Fit hill-walkers needed to help in the re-establishment of mountain woodland in the Moffat Hills

Tuesday volunteers and a special weekend high camp on 17th and 18^th February, and 19^th and 20^th May  2007.

Can you spare some time during the coming year to join a group of dedicated volunteers planting trees and helping the Carrifran Project Officer with other work?

      We are looking for additional volunteers, prepared to make a strenuous but rewarding trip up to Firth Hope several times during the planting season. This high level planting is weather dependent, but volunteers are always needed for other demanding tasks in the valley. If you cannot come on Tuesdays we can discuss the possibility of trips on Saturdays or other days.

      This group, usually meeting every Tuesday, will play a key role in the re-establishment of native woodland at over two thousand feet in Firth Hope, above the waterfall at the northern point of Carrifran valley. Other days can be arranged, and help with transport might be available.

       We meet at the car park at 10am, and it takes between 20 and 90 minutes to reach planting sites, between 600 and 2500 ft. We provide tools, training, health and safety briefing. You need good mountain clothing and food and water for a day, and overnight gear including a tent for the special February and May events.

Why plant high up?

The main planting at Carrifran has been below the heather line at about 450 m (1500ft).  The Wildwood Group has always been aware, however, that natural forests in Scotland reached much higher levels.

There is now little trace of the original mountain woodland, extending up to a treeline zone where high forest gave way to contorted dwarf trees and shrubs and eventually to montane heath. This woodland has been destroyed by millennia of human activity, so that no-one really knows what it was like. Carrifran extends to the summit of White Coomb, which at 821 m (2700 ft) is the fourth highest point in the Southern Uplands, so we have a unique opportunity to try to re-create an authentic treeline zone. With this in mind, we have been studying historical records, topography and soils, and raising stocks of juniper, birch, rowan, aspen and willows to plant in Firth Hope.

Firth Hope is a hanging valley above our spectacular waterfall, and in 2007 we aim to plant 700 juniper and 2,300 other species of native trees as the first step in restoring the ‘wee trees’ to the Moffat Hills.

We are especially grateful to the SCOTTISH MOUNTAINEERING TRUST for their assistance in funding the airlift of materials to the site – otherwise we would have had to carry them!

Contact:

Hugh Chalmers, Project Officer

Tel: 01835 830760 / 07821374592

email: hugh@bordersforesttrust.org

or

Philip Ashmole, Project Co-ordinator

Tel: 01721 721321 

email: philip@ashmole.org.uk