Weekend high planting camp on 27th & 28th March 2010.
We are looking for volunteers prepared to make a strenuous but rewarding trip up to Firth Hope during the planting season. Help by playing a key role in the re-establishment of native woodland at over two thousand feet in Firth Hope, above the waterfall at the northern point of Carrifran valley.
Hugh Chalmers will be leading the only high camp this spring, at 650m in Firth Hope. We hope to add at least 1000 trees to the unique treeline woodland planted in the last three years. If you would like to camp on the Saturday night, please contact Hugh Chalmers.
You can also come for the day on the Saturday or Sunday, meeting at the car park at 10am, but please email Philip Ashmole. Note that it takes around 90 minutes to hike to the planting site at 2500 ft. We provide tools, training, health and safety briefing.
Why plant high up?
The main planting at Carrifran has been below the heather line at about 450m (1500ft). The Wildwood Group has always been aware, however, that natural forests in Scotland reached much higher levels.
There is now little trace of the original mountain woodland, extending up to a treeline zone where high forest gave way to contorted dwarf trees and shrubs and eventually to montane heath. This woodland has been destroyed by millennia of human activity, so that no-one really knows what it was like. Carrifran extends to the summit of White Coomb, which at 821 m (2700 ft) is the fourth highest point in the Southern Uplands, so we have a unique opportunity to try to re-create an authentic treeline zone. With this in mind, we have been studying historical records, topography and soils, and raising stocks of juniper, birch, rowan, aspen and willows to plant in Firth Hope.
Firth Hope is a hanging valley above our spectacular waterfall, and in 2010 – the fourth year of this work – we aim to plant juniper and other species of native trees to complete the first step in restoring the ‘wee trees’ to the Moffat Hills.
We are especially grateful to Scottish Natural Heritage for supporting volunteer activity.
