anemones clinging to the vibrant green sea grass lit by the dappled September sunlight. It was absolutely enchanting.

Sadly the project is struggling from scarce supply of young oyster ‘spats’ and a low success rate from sea grass translocations, but they are researching and learning with every attempt to increase the area of this vanishingly rare sea-floor sward.

All too soon it was time to emerge from the water and return to the greater gravity of reality and airport check-in times. But we were left with a newfound respect for these champions of the undersea – a place that seldom enters our consciousness, yet where species and ecosystem services continue to provide a key role in the incredibly complex natural system that is the planet we call home.

Our aim for this week-long series of visits was that our journalists would return to their homes enlightened, not only by knowledge, but by hope – that all is not lost – many people are working tirelessly in any small way they can to make a difference.

Kate Heightman, Outreach Manager