Chris Packham has described Glen Coe as broken and in need of fixing as he encouraged projects to help restore the Scottish wilderness.
The naturalist and broadcaster said that Glen Coe’s landscape in the Scottish Highlands was “barren, over-grazed moorland”.
Packham said the area could be regenerated through rewilding to restore the landscape to “patches of woodland, patches of space where wildlife can prosper”.
Rewilding is the restoration of land to increase biodiversity and benefit native plants and animals.
Packham told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland: “I remember going there as a kid and going, ‘wow, Scottish wilderness, fantastic’. But that was in the late Sixties and early Seventies. We’ve all learnt now that that landscape is broken and it needs fixing.”
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He said Glen Coe was a historically important area and “so much more could be done there for that landscape, for the people and for all of the visitors that flock to Scotland”.
Vast areas of Scotland were covered by woodland about 5,000 years ago. However, very few of the ancient trees remain.
“Glen Coe — it’s sad driving through there. There are blocks of non-native forestry which aren’t great for biodiversity and aren’t great for employing people,” Packham said. “From my point of view Scotland is the mecca for UK wildlife ... you’ve got so many rare, endangered, sexy species that we keep gravitating here.”
Glen Coe is a U-shaped glen formed by an Ice Age glacier with steep mountain peaks and ridges. It is known as an important conservation area for alpine species, including Atlantic oak woodlands which support lichens.
Packham highlighted the role landowners and philanthropists were playing in buying up large areas and rewilding them. However, he acknowledged the criticism that they contributed to increasing land prices.
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“There is some controversy about these large landowners, philanthropists doing projects like rewilding. But look, until the government steps up and invests similar amounts of money and energy in these projects we are dependent on those individuals,” he said.
“We should be grateful for the fact they’re spending their time, effort and money to trial these projects when no one else is prepared to stick their neck out.”
He said rewilding could also play a role in helping to alleviate some of the effects of severe flooding which recently devasted areas of northeastern Scotland. “When it comes to addressing climate breakdown, and we’ve seen the drastic effects of that just in the last couple of weeks here in Scotland, people losing their homes, their livelihood and very tragically their lives — we need to take some action,” he said.
“Rewilding can play a very valuable role for a number of reasons. You stick the trees in the ground and they hold up water, that will prevent some of those flooding events.”
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He also said carbon capture could be carried out by planting trees and rewilding landscapes. “Carbon capture is most cheaply done with the technology that we’ve already got on the table,” he said. “You stick the trees in the ground and throughout the course of their life they’re supplying a resource to that wildlife and that will be enriched. As those trees grow they will capture carbon.”
Packham was in the Highlands to promote his new show 8 Out of 10 Bats and to visit Dundreggan, a 10,000-acre estate south of Inverness which is being rewilded by the charity Trees for Life.
