I recently found myself stuck between a week’s holiday in Argyll and a week’s holiday in Glen Cannich. Between getting kicked out of one cottage and being able to check in to the next were seven long (and very soggy) hours. Factor in a 3.5hr drive and an hour faffing about in a Fort William supermarket and I’d be left with about 3 hours to kill.
Now, if you’re an outdoorsy person then killing three hours on the west coast is unlikely to be a chore or a challenge. You’re spoilt for choice, but I really wanted to continue the theme I’d set for myself during the previous week in Argyll, and go walking in interesting-looking places that I’d spotted from the roadside. Unsurprisingly, there’s no shortage of those. So off I went, driving north, on the lookout for…..something.
I wasn’t really sure what I was after, but I knew I’d know it when I saw it. Every time I passed a sign for a Forest & Land Scotland car park I’d pull in to check it out. None of them were mobbed but it was nonetheless a Saturday so they were all busy with the usual weekend families and dog walkers. And while they all clearly had attractive woodland, for the most part they were coniferous plantations with only a smattering of broadleaves at best.
In other situations I’d be perfectly happy with those things but they weren’t what I was looking for. I was looking for solitude and……something different. Something special. So on I drove towards Fort William.
An hour and several aborted forest car parks later I reached a non-descript roundabout at Loch Creran. I was ready to continue straight over towards Fort William but caught sight of a brown tourist sign.
I didn’t even need to think about it. I indicated and turned right in an involuntary reflex, because I already knew this was a winner. I had no idea what ‘Glasdrum Wood’ was or what I would find when I got there but, the letters ‘N N R’ instantly reassured me.
National. Nature. Reserve.
Conservation and environmental protection is heavy on the acronyms. We’ve got SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientifc Interest), SPAs (Special Protection Areas), SACs (Special Areas of Conservation), LGSs (Local Geodiversity Sites), LNRs (Local Nature Reserves) and several more besides, and you could be forgiven for not knowing why they’re special or why you’re supposed to care.
You could go to many of our 1400 or so SSSIs and stand there scratching your head, wondering what on earth IS special about them, because it isn’t necessarily apparent on first glance. Sometimes it’s not even apparent after a second, third or fourth glance. I have a SSSI very close to where I stay and if I was to walk up there now, all I’d see is a big brown field full of sheep.
There’s no signage that commands me to care about the important forbs, grasses, sedges and mosses underfoot. No interpretation to make me stroke my chin in quiet contemplation. But because SSSIs tend to be working landscapes the vast majority will be as low key as this one with no facilities, no parking, nothing. They’re important, yes, but their importance usually needs researching before you go, and very possibly a hand lens and a degree of patience and imagination.
The same can’t be said of NNRs.
When you arrive at a NNR, It’s usually obvious fairly quickly that it’s something out of the ordinary. That might be because it’s a landscape or an environment you haven’t really seen before….think Glen Roy and its peculiar parallel roads, or the pure otherworldliness of Forsinard Flows, which has a sense of space and light unlike anywhere else in the UK.
Or, more commonly, it might be because it’s one of the largest or most intact examples of its type….in which case it likely still appears unlike anything you’ve seen before. Think Abernethy, with its seemingly endless pine woodland, or Blawhorn Moss, the largest and least disturbed lowland raised bog in the Lothians.
And then of course there are the places where the profusion or diversity of life takes you aback. Those range from the beaky cacophonies of Caerlaverock, Loch Leven and the Isle of May, to the soft green world of Ariundle where every single available surface is covered in a thick mossy cushion.
A few NNRs impress even before you get near them, stirring the imagination and raising your heart rate on the approach. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who has scanned that distinctive profile on approach to Rum and felt a palpable air of adventure settle around me. Or…..and I’m having to use my imagination for this one as I’ve not yet had the pleasure…the ultimate NNR experience, approaching St Kilda in a surging sea. That must be quite something.
NatureScot (formerly SNH – yep, another acronym) ultimately designate NNRs, and their guidance for new candidate sites tellingly describes them as having a ‘wow’ factor. For the most part I’ve certainly found that to be accurate. True, you might not necessarily have much of an understanding of the constituent features of an NNR or know why they are important, but they’re the kinds of places that make an instant impression regardless. Even the small ones.
I think we’d all agree that Scotland is a special place, but in a national context around 2% of it is very special. The best of the best. The kinds of places that don’t really look like most of the rest of Scotland. – large areas of broadleaf woodland, even larger areas of scots pine forest, massive lowland raised bogs, absolutely enormous blanket bogs, vast coastal dune systems, verdant gorges and concentrated wildlife spectacles. The NNR tag is therefore something of a Kitemark for natural heritage: ‘the best places to see the best of nature’.
It’s actually 70 years since the first National Nature Reserve in Scotland (and indeed the UK) was declared. In the post-war flurry of progressive legislation came the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, which paved the way for National Nature Reserves to be designated, and among the first candidate sites was Coille na Glas Leitir, the largest remnant pine woodland in Northwest Scotland.
It’s believed to have been in constant existence for 8000 years, and many of its trees are 400 years old. It’s a pretty special place by anyone’s standards, and so in November 1951 the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve was born. Among the first batch to follow were Loch Leven, Loch Lomond, Isle of May, Forvie, Caerlaverock, Morton Lochs, Hermaness, Noss, Rum and St Kilda.
The guiding principles and qualifying criteria have understandably changed a bit over 70 years after various reviews, but very generally they have always boiled down to the sites being of national importance, where the primary land use is conservation rather than some other land use such as agriculture or forestry. That aspect in particular sets NNRs well aside from SSSIs, the latter often managed primarily for reasons other than conservation.
But those criteria in themselves aren’t sufficient. How the land is managed, and how likely a conservation-minded approach is to endure, are also key. Management for nature therefore has to be stable and sustainable, with a long-term vision that ensures continuity.
Management can change for better or worse, and for that reason NNRs have in the past found themselves expanding or shrinking accordingly. Corrie Fee NNR in the Angus Glens is a case in point. It was originally part of Caenlochan NNR, declared in 1961 as one of first such reserves in Scotland, but the deer densities on most of the massif were so high that the very qualities the NNR was brought in to protect, were being degraded. It was therefore de-declared in 2005, leaving only Corrie Fee as a tiny remnant of a much larger reserve, 22 times smaller than what it was. Caenlochan and Canness Glens are still special of course, they’re just no longer considered to be ‘the best of the best’.
Because of this, and because of changing guidance and criteria, the number of NNRs seems to fluctuate even more than the number of munros. Today, there are…..I’m fairly certain…..43 in Scotland, the most recent inductees being two properties owned and managed by the National Trust for Scotland – Glencoe and Mar Lodge Estate. Mar Lodge actually became the UK’s largest NNR, comprising about 8% of the entire Cairngorms National Park. At the other end of the scale is Corrieshalloch, at just 7 hectares in size.
NatureScot owns and manages more than half of the NNRs, while the rest are owned by a mix of government organisations, privately-owned estates and charities. Nature doesn’t respect operational boundaries of course, so there will often be several landowners contributing to the management of an NNR. That can be a advantage though, if pooling resources with neighbours means you’re able to effect change on a much bigger scale than you could do by yourself. The Great Trossachs Forest, declared in 2015, is a great example – where the RSPB, Forest & Land Scotland and the Woodland Trust have embarked on a joint 200 year plan to restore and enhance habitats on a landscape-scale.
Importantly though, the key thing that marks NNRs out from other sites designated for their natural heritage is the visitor experience. Yes, NNRs are designated primarily to protect special natural features, but what the visiting public can see, and how it makes them feel, has become increasingly important in recent years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, people didn’t really feature in the early notions of what National Nature Reserves were for. An NNR badge is potentially problematic in that you want to protect what you have, and hopefully further improve it, but you don’t want to harm it by increasing its profile so much that you damage the very things that make it special. It can be a challenge for land managers to figure out the best, least harmful way of doing that, but it tends to be done by cannily using trails or facilities to shepherd people where you want them to go, to places where they’ll get a taste of the reserve, and steering them away from the bits most susceptible to inadvertent damage.
It stands to reason, therefore, that not every potential candidate for NNR status would be suitable for the badge, because not all of our precious nature sites could withstand being turned into visitor attractions. Some are perhaps too small, too susceptible to damage by visitors or too inaccessible to be able to offer a quality visitor experience. But NatureScot’s revised guidelines for candidate NNRs clearly show the direction of travel, saying that candidate sites must:
Be suitable for presentation or demonstration of features in an appropriate way to the public…..and be likely to inspire people to value and enjoy Scotland’s natural environment.
That last sentence is really important. Freeman Tilden, the father of environmental interpretation said way back in 1957:
“Through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection”
That is to say, if people aren’t aware, they won’t care. And if you don’t tell people why something is special, if you don’t tell them why they should care, then they won’t take positive action such as volunteering or donating, taking up membership of a conservation charity, signing petitions, writing to their MSP, or even something as simple as telling their friends. Few would deny that people are more likely to do all those things if they can see and experience amazing things, special places, for themselves.
People are therefore key to NNRs, and these days if you’re after an NNR designation, or if you have one already, you’ll be expected to put something in place that a) tells people why it’s special and b) enables them to interact with it on some level. In most cases therefore, you will find at least some provision for visitors that enables people to get into the reserve and see and understand why it’s important. That could range from full-blown visitor centres at places like Glencoe, volunteer workdays at Flanders Moss, or short self-guided walks with light-touch interpretation, such as at Knockan Crag.
At Glasdrum the facilities were low key, and I can’t deny I was immediately delighted when I pulled in to find the tiny car park completely empty! The site itself turned out to be a relatively small area of ancient woodland stretching 2km along Loch Creran. Its only trail was a mere 1km in length but I spent two hours on it, relishing the late autumn colour of the oaks, the gnarled trunks and branches, the texture of the canopy, the tumbling burns and waterfalls, and the sense of friendly calm you get from a healthy broadleaf woodland – that sense that all is well. The sun even came out for all of 20 seconds. It was the perfect stopover.
Glasdrum also turned out be my 30th Scottish NNR, although I can’t say I’d ever consciously thought about how many I’d visited till writing this column. But now that I have, I’m seriously pondering how to go about ‘bagging’ the other 13. They’re spread all over the place, from Cairnsmore of Fleet to Glen Nant to Staffa and Shetland. I’m surprised to find I’ve never stopped off at Corrieshalloch, and at the top of the wishlist is of course St Kilda. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it all the way out there, but here’s hoping.
What’s certain is that I do find myself gravitating more towards our National Nature Reserves these days purely because I want to spend more of my time in dynamic, interesting environments. Places where natural processes are allowed to flourish, where optimism holds sway rather than the uniform, close-cropped, nibbled sogginess that constitutes much of the rest of the country.
Okay maybe that’s a little harsh, but in that sense NNRs truly are the showrooms for an alternative, more environmentally minded Scotland. They offer us a taste of what a restored, greener, less environmentally degraded country could look like. But in order for us to get there we need to be aware, and we need to care. So the next time you’re looking for an outdoorsy day out, why not consider an NNR? And if you like what you see, please, tell your friends!
My Top Five Showrooms
Mar Lodge Estate – Having been a seasonal ranger here for two years, I admittedly have a natural bias towards it….but it’s a seriously uplifting place. Deer densities on this Cairngorms estate have been reduced to a level where eager seedlings and saplings, normally nibbled away as soon as they pop their heads above heather height, are reaching towards the sky with a confidence that lifts the soul. This is ecological restoration on a landscape scale.
Ariundle – 420 times smaller than Mar Lodge, this remnant of the Atlantic rainforest near Strontian is impossibly green. The place drips with moss and lichens, although the oak woodland isn’t quite as natural as it first appears, having been sustainably managed to provide charcoal for iron smelting. I visited on a very soggy autumn day, which is best for moss as it brings out the green. I got sutterly soaked too, but I wouldn’t have had my ‘rainforest’ experience any other way.
Beinn Eighe – This is where it all began, but the pine woodland here is a real stunner, especially on soggy days when mist clings to the steep canopy like a tropical jungle. It has the benefit of the UK’s only waymarked mountain trail, an alpine style experience, and a walk here gives you a real sense of climbing up through climatic zones as you pass from loch shore to mountain-top, through the forest. Stunning.
Isle of May. A visit to this wee island in the Forth is usually time-constrained due to boat timetables, but however long you have, it never seems to be enough. That’s hardly surprising when you share the space with several hundred thousand breeding seabirds, including 80,000 puffins. Every square metre seems to be occupied in summer, so any visit is a memorable, if pungent experience.
Forsinard Flows. There’s nowhere else like it in the UK. A vast area of blanket bog, peppered with sparkling lochans of all sizes, where even modest wee hills loom above the pancake-flat landscape like giants. In January 2020 I took the lonely train over the bog from Forsinard to Altnabreac, and then walked the 10 miles back to Forsinain on the excellent (but perhaps not so great on your feet) tracks. Perhaps a better one to cycle? Either way, the sense of space could be both uplifting or terrifying, depending on your point of view.