HOW very sad to see Carol Evans of the Woodland Trust supporting the RSPB aim of planting 100,000 trees in and around Abernethy Forest in the Cairngorms (Letters, April 15).
It is time that both began to respect the Old Caledonian Pinewoods (OCPs), to accept that this woodland should be replenished by natural regeneration as it has been since the last Ice Age. Planting trees in this location is landscape gardening on a massive scale, not conserving our natural heritage. There is plenty of bare land elsewhere.
The RSPB raised more than £1m to purchase Abernethy in the 1980s with a commitment to natural regeneration, not planting. It agreed to support the process of natural evolution. Its own surveys show the forest is expanding naturally, with no need for intervention except grazing control.
There is ample regeneration, even of broadleaved species which are inhibited by adverse soil conditions and browsing.
Why plant? I hope it is not to raise finance; nature can do it better at a fraction of the cost.
Such drastic intervention is claimed necessary to connect the Abernethy and Glenmore OCPs, but they are already joined through the magnificent Pass of Ryvoan. It is also said that it will speed up the natural spread of trees, but this is sheer impatience.
Shame on the statutory authorities - Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland, and Cairngorms National Park Authority - which did not object to this proposal, despite it being contrary to their stated policies on the primacy of nature in such direct descendants of the ancient boreal forest.
If a conservation body such as RSPB cannot respect natural evolution and resist intervention in a designated national nature reserve, what hope is there for the rest of our ancient forest heritage?
One cannot restore a natural forest by unnatural intervention.
Basil Dunlop,
Ben A'an,
Grantown.
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