Bring Back the Wolf - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 99

10 per cent of the Highlands 21 ) to the west of Inverness, encompassing
glens Shiel, Moriston, Affric, Cannich, Strathfarrar, Orrin, Strathconon
and Carron. 22 This area, which is mostly uninhabited, contains three
of the largest remnants of the Caledonian Forest. His aim was to allow
the existing forests to regenerate, to fill in the gaps through planting
and to remove the exotic trees - Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine, Douglas
fir, western hemlock - introduced for commercial forestry. The region
would become a contiguous native forest, in which missing animal
species could be reinstated and through which they could freely move,
creating what he called 'the wild heart of the Highlands'. Within this
area the trees would not be cut. The land, once they had become estab-
lished, would not be managed. When I visited him, the volunteers
working with Trees for Life were soon to plant their millionth tree.
To accelerate the project, Alan had set out to raise the money to buy
an estate which could be solely devoted to rewilding. There are, in the
Highlands, plenty of opportunities. The tragic history of this region -
the Clearances that followed the Battle of Culloden (which took place
not far from Findhorn) - has left most of the north of Scotland in the
hands of a tiny number of landowners, few of whom live on their
estates, and most of whom are not Scottish. In some places, making use
of the right-to-buy laws passed by the Scottish parliament, 23 communi-
ties of smallholders have begun to regain a footing on the land. Some of
these communities are rewilding parts of the land they have bought.
But in the rocky mountain core of the Highlands, where the soil is
poor, the facilities sparse and most of the estates too large for com-
munities to handle, human beings are an endangered species. It is one
of the least-habited places in Europe, and people are unlikely ever to
return in large numbers. Rewilding here, by contrast to some other
promising places, conflicts with few people's aspirations.
As the new millennium began, Alan applied for grants, badgered
philanthropists, boosted the membership, sold diaries and calendars
and charged tourists and students to plant trees. He managed, by
2006, to raise £1.65 million, enough to buy the 10,000-acre Dundreg-
gan estate in Glenmoriston.
The Italian owner had died intestate, and the sale of his property
was tortuous. As so many of the absentee landlords of Scotland do, he
had channelled his assets through holding companies in a tax haven: