Restructuring our perceptions

Why does Abernethy take so many peoples breath away when they first enter? Even those with little grounding in nature are able to sense a difference in this natural woodland when they first set eyes on it. Trees well-spaced with hanging bows only seen on the oldest of pines, the sunlight dapples the ground while breaking through the spacious canopy and lushest green plants grow thick on the ground below. This combination creates a remarkable story to our unconscious mind. The usually dark and impenetrable forest of fairy tales no longer holds deceit and fear, but the light spacious wood stretching as far as the eye can see holds something, we are not quite able to put our finger on; possibilities.

 The ancient Caledonian pinewood was the home to ancestors who would survive on the naturalness of this wood. They could hunt for deer, forage for food, gather firewood and drink clean water. All of these were essential to life for our ancestors. Its biological diversity resonates directly from the possibility of our species survival. Now more than ever we are realising that we are still intimately connected to the landscape even if technology makes us feel less so!

  Some parts of Abernethy might still be considered dark and impenetrable. These are areas of dense forest plantation that were planted in the early 20^th century long before the RSPB purchased the reserve. This type of woodland sees all the trees of a similar age grow tall and spindly, crowding out the sunshine that should reach the ground below. Not only is this bad for the health of each tree, but it means that there is no space for a lush undergrowth that so many other species depend on. A forest is much more than a collection of trees and this is what we are trying to achieve with plantation restructuring.

 Restructuring comes in many forms, but at its heart, it is creating deadwood and light. These are both essential parts of what makes a natural forest. Pine trees want lots of space to grow and ideally separate at an average 10 metres between each tree. This allows them the space they need to grow into granny pines with large bows.

Creating deadwood can be done in a few different ways.

Winching over trees naturally mimics what might happen to a tree in a storm. This will also expose the root plate that creates another habitat. Capercaillie will eat grit from the exposed root plate and the hollow created in the ground can fill with water and create a pond for amphibians.  While ring-barking a tree will create standing deadwood that can attract nesting birds. Due to pine trees being so resinous they take a long time to break down which can make them perfect for tawny owls, kestrels and goldeneyes setting up home for a little while. Trees decaying at different angles will even attract different forms of life to break it down. With something like 75% of all life in the forest using deadwood at some point in its life cycle, its importance should not be underestimated.

 Now I am going to try my best to refrain from bursting into the Lion King’s, ‘Circle of Life’ as I explain this next part. Species like blaeberry depend on dappled light to grow, and then, in turn, blaeberry provides food for insects then, those insects become food for larger animals in the forest. More amazingly, when a tree dies, it provides food and nutrients for everything. In the words of Mufasa ‘When we die, our bodies become the grass and the antelope eat the grass’. Pine trees are the lions of Abernethy. They have been growing slowly over time absorbing precious nutrients their whole life. When they die, those highly concentrated nutrients become available to the ecosystem once more. There is a flourishing of new life. In nutrient-poor acidic soils, as we find on Abernethy, a dead tree is a smorgasbord of food. Due to the historical management of Abernethy, we find a large proportion of deadwood has been removed for timber. We are missing this source of nutrients in our forest and when compared to a natural Norwegian forest is less than 10 times the amount of deadwood we would expect to see.  To readdress the balance, restructuring not only gives space to living pine trees but also the dead trees are creating new food sources to improve the health of the forest. One of my favourite studies showed that crested tits can be found at 10 times the density in ancient woodland when compared with plantation woodland in the same area. That means that all that space and deadwood is doing some pretty amazing things for nature.

Abernethy has been restructuring woodland since the 1990s but this year has hired 3 local firms that will carry out large restructuring working in some of Abernethy’s plantation woodland. This will mainly take place around Garten Wood, Rymore wood and an area of forest near Duackside. In areas where a high density of deadwood would be ecologically unfavourable or a fire risk; timber will be removed to provide an important economic resource to the reserve. Hopefully, next year when everyone will be able to visit again you will get to see some of this amazing work and make sense of some of these destructive processes!

 Yes, deadwooding can look pretty harsh on first inspection. But greatness cannot be measured overnight. Greatness stands the test of time. This work will create a woodland indistinguishable from its ancient counterparts and with that, the aesthetic beauty that awakens our ancestral subconscious.