We were deeply saddened to hear that Donald Kennedy passed away on 26 August, aged 72. Well known within ASR circles for developing the Lever and Mulch technique, Donald was an early advocate for the importance of rhododendron control and a passionate supporter of rainforest restoration. Alasdair Firth, who worked closely with Donald, reflects on his life.
Each stone in a drystone wall rests on two others. Stones above hold down those below through gravity, tying the wall together. The base is a solid foundation, bedrock or subsoil, preventing the wall slipping or slumping.
Donald Kennedy was a wall-builder, but he was also a foundation stone. As well as walls, he built the community around him. He founded groups like Morvern Heritage Society (of which he was the first chair), and Morvern Community Woodlands (of which he was a founding member and director for 13 years).
He had a deep understanding of the complexity of nature, and the complicated relationships between people and nature and animals, between rock and earth and soil. He had the patience to persevere. And when his patience ran out, which it sometimes did, he had the wisdom to inspire and support other people to follow his lead and continue his legacy.
I'd met Donald many times before, but I first worked closely with him in 2014. He'd been commissioned by the Woodland Trust to look at connectivity in Morvern's woodlands - I think the original idea was probably his own. I was working in a partnership project with the Woodland Trust at the time, as an Native Woodland Restoration advisor, but had also done a lot of surveys in the area.
Although we both knew the woods well, it was the bits of land between them that were most interesting; the gaps around the coastline of the peninsula where trees were missing or had been lost.
We spent some days circumnavigating Morvern, by car and on foot. We spent a lot of time looking and talking. We didn't write any notes. But following our field visits Donald's report grew longer and longer and every time I went to talk to him he had more papers and reports on his desk to add as references, he had more ideas to add and eventually he had started writing footnotes to his footnotes.
This became the source of much consternation and beard pulling on Donald's part and some gentle teasing on my own. To the extent that, when Donald stepped down from Morvern Community Woodlands, Sam (my partner) and I wrote a whole play about Donald and his report which was performed in the woods complete with Veronique playing Donald using lichen for a beard and Gordon French as the front end of a pantomime stag.
I wrote up a short report, most of which was a summary of the conversations we'd had. And a couple of years later I wrote the 'Into Morvern's Woods' book to help raise funds for the community woodlands, which was based on the same idea of a circumnavigation of the peninsula (plus the bits in the middle).
Donald's actual woodland report was never finished, but later we went down to Loch Lomond for a meeting with the RSPB, which was the start of wider interest in some of the ideas we'd developed, and the seed for the current 'Saving Morvern's Rainforest' RSPB project.
Donald was the warden of the Scottish Wildlife Trust Rahoy Hills reserve for many years, and came to understand the way grazing animals and the natural habitats interact.
He determinedly advocated reductions in density of grazing sheep and deer long before this was accepted, or acceptable. He drove forward the use of chemical free ways of growing trees, with Maggie and their organic tree nursery, and they provided hundreds of thousands of trees for native woodland projects for nearly 40 years.
With Gordon French he pioneered the organic Lever & Mulch method of removing rhododendron ponticum. He wrote papers on the importance of deer in woodland ecology and he supported Ardtornish Estate to become more sustainable in their deer management. His many innovative ideas were informed by keen observation of nature and people and the knowledge that doing things with care and attention to detail are what makes it all work.
Many West Highland walls and many West Highland trees are standing because of him. Many foundations have been laid and many seeds planted that are still to grow and flower; long after we are all forgotten the land will remember him.
