Bring Back the Wolf - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 105

the tree is missing. Aspens support rare insects, lichen and fungi, but
Alan also had another species in mind. The estate extends to the river,
which looks like an excellent habitat for beavers. Like deer, they will
feed on aspen in preference to any other plant; its suckering habit is
likely to be an adaptation to the assault it encountered wherever it
grew.
'We are getting the habitat ready. But we don't own enough of the
river to do it all ourselves. We'll have to persuade the neighbouring
landowners to help.'
In the autumn volunteers swarm the woods, collecting birch cat-
kins. They return in the spring to find pine cones, and lay them out to
crack in the sun. They pass the seed to the Forestry Commission,
aware that local stock is likely to prosper here more readily than seed-
lings from elsewhere. Trees for Life had been propagating the less
common species - aspen, juniper, holly, hazel, dwarf birch - in its own
nursery. 'But that will probably have to go in the restructuring.'
Alan was continually, and unsentimentally, adjusting the operation
to match its fluctuating budget. He appeared unabashed by these
decisions.
In the other glens in which they worked, the Trees for Life volun-
teers were restoring alder carr, blocking drainage ditches to raise the
water levels and replanting the missing trees. They were fencing areas
where eared willow grows and planting hazel to create more habitat
for red squirrels. Already in some of these places willow warblers had
returned and water voles were spreading into new habitat. 32 They
were creating a corridor of woodland which would, in time, connect
Glenmoriston with Glen Affric, five miles to the north.
As Trees for Life reduces the number of deer through culling and
draws them away by shifting the feeding stations, Alan explained, he
expects birch to colonize much of the open ground, followed by pine,
then oak, ash, wych elm, holly and hazel. The north-facing slopes
were once dominated by pine; the lower southern slopes by
broad-leaved trees. 'We don't expect trees to return everywhere here.
It would be sparser in places: a mosaic. Not like the wall-to-wall coni-
fers in the plantations.
'It was when I saw these places in the 1980s that I felt called to do