Award for Public Sector Projects - Glen Affric Woodland Restoration Partnership

Date Added: 19 July 2023 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 2001 Picture No: 5677

The photograph is courtesy of Gordon Donaldson, formerly Forest District Manager of Cowal and Trossachs Forest District. He writes:

“The photo was taken in London in 2000/2001 at an awards ceremony. The award was for public sector projects and given by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The Forest Enterprise winning entry was for the Glen Affric Woodland Restoration Partnership Project. Those in the picture and their roles at the time are from left to right:

David Bills - Director General
Hugh Insley - Territorial Director North Scotland
Gordon Donaldson - District Forester, Forest Management, Ft Augustus Forest District.”

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1 Comment

There is a certain irony in this image and the FC receiving this award, in that when I started with the FC in 1973, it was with the Cannich (Glen Affric) squad, draining, fencing, planting and fertilising the west side of Gleann na Ciche (Glen Ciche) for a commercial conifer crop that was to cover part of the area for which the award was made. We completed the planting and fertilisation, by hand, of the block in the summer of 1975 and I left to attend Newton Rigg College.

Then in the early 2000's I was asked to return to Glen Affric to survey a series of soil/site type transects across the whole of Glen Affric, so as to give some guidance to the potential native woodland that might be created/regenerated over the area. Imagine my astonishment at finding all my previous work felled and left to decompose, in places being a 5m to 6m deep layer of felled whole Sitka spruce (SS). As can be imagined ascertaining the soil/site type beneath this mat of brash proved interesting! Thankfully, we had planted the pure SS (Queen Charlotte Islands (QCI) provenance) on the surface-water gleys (7) and flushed peats (9), whilst the surface-water peaty gleys (6) were planted with a SLP/SS (Skeena River Lodgepole pine/Sitka spruce) in a 50:50 mixture and the unflushed deep peats (11), with pure SLP. From this pattern I was able to deduce the soil/site types, with reasonable accuracy along the transects. Whether my transect data was ever used in the planning process, I do not know and I suspect that the removal of the grazing pressure, will in the long term, prove the single biggest influence in the re-vegetation of the area.

This year, 2023, being 50 years since I started out in forestry, I went back to Cannich and Glen Affric, but wasn't able to make it up to Glen Ciche to view the changes. Certainly around the Affric Lodge area, the reduction in the grazing pressures has made a huge difference in the appearance of the place from 50 years ago. The density of young Caledonian Scots pine (CSP) and Downy birch (DBi) is very noticeable, with a lack of open views to the hills and Loch Affric. Maybe this density of growth will prove to be transitory, like our initial plantings?

Good health to Gordon and Hugh. Bill Rayner Comment left on 20 July 2023 at 00:00 by Bill Rayner

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