South Assynt Project

Written By Jenny Tweedie

This is a 30-year collaboration between the Assynt Foundation and the Woodland Trust (WT), seeking to support community wellbeing and livelihoods through ecosystem interventions at landscape scale.

The 18,400ha Glencanisp and Drumrunie estates contain an important mosaic of habitats, including roughly 300-500ha of the most northerly rainforest remnants in Scotland’s rainforest zone. These threatened woods are in mixed condition, both degraded and fragmented. Other habitats including montane and riparian woodland, heath and open moorland, peat bogs, lochs, streams and rock, characterise the wider landscape.

Project aims

  • This project will protect, restore and expand a range of habitats, particularly woodland, including temperate rainforest remnants.

  • The team will work with the ASR Lichen and Bryophyte Specialist to establish the necessary initial baseline data and annual top-line progress information working towards tackling the main threats.

  • The project team contains a range of specialists from WT’s Outreach, Estates, Conservation and Communications teams, and others, and seeks to ensure project planning, implementation, monitoring and maintenance are undertaken to high standards.

  • We aim to learn from others, including Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest projects, and be open to new approaches and techniques to achieve the best long-term, sustainable outcomes for ecological regeneration across Assynt’s land, and in our work with neighbours.

Project partners

  • Assynt foundation

  • Woodland Trust

For more information contact:

Elaine Macaskill​​​​, Landscape Partnership Manager (Assynt)

03437705508

ElaineMacaskill@woodlandtrust.org.uk

Jenny Tweedie
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Regenerating Craignish rainforest