A wintry walk through the Rothiemurchus woodland in the Cairngorms reveals signs of recovery in areas once stripped bare by wartime logging. The ancient Caledonian pine forest, lamented by writer Nan Shepherd in her book The Living Mountain as “not much is left now”, is showing new life.
Shepherd witnessed the extensive felling during both world wars to meet timber demands, leading ecologist Frank Fraser Darling to declare in 1949 that the land was so devastated it might have been a battlefield. But a recent walk along the trail towards Glen Einich offered a different picture.
Passing Whitewell croft, where Shepherd often stayed, the path leads through a rich forest of mature Scots pine, birch, juniper and blaeberry. However, it is the higher landscape that is changing most visibly. As the forest thins near the glen, giving way to gorse and isolated old pines, a quiet revolution is taking place.
Pine saplings are breaking through the heath, some just twigs, others reaching knee, waist or head height. Land management and reduced deer numbers are allowing the forest to regenerate naturally. The sight would have delighted Shepherd and Darling, who feared the forest was lost forever.
