A large Highland estate whose owner wants to establish the country’s first wolf reserve in the wild wants people to pay £500 to care for a tree they can call their own.
A remote fragment of Scotland’s ancient Caledonian pine forest in Sutherland is being restored at Alladale Wilderness Reserve, owned by Paul Lister, former boss of the furniture retailer MFI.
Now the 23,000-acre Alladale estate is seeking “pine custodians” from across the world who will help cover the preservation costs.
The estate managers hope to raise £50,000 from the scheme, and promise to offer the custodians “an ecologically guided walk to see your tree”.
Lister, who inherited a £50 million fortune when his family sold the MFI furniture chain, would like to see wolves brought back in a controlled reserve.
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He has proposed two packs of wolves, eventually totalling about 15 animals, that would roam the fenced reserves, helping to protect the forest by killing about 300 deer a year.
The venture would create scores of jobs and attract thousands of wolf tourists, its proponents argue.
Supporters include Ben Fogle, the adventurer, who has said he “can’t understand why anyone would ultimately be against such an exciting project”.
Caledonian pine forests are some of Scotland’s oldest and richest habitats but they have been degraded and cleared over the millennia to the extent that there are now fewer than 100 sites across the country.
There are approximately 1,500 ancient Caledonian pines at Alladale, some almost 500 years old. Saplings are being protected from browsing deer as part of an extensive rewilding programme on the estate.
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For £500, each Alladale pine custodian will receive a special pack containing a unique certificate, a limited-edition print and portrait of their tree, and a book by the photographer Adrian Houston.
Each custodianship supports the regeneration of the Caledonian forest by helping to pay for the planting of 50 native saplings.
Each tree in the Alladale Pine Custodians project will be given a Gaelic or Scots name, with 100 trees included in the first limited-edition run.
“We will be planting Scots pine, alder, rowan, willow, birch, oak, aspen, holly, hazel, and juniper. As a custodian of an ancestral tree, reawakened through the saplings that you have enabled to take root, that deeper connection with nature, that legacy, can now live on in you,” the estate’s promotional materials said.
A study by Trees for Life, a conservation charity, found that 23 per cent of all Caledonian pine forests are critically threatened.
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These remaining small fragments are under significant pressure from deer browsing on young trees, which prevents new generations of pines from establishing.
The mature “granny” pines grow older and die naturally without a new generation of trees being able to establish themselves in their place.
A small fragment of the Caledonian pine forest at the Alladale Wilderness Reserve near Bonar Bridge had been categorised by NatureScot as being in an unfavourable, declining condition.
The Caledonian pine forest at Alladale is the second most northerly fragment of this now critically rare habitat. It was designated as a site of special scientific interest by NatureScot in 1979. It was also recognised at a European level as a special area of conservation in 2005.
The fate of this forest fragment changed in 2003 when it was purchased by Lister, who set about transforming the management of the estate, restoring natural habitats and saving the historic terrain.
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The Alladale team, with the support of NatureScot and the Scottish Rural Development Programme, fenced the pine forest fragment to reduce pressure from hungry deer and give an opportunity for pine seedlings to grow without the risk of being eaten.
They also supplemented the forest area by planting almost a million new native trees.
