Scotland's rainforest is an amazing place but it's under threat. Stephen and Kate take a trip to see the habitat for themselves at RSPB Scotland's Inversnaid nature reserve. Stephen has been to the Morvern peninsula on Scotland's west coast to hear about an exciting new RSPB Scotland project working with communities to protect, restore and expand the forest there. Kate is feeling hopeful about spring and Stephen is learning to love lichens.
LINKS
Save Our Wild Isles
https://www.saveourwildisles.org.uk/
Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest
https://savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk/
Scotland's rainforest is an amazing place but it's under threat. Stephen and Kate take a trip to see the habitat for themselves at RSPB Scotland's Inversnaid nature reserve. Stephen has been to the Morvern peninsula on Scotland's west coast to hear about an exciting new RSPB Scotland project working with communities to protect, restore and expand the forest there. Kate is feeling hopeful about spring and Stephen is learning to love lichens.
LINKS
Save Our Wild Isles
https://www.saveourwildisles.org.uk/
Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest
https://savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk/
This is Nature News from RSPB Scotland.
Stephen Magee:Hello and welcome to our podcast 'Nature News from RSPB Scotland'. I'm Steven Magee. This is where we bring you stories about nature, from global news to the little things we're noticing every day.
Kate Kirkwood:And I'm Kate Kirkwood. There's never been a time with being in touch with nature and acting to protect it has been more important.
Stephen Magee:We're keen to hear your nature news, whether it's the little moments you've experienced, or your thoughts on the big issues effecting the planet. You can contact us on Twitter @RSPB Scotland or you can email us at podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk.
Kate Kirkwood:And please do subscribe and leave us a review because it helps other folk find us in the podcast jungle.
Stephen Magee:Hello. Kate, where are we?
Kate Kirkwood:We've gone further afield today, we're slightly further away from our normal patch. We are at Inversnaid.
Stephen Magee:We are indeed. Inversnaid on the banks of Loch Lomond RSPB Scotland Nature Reserve. It is raining...
Kate Kirkwood:Yes.
Stephen Magee:It's fairly damp. But that is all good, because this is what we're sitting in, is a patch of Scotland's rainforest. And that is mostly what we're here to talk about today.
Kate Kirkwood:Absolutely.
Stephen Magee:Slightly different format to usual for today. So I'm afraid it's just Kate and I... We haven't dragged anybody else out here.
Kate Kirkwood:Just the two of us. Cannot miss that.
Stephen Magee:Yeah, so my nature news is actually relating What we're going to do in a little bit is bring you a whole bunch of news about Scotland's rainforest, and about some of to the rainforest. the things that RSPB Scotland are doing that will hopefully renew, grow and protect Scotland's rainforest. But
Kate Kirkwood:Tell me more. before we do that, Nautre News is in the name...
Stephen Magee:And it is, as you will hear, later on, I've been away doing recording in some pretty nice places up the west coast of Scotland, and I am knuckling down and trying to get to grips with mosses and lichens, right?
Kate Kirkwood:Not an easy job. Helpful ID things.
Stephen Magee:Not an easy job. It's always been a massive kind Mosses and lichens much more confusing, but of like, blind spot for me. I like birds. Birds are awesome. They fly about, they do things. You know, they're amazing colours, they make a noise, all things that are helpful when you're looking for them. I'm beginning to feel my way with it. And I feel like I'm beginning to fall in love with mosses.
Kate Kirkwood:They are pretty amazing.
Stephen Magee:I'm in the early, early stages of the affair. But, you know, our eyes have made across a crowded room. And now we're engaged with each other. So that's all good. What is what
Kate Kirkwood:Ehm gosh, there's lots happening at the moment. is your nature news? It's, it doesn't feel like it just now because we're in the sort of in a cloud, essentially. But definitely back on the East Coast, noticing the signs of Spring and that beginning to kind of really get to ramping up stage. And everything's just kind of bursting to life. You can... the buds on the trees are just about to pop. And there's been lots of eh lots of really nice little yellow flowers appearing, lots of dandelions and coltsfoot.
Stephen Magee:I noticed some primroses and stuff as well
Kate Kirkwood:Yes, loads of primroses. So it's really nice to see them coming out. It's just kind of that reminder that summer is on its way. Slowly but surely.
Stephen Magee:Be patient and it will be here in its own time.
Kate Kirkwood:Yes.
Stephen Magee:So it's not just about our nature news, it's nature news and the wider world as well. And there's a couple of things we want to talk about. The first one is, I trust that the kind of people listen to this podcast will have noticed...Wild Isles.
Kate Kirkwood:Oh, it's been fab hasn't it.
Stephen Magee:It's been fantastic, you know, white tailed eagles hunting barnacle geese on Islay glow, in the dark starlings like all kinds of...
Kate Kirkwood:That was fantastic. There's been so many amazing, just amazing wildlife sort of happenings I suppose. Things that are happening that we're just getting such an amazing kind of window into that you don't normally get to see.
Stephen Magee:I think it's a privilege for you, isn't it?
Kate Kirkwood:Really definitely.
Stephen Magee:It's a proper insight. And people may well
Kate Kirkwood:Yes know that the RSPB is one of the co-producers of the Wild Isles
Stephen Magee:Is...we're out of mobile phone signal so I trust programme. We also are encouraging people you know, if you've seen Wild Isles, and you're excited about nature in this country, there are things that you can do. And there's a Save Our World Isles campaign that has been run by some of the co-producers, the environmental NGOs who are involved in it. And we will put a link for that in the show notes. And there are lots of things that if you've seen Wild Isles, and you're enthused by it, and why wouldn't you be? There are things that practically you can do as well. Other bit of nature news is we are recording on the day that Humza Yousaf... that Humza Yousaf has by now been elected First Minister, right? Because he won, he won the SNP leadership election yesterday for us now and he's up in front of Parliament today. But change of government, I suppose the main thing to say to people actually is two things. One is the RSPB and other environmental organisations we're a bit disappointed at the lack of visibility of nature and climate in this leadership election. And the second thing is, we hope that that will improve now and that the Scottish Government will do more to build on the progress they have already made it on things like their Nature Restoration Fund, on things like securing meaningful protection at both land and sea. Thinking particularly of highly protected marine areas, right? There's an awful lot of work to do and not a lot of time.
Kate Kirkwood:Yes, nature still needs to be on the table, it still needs to be a priority. And really, we need to keep talking about it, and ensuring and holding our government and politicians to account on these things because they might not seem urgent right now when there's lots of other crises happening but long term for our benefit, for nature's benefit, we really need to keep the momentum and build on what's been happening so far.
Stephen Magee:Yeah, and ultimately, without nature, where will we be?
Kate Kirkwood:It would be a sorry state of affairs. But I'm very glad we do have these wonderful pockets that we're able to see today.
Stephen Magee:So we have come a little bit further up the hill. It's quite hillier. It is although this is Scotland's rainforest
Kate Kirkwood:Wee bit steep. and one of the things about Scotland's rainforest many of the surviving fragments are on steep hillsides above like, this is a freshwater loch down here, Loch Lomond, other places that we see lochs. But actually, these are one of the key habitats where Scotland's rainforest has a home, we should probably actually explain it to people really quickly. When we're talking about... a lot of people may be surprised to hear that Scotland has a rainforest. Indeed. When I first learned about this a while ago, it was definitely quite a surprise.
Stephen Magee:Because you think rainforest like parrots, big giant snakes, all that kind of stuff, right? But this is temporate rainforest. And Scotland has a special place in terms of like the UK's remaining rainforests, but it's a very fragmented habitat. We'll hear more about that later on. It occupies something like between 1 and 2% of the potential habitat it could occupy. But it's a really special place exemplified by what's in front of us.
Kate Kirkwood:Yeah, we're just stood just off the path by one of pretty old oak trees, a bit of a veteran oak, it's got some really, really interesting branches where they've kind of begun to fall back down and kind of break off and supporting the main body of the tree but we're stood just at the trunk of the tree and it is a bit like a big luxuriant carpet or sofa of moss and lichen trees-covered and things like ferns and other types of mosses. And it's just really...oh, it's got all sorts of hidden treasures it and things I can't name but I'm very aware of.
Stephen Magee:It's so alive. So working from the bottom, you know you've got that really thick mosses on the bottom of it working all the way up more moss and lichens mixed in with that then some of the branches that reaching out, there's ferns growing on the oak tree, there's just life absolutely everywhere. And that is really typical of this temperate rainforest habitat we're going to be talking about today. One of the things that makes it so special is the biodiversity, right the sheer weight of life and because all these mosses and lichens are also home to invertebrates, those invertebrates then support like specialised woodland birds like you know if it's maybe a little bit early, but if we were here in another month or so they'll be pied flycatcher in here, there'd be redstart in here. It's an incredibly diverse, alive landscape. That sadly, a lot of people don't know is even here.
Kate Kirkwood:No. And I think we've talked about kind of oak trees in the past being these amazing kind of habitats and little miniature kind of ecosystems in themselves in previous podcasts. But it really sticks in my mind and anyone who's done any sort of biology at kind of age 15 to 16 will have learned about inverted pyramids of numbers, where you have one single organism, the oak tree, supporting hundreds if not thousands of different other organisms as well. And I think it's just when you actually see it out in itu it's it's really awe-inspiring, because I beginning to kind of wonder my eyes going up further and just beginning to wonder what else is up there?
Stephen Magee:Yeah, oh, there's as you can see little bits of things going on at the top of this probably even more stuff. Right. More of this later. But one of the areas that has some of the best remaining examples of Scotland's rainforest is the Morvern Peninsula, on the... on Scotland's West Coast, kind of in between Mull and and Ardnamurchan if that means anything to you. I was lucky enough couple of weeks ago to head up there because RSPB Scotland is just in the very early stages of developing a project on Morvern. That's in part because we recently acquired a new reserve on Movern, Glencripesdale, which is an amazing place that hopefully we are going to be able to work to restore and expand the rainforest remnant that is there. But also much wider ambitions about trying to work with a really wide range of people who have restoring and expanding the rainforests as a goal for their communities, for their land holdings, for their organisations. So I went to talk some of those kinds of people and this is what I heard. Hello, you join me in... I don't actually know what it's officially called. But it's the wee bit of water in between Mull and Morvern between like Fishnish and Lochaline if that means anything to you, Scotland's West Coast. Just getting dark, I'm on the wee boat going from Mull to Morven. And appropriate enough for what I'm here to do, it's just started absolutely chucking it down with rain. By it's very beautiful, kind of like big sheets of cloud and rain moving across the water. And I am here in this rainy part of the world because it is home to Scotland's rainforest. And over the next kind of like day and a bit, I'm hoping to meet a whole bunch of people essentially who know a lot more about this than me. And my very basic knowledge about Scotland's rainforest will hopefully be enhanced and thereby usable to, anyway, no shortage of the rain. So the rain is now almost off, it's just kinda spitting a wee bit and I'm standing... we are at Ardtornish Estate, who are really kindly hosting the event bringing lots of different people from different backgrounds, different interest groups together. And one of those people is a Paul Walton RSPB Scotland's Head of Land and Species and also friend of the podcast. Paul, Scotland's rainforest right, hopefully most people now have an understanding of what we're talking about, tell them about this really amazing biodiversity habitat up and down the west coast of Scotland. What are the challenges that it faces?
Paul Walton:Okay, so, yeah like you say, we've got to remember that this is what ecologists call the climax habitat of the West Coast of Scotland. So, this is almost like what the land wants to become okay. And it is the climax not only in terms of this kind of the development of habitats, but also in terms of the sheer species diversity that is in it. So, it is incredibly important, but it is extremely denuded, it is very highly fragmented into small patches and continues to be threatened. Now that fragmentation is really important for woodland habitats because woodland species, woodland wildlife, everything from the from the mosses and lichens through the invertebrates and through to vertebrates even some of the birds aren't great at dispersing, okay, so, so a lot of that wildlife really can't cross an area that isn't woodland. Okay. So when you get fragmented little islands of habitat, what you get is that there's little interchange of species between them. And then you get some like an extreme weather event or something, and a species can go locally extinct. And so you start to get... the woodland itself starts to lose its species because it is fragmented, okay? So what we need to do is to expand the rainforest and reconnect it to make bigger areas of rainforest. So that's the first kind of challenge. What exactly we have to do to achieve that is two things really. The first is we have to tackle the problem of invasive non-native species, in particular, Rhododendron ponticum, a fabulous garden plant developed by the Victorians, selectively bred, perhaps hybridised even to meet this very hardy Rhododendron, it will produce beautiful big pink flowers in everyone's garden. Unfortunately, it finds its perfect habitat in Scotland's rainforest. Now, every medium size bush of rhododendron ponticum produces a million seeds a year. And this species is spreading. Not only that, the mature plants produce chemicals which suppress other plants. So it is really, although many people find it a beautiful plant, and indeed in its own right is a beautiful plant, it is deadly to the habitat.
Stephen Magee:The other issue we have is browsing, right?
Paul Walton:Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, there's an issue with browsing because young trees, and what we call the field layer, which is all the plants on the woodlands floor, are simply getting eaten. Because we have unsustainably high densities of deer in particular in this area, that's the red deer in this area. Now, the red deer is a native Scottish species.
Stephen Magee:It's a forest animal.
Paul Walton:It is naturally a forest animal. It is a natural part of these habitats. Okay, so there's absolutely no question about it. I mean, we we're not anti-deer in the RSPB. The problem is, we simply have too many in too small an area. Now, why is that? Well, it's because we don't have the big predators in this country anymore. But it's a bit more than that, in That sounds super exciting. I am now going to go out into Morvern that actually high deer numbers are actively encouraged in many parts of Scotland, because deer are economically important, okay. And it's an enormous political problem. But what I will say, you know, conservationists, I've said this to you many, many times on the podcast, you got to be a bit of an optimist. And there are some really, really positive signs in terms of public policy on deer that are going to encourage deer management that will bring those densities down to sustainable levels. And that's what we need to see. The reason we're interested in Morvern is we think, we believe, that Morvern can be the exemplar project if we get it right here for the deer and for the rhododendron on this peninsula in the West of Scotland, in the heart of Scotland's rainforests zone, then we'll have an exemplar that can really inform work elsewhere, across the rainforests and across the West of Scotland, and indeed, elsewhere. and try and find out a bit more about that. Wait till you see those lichens and mosses, it's incredible out there.
Stephen Magee:So I am in a wood. Rahoy Hill specifically, which is a Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve, just outside of Lochaline. And as part of this event bringing together lots of people who are advocating on behalf of the rainforest and working to restore it, folk are here having a bit of a wander around having a guided tour. And I'm going to see who I can catch up with to try and learn a bit more about what I'm looking at because to my untutored eye right now, it's trees. I'm sure there's more going on than that. So, from here I can see a lovely rushing river. Lots of hummocky mossy lumps and I am joined by Guy Shrubsole who is an author, campaigner, is that right up?
Guy Shrubsole:Yep
Stephen Magee:Would say that's fair to say and advocate for the rainforest. First of all, what's it like being here?
Guy Shrubsole:Aw, it's absolutely mind blowing. I can barely walk a few feet without staring at all the lichens and all the trees and picking out the lobaria virens over there, and the Lob Scrob and the Peltigera lichens, and it's ah, it's just absolutely mind blowing. It's quite overwhelming to be somewhere that's so wet and so wonderful for rainforest as the Morvern Peninsula.
Stephen Magee:I mean, we are quite lucky in some ways, weather wise, and it has stopped raining. But for the last two or three days, it has done nothing but rain.
Guy Shrubsole:Yeah
Stephen Magee:But you need rain for a rainforest, right?
Guy Shrubsole:Absolutely
Stephen Magee:What are the things that make this part of the West Coast of Scotland special when it comes to the rainforest?
Guy Shrubsole:Well, it's incredibly wet here, as you've just said, it's this is what is known as the hyperoceanic region of Britain of Scotland. It's, it's got a hyperoceanic climate, which means that it's incredibly rainy and wet. But crucially, all year round, and mild enough as well, don't really get, you know, very, very, particularly very cold winters here, or you know, lots of freezing conditions that basically allow all these wonderful epiphytic plants, plants that grow on other plants to thrive. And in particular, very, very rare species of lichens and mosses and liverworts, that you just don't get in many other parts of Britain.
Stephen Magee:The other crucial thing about here is not just the wetness, but how clean the air is, right? That's really crucial for these mosses and lichens.
Guy Shrubsole:That's absolutely right. And, you know, you you sort of get across the western Atlantic seaboard of the UK, you do get these, this cleaner air, where the wind is just blowing in off the Atlantic, it's far from where most of our biggest cities are in terms of air pollution, and cars, and so on. So, you know, that makes for fantastic conditions. And obviously, during the Industrial Revolution, a lot of our lichen species suffered terribly, because of all of the acidic rain coming from the coal that we were burning, the sulphur pollution. And that did kind of cause a lot of the lichens to die off, and end up being kind of only found in some of these reliced areas in the West.
Stephen Magee:So on a kind of UK scale, what state are our rainforests in? How much of what we had is left? And of what is left how much is healthy?
Guy Shrubsole:Yeah. Well, you know, standing here looking at some of these trees, you certainly might think, well gosh, they're in really good health. It's an amazing, but actually, unfortunately, these are mere fragments of what we would want to have had. Something like 20% of Britain has the right climate for temperate rainforest to exist. And today, less than 1% of Britain is covered in temperate rainforest. And of that 1%, there's no doubt that, you know, an even smaller percentage is actually in really good, thriving condition.
Stephen Magee:And one of the things that I'm learning, right, because as I'm going along, I'm learning a lot about woodlands, right that I didn't know, is it that fragmentation isn't just a problem in the sense of, you know, it leaves you with isolated patches, which are vulnerable in ways that other habitat may be. Woodlands are our communities of organisms. And fragmentation is a much wider problem for woodlands.
Guy Shrubsole:Right, right. And, you know, we don't really necessarily understand fully all the things like the mycelial networks that exist.
Stephen Magee:That's like fungus
Guy Shrubsole:Exactly, yes, sorry, yes, all the fungi that live in the soil, you know, you'll see some of those fungi, fruiting in autumn and winter, and coming up as mushrooms and toadstools, but what lies beneath the forest floor is this complex web, sometimes called the worldwide web, by scientists who've been studying it more recently, and understanding how crucial it is to the sort of interaction, some even say, communication between trees within a forest.
Stephen Magee:Yeah, I've read about this, the idea that, that effectively, trees use networks of fungi to communicate with each other and coordinate their life cycles
Guy Shrubsole:Right, absolutely, and this sort of, you know, sort of chemical interactions that essentially amount to some degree of communication or sort of alerting, you know, neighbouring trees to threats and pathogens and so on. It's really fascinating stuff. And I think it just goes to show how, you know, one of the key things about ecology is the everything is connected to some extent. And when we tug on one thread in nature, we start to unravel a whole tapestry. So we have to start knitting that tapestry back together and reconnecting the fragments of rainforest that we've got still left, allowing them to expand, managing them well, protecting them and letting them grow again.
Stephen Magee:Where do you think we are in terms of the visibility of this problem, right, in the UK and the chances of getting the kind of action we need?
Guy Shrubsole:Well, I think in Scotland, as in actually many things, Scotland is ahead of other parts of the UK
Stephen Magee:You can come back, that's alright
Guy Shrubsole:And perfectly true, especially when it comes to something like temperate rainforest and awareness of temperate rainforest and the work of the Alliance for Scotland's Rainforest. And many other of the organisations that make that up from the RSPB to will interest and others have been pushing, you know, this for for some years now, pushing awareness of it, pushing and trying to get landowners to collaborate and cooperate, trying to get the Scottish Government to put more money into and attention to Scotland's rainforests. I think, on a UK level, England has lagged somewhat behind. That's something where I was interested in trying to start writing and campaigning about this from a kind of more of an England and Westminster focused perspective, and trying to get Westminster politicians to actually sit up and take notice of this incredible habitat as well. I think I just I'm fascinated by rainforest, because I'm like, a geek, but equally, I think it's something that has clearly got, you know, widespread appeal, that people are fascinated by this idea that we are a rainforest nation. And then actually, perhaps we should be, you know, learning from, you know, learning from people around the world, indigenous peoples from, you know, the way in which perhaps in the past, we as you know, have have lived alongside these habitats in more sustainable ways.
Stephen Magee:Are you hopeful?
Guy Shrubsole:Yeah absolutely. Yeah. I mean, how can I not be given the huge upsurge of interest in this subject and, you know, just in just in the last few years, and you know, just seeing, you know, seeing the number of people who get excited, going out now and looking for Hazel Gloves Fungus, for example, I spoke to a sheep farmer in West Devon who went to, read my book, went to a corner of Hazels, bit of Hazel Wood that she's got growing on her farm. And she found Hazel Gloves Fungus growing there. And she said, that makes my special place even more special to me. So if a sheep farmer in West Devon can think that and start to internalise what that means, for how you manage some of these places, perhaps in a more sensitive way, perhaps you restrict grazing around some of the edges of these habitats and allow them to expand. I think that gives me huge hope that actually, you know, this is a way to breakthrough, break down some of those, you know, fights we've had between farmers versus conservationists, blah, blah, blah, you know, actually, this is about, you know, restoring some of the patterns of you know, balance of relationships we've had with nature over the past centuries we've lost.
Stephen Magee:Right we're still on the walk at the wood I have a buttonholed Alastair Firth. Who lives in Morvern.
Alastair Firth:Yep, we live in Movern
Stephen Magee:Has a croft.
Alastair Firth:Our craft is a traditional craft, but it has a lot of woodland on it. For croft, it's quite a big area. So like 58 hectre croft.
Stephen Magee:Oh right, so for a croft that is quite big, yeah
Alastair Firth:140 acres croft in Morvern. There's only I think five crofts in Morvern and they're all big, because there's no common grazing. So basically, the crofters have the land that they have. And traditionally year-round, you would graze your stock on the top part and probably bring it into the in-bye. And, and then that's basically what we still do.
Stephen Magee:And you're also involved with the Morvern community woodland.
Alastair Firth:It's the more community-level, it's a small charity, local people, and we have a small piece of wilderness about 15 acres of woodland by the Sound of Mull. And we do a few different community things in there, like community events and firewood and things like that.
Stephen Magee:When it comes to Morvern and the rainforest, what do people who live here want to happen with that habitat?
Alastair Firth:Well, I think for people who live here, they've always known that it was special. It might not have been always been called rainforest. Yeah, there's lots of different names for it bandied around. I think in kind of local knowledge, people know they've got something special here. And I think they were surprised that people hadn't recognised that before. And they've only kind of dabbled in it piecemeal, if you like, it had never been something thought of as nationally that important. You know, you get all these kind of rare, rare things in rainforests that, that individually people might have thought that's special, but they'd never put the whole thing together. For places like Morven, the woods and the people have always had a very close relationship and that kind of one thing the local culture has led to what we have here now. I mean, the woods around here have always been managed, really, with the exception of some of the kind of the core rainforest habitats in the gorges and on the cliffs. But the wood that we're standing in here is a managed wood. And it was probably planted by people about 180 years ago. So it was planted with a purpose as well. And so the, the woods here as well as been natural, they're cultural. And on the croft at least we have some amazing bits of woodland, you just walk into it, and you think this is a pristine rainforest environment. But then within it, there's a ruin for maybe a Viking settlement. And then under the trees, you find old settled fields and legacy of the people that were there before. So the woodlands have been moving around the landscape along with the people. And the two things work together. And you can't just suddenly change that and say, well, we're gonna put a fence around it, and now it's a protected area.
Stephen Magee:So how do... cause obviously the RSPB Scotland is embarking on this, you know Morvern project. We're looking at how we engage with communities, your community has a long standing, like you're explaining a really long standing interest in these places and managing them and not just as a place like for nature, but as a place for people that you know, a place that's economically productive. What kind of things does your community want to see in the future here?
Alastair Firth:Yeah, the community wants to be viable. That's the key thing about living in a place like this is it's kind of it's a marginalised community, there's not enough capacity in the community to do everything. So there's not enough people to work. So for a woodland project, we need to put that together with like, so we're going to need quite a lot of human resources to deal with some of these issues that are caused by Rhododendron spreading, and which, of course, by the lack of management really for deer, we haven't got enough people to deal with it. And that basically goes back to the economics of a place like this. The community itself has been very supportive of a vision to restore Morvern's rainforest. And it was actually the top thing that came out of the local community consultation and the community plan has that as the number one aim, because it has all these other benefits. If we do that, then it leads to other outcomes as well as just the biodiversity outcomes.
Stephen Magee:The other thing about Morvern, apart from the people here and the commitment that they have to this, is that its geography, because it has this very narrow connection, you know, it's a peninsula that's almost really like an island.
Alastair Firth:Yeah.
Stephen Magee:It is this unique opportunity to get on top of a problem like invasive Rhododendron.
Alastair Firth:Yeah. So there's that and there's also the fact that is comparatively little Rhododendron in Morvern, there's not a huge area, compared to some of the bits further south and Calpin is there for example, there's a lot of rhododendron there. So there's other peninsulas but Morvern, it'd be possible to look at it as a refuge for for Rhododendron-free areas. And then if we can deal with with Morvern like that, then we can maybe move on to Ardnamurchan which has got equally valuable rainforest on it, but it's got a lot of Rhododendron as well. And we kind of start pushing it back. It's kind of along the lines of the eradication of some of the invasive species in New Zealand that they dealt with it on the island scale first and then moved on to the pennisulas and pushed it back. So, yeah, a Rhododendron-free Morvern would be a great outcome, and then that would show that it's possible. And I think what hasn't happened yet is nobody's showing that Rhodedendoral eradication is possible at scale. And I think the... actually the idea of eradication is maybe pushing it a bit too far, because it will be an ongoing struggle to stop. Rhododendron kind of re-colonising, because we will have seedlings here for maybe the next 50 years. Yeah, they'll keep seeding in, but to maintain the biodiversity, that is the kind of the legacy of all the cultural and natural history of the area. We need to be able to act to do that.
Stephen Magee:But ultimately, what we're talking about are generational projects.
Alastair Firth:Yeah, they are...they're, I mean minimum 20
Stephen Magee:Yeah, no, the mind boggles a bit years.
Alastair Firth:I mean, I think maybe if we look at it slightly differently. It's kind of like looking, it's not an intervention. It's an ongoing maintenance. We're looking after the land by doing this. It's not just we suddenly intervene and take out all the Rhodedendron Yeah, nothing is fixed. It's always... we're
Stephen Magee:And it's fixed! always involved with the land and we're always needing to have people involved in the land. So even if we're thinking about this is a 'Making it Wilder' project, a rewilding project even, it means that we need to bring in more people over time. And yeah, they will be involved in the land. There's no way around that. I have buttonholed Donald Kennedy, who I think, is it fair to say you're an enemy to Rhododendron everywhere in Morvern? Are you the guy that basically...
Donald Kennedy:Oh not just Morvern, anywhere that it occurs.
Stephen Magee:You're the guy that basically when Rhododendron want to scare their saplings, they tell them stories about you. How long have you been getting rid of Rhodies on the West Coast of Scotland?
Donald Kennedy:Well I suppose since the beginning, since the beginning of the millennium in a way, yeah sort of 2004 maybe even a wee bit earlier. And one of the SWAT sites I used to work at but much more prominently, maybe 10 years ago, we started working with...yeah, about 10 years ago, gosh, with my colleague partner Gordon French, and we set up a little business we call it the Lever and Mulch Partnership, we've developed a method of killing them that doesn't involve burning, cutting and burning and spraying.
Stephen Magee:I've heard about this, this is involves hitting them with a really big hammer is that right?
Donald Kennedy:Well, a lot of it is just levering them out the ground, working out how they're hanging onto the ground and dismantling them and uprooting them as much as we can.
Stephen Magee:And how difficult are Rhodies to deal with?
Donald Kennedy:Well, how long is a piece of string? Yeah, no, it so much depends on the ground, the nature of the ground itself, if it's boggy, if it's muddy, if it's soft and friable soil. If the rhododendrons are like pom poms that have been that have got plenty light, they've been able to grow outwards and root themselves into the ground all the way round. When I say root themselves, I mean, branches, stems that hit the ground, can root themselves and layer is the technical term. And they can really get a grip on the ground.
Stephen Magee:How do you feel about Rhodie - cause you've spent like we're talking about like a decade of your time out there getting rid of these things? Like have you developed kind of like a relationship with Rhodendendrons, how do you feel about that?
Donald Kennedy:That's a good question. I certainly don't hate them. I respect them in a certain sense in that they are very, very tenacious indeed. And really very difficult to eradicate. One of the reasons for that is that they produce, you know, from about 10-12 years old, they start producing seeds, tiny seeds, and I don't know exactly, but by the time they're 15/20 years old, they're producing at least a million seeds a year, every year until they die. And nobody really knows how, when you know how long the average lifespan of a rhododendron is, because so often they do this technique, as I said, called layering. They...an individual plant could conceivably go on forever just keep layering out, even if the central original plant dies out. So they are really insidious. And seedlings themselves are very, very, very tiny little things and they grew only a very small amount in their first 2/3/4 or 5 years. They can only be sometimes only a centimetre tall after 5 years. So they're incredibly easy to miss when people are operating on them.
Stephen Magee:It's not just about the nature side of it. These are potentially like green jobs in places where people are looking for, you know, reasons to be able to stay and make a life.
Donald Kennedy:For sure. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. No question about it. People could be employed full time doing Rhododendron control work. Yeah.
Stephen Magee:So the other part of this event is bringing together landowners, people from environmental organisations, people from the local community here in Morvern to hear more about the rainforest and begin to think about how a big project here to help restore the rainforest might work. It's been very kindly hosted by Hugh Raven at his Ardtornish Estate and just to see what's happening. Right it has got to the business end of this event, which is drinks in the room behind us and I am joined by RSPB Scotland Director Anne McColl. Hello Anne.
Anne McColl:Hello, lovely to be here.
Stephen Magee:And I'm also joined by Ellen Bird who is the Project Manager for Saving Morvern's Rainforest. Hello, Ellen.
Ellen Bird:Hi, Steven.
Stephen Magee:I suppose what we need to tell people, first of all, is what the project actually is.
Ellen Bird:Yeah, it's a good question.
Stephen Magee:Cause it's a really new thing, right? When we were starting out on this.
Ellen Bird:We are starting out, but we're not starting from scratch. I mean, my job as Project Manager is made a lot easier by the fact that, you know, I'm coming in to facilitate all the groundwork that the community has done, and that, you know, a lot of key players on Morvern have already done, people that you will have already heard from and spoken to. So yeah, I'm not really, we're not really starting at the beginning of a project. This is just we've got some funding, I'm in post, and now we can go with all the aspirations that we have for the project.
Stephen Magee:And what do you think the core of that project will be? Because the things that I've been hearing about trying to generate you know, like a works team and thinking about actual practical action in the field. I mean, is that the guts of it?
Ellen Bird:Yeah. So kind of the key aspirations, and first and foremost, like what we want the project to be is a real, to create a legacy on Morvern, that will allow the local community to continue any of the work that we do in the project. So the things like the works team, having a tree nursery with a tree nursery manager in post, we're hoping to create, basically enterprises that that can continue without RSPB being there so we can step back, and it will continue on beyond the lifetime of the project. Yeah.
Stephen Magee:Yeah. And Anne, for the RSPB, why Morvern, what's the particular attraction of here?
Anne McColl:So it's, I mean, it's geographically great. It's, you know, it's, it's quite a self-contained part of Scotland, you know, you've got sea on most sides, it's right in the heart of where Scotland's rainforest would have been, there are still quite a lot of remnant bits of rainforest here. We've just acquired a big new reserve, about 600 hectares that Glencripesdale. So we've now got our real foothold here, which is fantastic. And as Ellen just said, the community, the community here are really keen to do something to demonstrate how change can happen, how we can restore Scotland's rainforest, and how we can do it in a way that works with communities and create some sort of legacy employment, so we can continue any momentum that project starts. So it's right in the heart, it can be, we can replicate it elsewhere. And it's...we've got a lot of fantastic landowners who are also really committed and interested. So yeah, if we're better, really, it would be the question.
Stephen Magee:So even when it comes to trees, right, nothing's free. Have you worked out how to pay for all of this?
Anne McColl:Oh the million dollar question, or probably several million pound question. So at the minute, we've pulled together some funding, we've had some great donations from, you know, really supportive individuals, we've had some, you know, we've got a bit of land from Forestry and Land Scotland to create a tree nursery. And we've got some really great developing relationships with landowners. So we've got a bit we've got enough to get going.
Stephen Magee:And I think we've got some money from the Nature Restoration Fund to help fund the development work.
Anne McColl:We've got some development money from from the Nature Restoration Fund, which is hugely welcome. But obviously, we've arrived on a slightly bigger prize, because what this needs now is an injection of a sizable amount of cash. So we've got, we will be submitting a sort of bigger Nature Restoration Fund ask to NatureScot and we are very hopeful so fingers crossed, that they will decide it's a good idea too and fund it.
Stephen Magee:It's one of the things that's really interesting about this, talking to people over the last kind of day and a bit is the sense that partially what you said which is you come at something which already has, no pun intended, roots, right? But also, that it's something that's even at the beginning really focused on what the end of it will be if you see what I mean, you know, on like, how we might be able to, you know, organisations like ours might be able to exit it and that's quite an odd thing in some ways to be looking for ways to make yourself redundant. But if you're talking about really making something community driven, I suppose that's what you are talking about.
Ellen Bird:Yeah, absolutely. And with any, you know, landscape-scale woodland restoration project, you're always thinking hundreds of years into the future. So it's not about the RSPB coming in and, you know, taking all the credit for this amazing project, it really is about the legacy of what the community can then have at the end of it.
Stephen Magee:And I suppose the other thing is that our aspiration for Scotland's rainforest doesn't end like at the ferry from Lochaline to Fishnish, right, okay. But where does this fit into that much bigger picture?
Anne McColl:So Scotland is one of you know, it's one of the few places globally where you've got this temperate rainforest, and we've got such small amounts of it left. We're, I think, we're starting here to try and, it's a sort of proof of concept really, can we do it? Can we make it work? Can we make it sustainable? With a hope that it can be replicated up and down the West Coast, I guess, not just of Scotland, but elsewhere. Wales, Southwest of England, because we've got little remnant bits all along the West Coast. And it's fantastic for biodiversity, it will be much better for the climate if it's restored. And it will be really great for the people who live in and around the woodlands, if what they can do is generate a more sustainable sort of relationship with it, including an income.
Kate Kirkwood:We've just crouched down behind a rock to get out the wind!
Stephen Magee:We have, we are up the top now. And what you can see actually, I think, speaks a lot to what I was hearing about in Morvern right, which is this idea of fragmentation. So we have come up onto the higher ground. And there's a few oak trees hanging on in a gully above us. But essentially, we're I don't know, we're probably only about maybe the 100 metre contour line, and because the ground evens out, there's been a lot more browsing up here. And essentially, the woodland comes to an end, you know, and we can see, we can see further on a less rainy day, but we can still see right along the loch side, that that is the case for you know, miles around us. And it really embodies this idea that we're dealing with a habitat that's under enormous pressure.
Kate Kirkwood:Absolutely. And I mean, the saving, as part of the saving grace of the trees, and the regeneration that's happening up here is that I can see in the distance just along kind of the ridge lines, there's deer fencing, which is designed as an exclusion to prevent that browsing that we mentioned before. But just where we've crouched down just now, I've got...there's a cedar, a rowan, and an ash sapling, and there's blueberries, and things just beginning to kind of come up and through and those are absolutely delicious for browsing animals. And quite understandable. You want to graze on those. But there are those pressures, which means those plants don't regenerate if they're, they're browsed.
Stephen Magee:But one of the things I'm learning as I go along, right, working at RSPB, is how infinitely complex all these things are. So these blueberry sapling with the
Kate Kirkwood:Yes. blueberry plants may be pleasant coming through. If there's no grazing, they get choked out by rank vegetation, like you know, you know, in the really wet areas there'd be rushes. So you need something look, you know, as Paul said, you know, when I was in Morvern, the red deer is a forest animal, you know, these herbivores have a place in this landscape. It's just getting it into proportion. And the key thing about getting it in a balance is... this is the other thing I came away from Morvern feeling really strongly, is the opportunity this affords, not just to have a win for biodiversity. But to do something that can make a really significant difference to communities. I don't want to overstate ityou know, it's not that it will save communities, it's that it will provide opportunities for communities that have sustainable economic activity for there to be, you know, good jobs for people to do that lead to outcomes that clearly in Morvern the community want, when they did the community consultation, restoring the rainforest was like number one, right great! Absolutely. And I think as well it's something that often gets lost in our ideas of what a natural habitat is, is that people are actually part of that, people are nature. And we are part of that. And we have to, we have a really, we have a really interesting role, because we are able to manipulate that. But we're also able to do that in a beneficial way, we're able to make choices about how we use the land, how we tend to and heal parts of the land as well. And people have to be part of that conversation. You can't do that, with the exclusion of the people that live there.
Stephen Magee:We're not building a people fence around the rainforest.
Kate Kirkwood:No, absolutely not. But there has to be, like you say, there has to be balance. And there has to be, I was thinking about this on the drive up, we drove up and a large part of the world that we live in, is fragmented habitats. You talk about that in your conversations with people in Morvern, and the importance of being able to kind of link those fragmented areas together. It's oversimplifying it by calling it a jigsaw puzzle. But you do need lots of interconnecting pieces for any of this to work, whether that's the connections between people, the connections between the different ecosystems and the habitats. And there's a kind of there's a knowledge and understanding that has to go along with that in that you can achieve the goals that the people in Morvern want to achieve. Alone, you can't do that on your own, you have to work together, and in kind of balance and harmony and kind of, there has to be a back and forth, it's not just go, go, go.
Stephen Magee:To probably load your jigsaw metaphor with more structural weight than its designed to carry, right. The thing with the jigsaw that we're talking about here is everybody has the same pieces. But the picture on the box for different people is potentially quite different.
Kate Kirkwood:Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Magee:What people are trying to make, you know, and that's where the compromise and the learning and the understanding and all that has to come from, I should say, as well. That having seen that diverse range of people, you know, I mean, you know, big thanks to Hugh Raven at Ardornish Estate who you know, hosted much of it and did a whole bunch of work. But you know, there are also environmental organisations, there were government bodies, you know, like NatureScot and all the various bits of like the forestry infrastructure. There were individuals from communities, there were people who were there both as individuals from communities but also representing community organisations. And of course, there were a tonne of people there from RSPB Scotland. That is a diverse enough group of people that you'd be an idiot to say it's not challenging to find common, but maybe it's just because everybody was somewhere really nice and having a good time, right. But, but it really did feel like all of those people could work together like landowners and everybody else.
Kate Kirkwood:I think as Paul always says and mentioned again this time around. As a conservationist, you have to be optimistic, you absolutely have to have that optimism that people will pull together and do the right thing, whatever that right thing might be, for them or for their local habitats in their ecosystems. That there's good faith and goodwill and intention behind that. That is what drives these types of projects is that people want to make them happen.
Stephen Magee:Well, if that is a necessary condition for the successful protection, restoration and expansion of Scotland's rainforest, the other necessary condition is rain. And I can guarantee you from sitting here today, that that at least we'll be in plentiful supply. Whatever else happens. We will be back again next month. I think we'll be having a look at Wild Isles.
Kate Kirkwood:Yeah, yeah, sounds good to me.
Stephen Magee:Some of the... I've had a really interesting chat which will hopefully feature in the next podcast with James Howe on Islay. About how the team captured, how the filming team captured that incredible sequence right of white tailed eagles going after barnies, so that'll be in it and also, I think probably a bit about some of the things that people might be able to do once Wild Isles is finished, but try to keep the conversation going currently but until then, from a lovely, moist rainforest, thanks for joining us. Do not forget to let us know what you think of the pod but also what you want us to cover. You can get us on Twitter at @RSPBScotland or you can email us at podcast.scotland@rspb.org.uk.
Kate Kirkwood:And as always do like and subscribe. It really does help people find us on the podcast and if you do one thing this week, find an episode you loved and share it with someone that you love.
Stephen Magee:Aw, there you go. Share the love around, right. Until next time, goodbye.
Kate Kirkwood:Bye