FLS ecology intern Rossina Parvanova took the new image of the forest area from Ryvoan Pass, which shows how the woodland has expanded since 1984. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom Cameron, Area Wildlife Manager, North Region, Forestry and Land Scotland said: \u201cThe photo shows the Green Lochan and Glenmore, which has some of the oldest woodland we have in the UK. It\u2019s truly a very special place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the 1984 photo, you can see the trees were sparse with limited regeneration and vegetation growth. That was down to deer trampling and grazing on vegetation and new shoots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Restoration of the Caledonian Pine woodland has continued since the early 90s: non-native conifers were removed and deer management increased. This reduced browsing pressure and allowed the natural regeneration of native pinewood species.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n Deer damage forests in various ways – stripping trees of bark leaves the trees more prone to disease, eating young trees and preventing them from growing and trampling stops vegetation growth, harms the soil and ruins other forest habitats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Deer have no natural predators in Scotland, so FLS carries out sustainable deer management practices to manage populations, halt the loss of biodiversity and achieve land management objectives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ryvoan pass photos show how sustained, considered deer management can help restore forests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom said: \u201cRyvoan Pass has regenerated itself incredibly well in the absence of deer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can see the Caledonian pine has expanded back up the hillside, accompanied by the associated native broadleaf species such as willow, rowan and birch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t added or planted anything here – nature did this all by herself once we increased deer management efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n FLS, along with the site\u2019s adjoining neighbours, used culls to reduce the deer population and avoided using deer fencing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom said: \u201cDeer fencing has its place, but it\u2019s visually intrusive, can restrict access and can have an impact on other wildlife – the endangered capercaillie can fly into it, for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt can also displace deer from one area of land or another and create or magnify issues relating to high deer population levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDeer culls are a necessary part of managing Scotland\u2019s forests and keeping their ecological balance in check. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese photos show how successful that approach can be – we have a native woodland that is now thriving and expanding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walkhighlands route: An Lochan Uaine and Ryvoan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has recreated a 1984 photo of the Ryvoan Pass overlooking the Green Lochan to document the impact of deer management over the past 30 years. The 1984 image was taken by George Dey, a forester who donated his collection of photos to the University of Aberdeen.\u00a0 The caption on the photo states: \u201cLovely high view of the Green Loch at Glenmore Forest. George Dey has made the remark \u2013 no regeneration and it would be interesting to see a present-day view from the same place.\u201d The Ryvoan Pass in the Cairngorms National Park is a…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-conservation","category-walking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27068,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27063\/revisions\/27068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/George-Day-1984-CC-800x539.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/1000001860-800x600.jpg\")
Naturally-restored woodland <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n