\n Lister recalls that when he first arrived, he found himself surrounded by \u201cvery traditional landowners\u201d.\u00a0Back then media articles ran headlines like \u201cIs introducing wolves back into Britain howling mad?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n His view on wolves hasn\u2019t changed much. \u201cI always think that wolves would be absolutely perfect to go back into the Highlands,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not in the freedom of the countryside, not running around\u00a0\u2013\u00a0inside a big enclosure. My problem is that one of my neighbours is not particularly progressive in thinking, and he’s rather stuck in\u00a0bit of a time warp. But it’s coming. There will come a time when\u00a0people will see what the potential is, but it’s slow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The wolves may still seem a long time coming, but the new young forest is slowly arriving. Over a million native trees have been planted, and, alongside this, to protect them from browsing by deer,\u00a0deer numbers have been reduced from 25 \u00a0per km square on the estate, to less than six per km square.\n<\/p>\n \n \n What was a\u00a0small fragment of \u00a0Caledonian Pinewood\u00a0at the reserve has been expanded. The wood, which is the most the second northerly fragment of this rare habitat,\u00a0had been categorised by Nature<\/a>Scot as being in ‘unfavourable’ management\u00a0and declining condition.\n<\/p>\n \n Restored by\u00a0fencing\u00a0a much bigger area encompassing the fragment and replanting this enclosure with more than 180,000 trees to relieve the deer grazing pressure and give an opportunity for seedlings to grow without the risk of being eaten, it is now classed as\u00a0being in ‘favourable’ management and recovering\u00a0condition.\n<\/p>\n \n When Lister arrived there were between 3500-5000 veteran pine trees, so old they are no longer producing viable seeds or the potential to spread forest unaided. The Alladale team\u00a0knows there had been more trees – that much, they say, can be seen from the 1000-year-old trunks buried in the peat.\n<\/p>\n \n As a result of the deer control, says Heightman, one of our guides on a media tour of the reserve organised by The European Nature Trust (TENT), there has been natural regeneration. \u201cThere was a fear that the deer control would create a vacuum. But the helicopter deer count found that Alladale\u00a0had\u00a0the lowest\u00a0density\u00a0compared to other estates that had\u00a0counts\u00a0of\u00a0up to\u00a029 per km square.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n The deer, Lister describes, are the trees’\u00a0\u201cnemesis\u201d. The ubiquity of these monarchs of the glen is also sometimes given as a case for the reintroduction of wolves. A University of Leeds paper pub<\/a>lished last year modelled that control of red deer by wolves could lead to an expansion of native woodland that would take up – or sequester – one million tonnes of CO2 each year.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWe’ve actually,\u201d Lister says, \u201creduced our deer herds from 2500 to 500. That allows for huge amounts of vegetation recovery, which is what we need. We need trees to recover. And if you have too many deer in an area, it’s impossible.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n But that nemesis, especially the\u00a0imposing stag, does not go unadmired, neither amongst our group of visitors, nor those at Alladale who control it.\u00a0Reserve manager and former gamekeeper, Innes MacNeill\u00a0describes the species as his \u201cfavourite \u201canimal. In the past, he says, he has been asked, \u201cSo you enjoy killing your favourite animal?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n MacNeill is a true local, who joined Alladale as a deer stalker in 1991, long before the arrival of Lister and his rewilding, whose grandfather was a stalker and poacher. He shot his first deer here, he says, when he was \u201cvery young\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n He also argues in favour of some of the old ways too \u2013 for instance muirburn.\u00a0\u201cFire is a tool in the toolbox. I would do it for fire breaks. You can see up there there is nothing growing in the understory. Heather is preventing tree growth.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cFire is a natural thing. It occurs everywhere in the world. But historically we over burnt it for sheep grazing and deer to graze on.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to get rid of deer,\u201d he says. \u201cDeer have an active role to play here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n The result of this deer control is, for those of us staying at Alladale Lodge,\u00a0plenty of venison on the table,\u00a0butchered in a larder on site. The rest of the meat is sold through the local game dealer.\n<\/p>\n \n His own view on Lister\u2019s approach has shifted from former scepticism.\u00a0\u201cDid I think Paul was mad? Of course I did. But I\u2019ve travelled all over the world and seen places in Yellowstone, Romania and South Africa. Do I see an opportunity here? Most definitely. But it\u2019s about winning hearts and minds.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He is also seeing how this new model can work as a business. He insists: \u201cThis is a reserve, not an estate. We are probably employing around three times what our neighbours would employ. We keep our tradesmen local as well.”\n<\/p>\n \n In an area of depopulation, blighted by lack of affordable housing, not far from Croick, where in 1845, 80 people who had been cleared from the land\u00a0found refuge in the churchyard, people\u00a0are an important factor. The question, as MacNeill\u00a0puts it, is \u201cHow do we keep people here?\u201d The jobs offered by a reserve like this is one such way.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cCalling it a wilderness reserve,\u201d he explains, \u201cwas a way to break away from this Victorian idea of the estate.\u201d He is not, however keen on the word rewilding.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cRewilding<\/a> is how it\u2019s interpreted. We\u2019re about reconnecting people to nature.”\n<\/p>\n \n When it comes to rewilding, the terminology is slippery. Wild is an increasingly disputed term \u2013 are any of Scotland’s wild places untouched by humans? \u2013\u00a0and also many, including Innes MacNeill, don\u2019t like the term rewilding.\u00a0\u201cThis is not wilderness,\u201d he says, pointing to the grand sweep of moor rising up from the glen, \u201cbut it\u2019s wild managed land.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cDo not tell me,\u201d he says, \u201cthis is not wild. Even wilding would be a better term than rewilding. Nature recovery is the word. If I go to my neighbours and say, Let\u2019s do rewilding, the door will be slammed in my face. If I say, let\u2019s do some riparian restoration and planting, it\u2019s different.”\n<\/p>\n \n \n \u201cThe general public has to want it,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019m a Highlander. I\u2019m from here. No one wants to see wealthy absentee landlords tell us what to do. But when it comes to wolves, we need to talk about it in a more civil and adult way. We can live together. But we\u2019ve lived apart for a long time now. We are the only country without an apex predator in Europe.\u201d He adds, pointing at another human in our group, \u201cYou\u2019re looking at the apex predators here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n That relative absence is striking, when you look at any map of the location of wolves across the continent. Only the British Isles is\u00a0wolfless \u2013 and with no way of the species swimming the North Sea<\/a>, it can only roam these lands again through reintroduction.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n Lister has been rewilding Alladale for over two decades now, pushing the landscape through its slow process of change via planting, deer control, introduction of Highland cattle and other measures. These days, he does believe that some neighbouring landowners are \u201clistening\u201d. \u201cThey are progressing in their way,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it’s good. I’ve seen some change in the mindset of even my neighbours.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Both MacNeill and Lister believe they have seen a shift happen around them. It has happened in the wider public, a poll of whom revealed a majority. But they also think it has happened amongst landowners.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI 100% think people are moving towards our view, on reforestation\u201d says Lister. \u201cI get calls monthly from landowners in Scotland wanting to come up and visit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n Previously its most flamboyant tenants were Sir Henry and Lady Valerie Meux\u00a0 (famous for driving herself around London in a phaeton drawn by a pair of zebras), who provided stalking, fishing and grouse shooting for their friends on a grand scale.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n But Lister has a different approach from past owners and tenants. He regards himself as the custodian of Alladale and insists on calling it a reserve. His mission to regenerate and restore nature was inspired by what he has seen in Romania.\n<\/p>\n \n In 2002, after his father, Noel, suffered a stroke, he went, he has said “into a dark place”, following which he decided to reinvent himself, and consider what legacy he might have. At that point he set up TENT ahead of purchasing Alladale. Its goals\u00a0were to \u201cprotect and restore wild areas of species\u201d; \u201ccreate \u2018noise\u2019 for nature\u201d; \u201cconnect people to nature.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n It\u2019s not only wealthy wilderness tourists, booking themselves a stay at Alladale Lodge or journalists like myself who are invited to visit, but also local young people. A schools\u00a0project here is about rewilding the young.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n Though Lister\u2019s wolf plan has triggered a backlash from some right to roam campaigners, he is himself an advocate of public access and right to roam and the idea of connecting people to nature. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen you’ve got 70 million people living in the country the size of Britain,\u201d he says, \u201cand you try and exclude them from 50% of private owned land, that’s not particularly good. We want people to go into nature. We want them to fall love with nature. We want them to want to save nature. So if we just decide to shut it all off, that’s not helping the cause.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Alladale is just one of Lister\u2019s projects. TENT supports work by the\u00a0Foundation Conservation Carpathia, which is ‘creating Europe’s Yellowstone’ in Carpathia,\u00a0is helping\u00a0build jaguar tourism and\u00a0Belize, as well as funding organisations in Spain and Italy working with lynx, bears and wolves.\n<\/p>\n \n Wolves may still be a long way off release in Alladale, but the reserve has done some work on introduction of another predator. Their Scottish wildcat project\u00a0with RZSS\u00a0contributed\u00a0several cats\u00a0to the Highland Wildlife Park, whose kittens went on to be released in the wild. \u00a0 \u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n I visited their wildcat enclosure, where the cats could be seen clambering over branches and ladders, for all the\u00a0world like domestic kitties.\n<\/p>\n \n \n Wolves also seem a long way off, with the National Farmers Union of Scotland firmly against them.\u00a0They are also not what rewilding charities are pushing for.\n<\/p>\n \n The general view is that the first big apex predator for reintroduction would be the lynx, and an alliance of charities including Scotland the Big Picture, Trees for Life, TENT and Lifescape\u00a0has come together in the Lynx to Scotland partnership.\n<\/p>\n \n The campaign, including consultations and research, is having an impact, which has arguably been\u00a0enhanced, rather than diminished\u00a0by the recent illegal dumping of lynx in the Cairngorms. What was\u00a0at first suspected to be a\u00a0guerrilla rewilding was later considered more likely to be the tragic\u00a0dumping of neglected exotic pets.\n<\/p>\n \n READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n A poll conducted by Survation in January for the Lynx to Scotland Partnership, showed that support for the return of lynx to Scotland had increased to 61% \u2013 rising nine points since the last such survey in 2020.\n<\/p>\n \n Nor is the possibility entirely distant, since a licence application for lynx reintroduction via the Lynx to\u00a0Scotland project looks possible in the next coming year or two.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n That said, the lynx isn\u2019t likely to be seen any time soon at Alladale. The problem for the reserve is that the habitat isn\u2019t quite right for this shy, arboreal cat. \u201cWolves,\u201d says Innes, \u201ccould hunt in this landscape tomorrow, but the lynx is an ambush predator and there are not enough trees.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n It also doesn’t help that the trees would be inside their own enclosures and the deer outside.\n<\/p>\n \n One of\u00a0Lister\u2019s arguments is that wilderness tourism employs more than agriculture or field sports. \u201cWhen I arrived, there were two and a half members of staff, and they number\u00a012-15 in season.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cAlladale is a beacon of hope and a beacon of a new way of running a landscape. Rather than employing two shepherds. I’ve got 14 full-time members of staff. I’m hosting 1000s of people, school kids and adults through the\u00a0year, as opposed to a few mates who want to go deer stalking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n However, this man with a vision for returning the landscape to\u00a0nature is not really himself someone to turn to for too much hope.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cYou\u2019ve come to the wrong person for hope, I’m afraid,\u201d he tells me. \u201cYou might try and drag it out of me. I do what I do because I need to have a purposeful life. I need purpose, and I love what I do. But I’m afraid, if you were to listen to George Carlin, you would realise that we’re just one big experiment that’s not going particularly well, humans.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Lister believes that one of the issues is that humans don\u2019t like change. \u201cThey’re creatures of habit, and change comes with challenges. If it’s slightly uncomfortable, then we won’t do it. \u00a0I’m afraid to transcend what we need to transcend, there’s going to be some discomfort. Otherwise, no pain, no gain.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Already, he says, there have been \u201clandscape-scale changes\u201d at Alladale, and he is proud of them – the reforestation as well as the rise in biodiversity, including eagles, red squirrels, pine martens and badgers.\n<\/p>\n \n Changes happen, the team at Alladale tell me, on a slow scale. There is no rushing the process of creating a forest, particularly not in these cool climes where trees grow at a slower rate.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s the Highlands of Scotland,\u201d says MacNeill. \u201cIt will take a long time. Nature recovery in this part of the world doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll see wildlife all over the place. It\u2019s going to take time. We\u2019ve abused the landscape for centuries. We\u2019re not going to rebuild it in 25 years.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wolves, of course, are not here, yet. But, owner and\u00a0heir to the MFI fortune, Paul Lister, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-278022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114887015925065905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kate Heightman, TENT outreach manager, stands atop a jeep at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain)\n<\/p>\n
Young new pines at Alladale (Image: Gethin Chamberlain)\n<\/p>\n
Innes MacNeill, reserve manager, at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) The wolf plan, says MacNeill, would happen via \u201ca special derogation to create an African-style game reserve with two\u00a0packs of wolves.\u201d\u00a0 To create the enclosure would require 30,000 metres of fence, a barrier that has triggered opposition from some voices for ‘right to roam’. MacNeill sees it as worth a try: \u201cRun that experiment for 25 years, just like a wind farm.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Highland cattle at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) But the Scottish Government<\/a> has no plans to reintroduce wolves or any other large carnivorous species into\u00a0Scotland, a statement which First Minister John Swinney<\/a> reiterated earlier this year after lynx were illegally released in the Cairngorms. When Lister\u00a0bought Alladale, a 23,500 acre stretch of wilderness near Ardgay spanned by a ridge from which it\u2019s possible to see both east and west coast, he\u00a0wanted to distinguish it from the kind of hunting, shooting and fishing estate it once was.\n<\/p>\n
A Scottish wildcat at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) But Scotland is not moving forward at any great speed on reintroductions. \u00a0Even beavers, it turns out, are not likely for some time at Alladale. As yet, the reserve has no plan to reintroduce the species since the habitat is not ready \u2013 more willow would be needed. \u201cNot enough wooded debris,\u201d MacNeill says.\n<\/p>\n