Trees and Wildlife in the Scottish Uplands.

Abstract

Institute of Tree Biology and the Culture Centre of Algae and Protozoa. ITE contributes to, and draws upon, the collective knowledge of the 14 sister institutes which make up the Natural Environment Research Council, spanning all the environmental sciences.The Institute studies the factors determining the structure, composition and processes of land and freshwater systems, and of individual plant and animal species. It is developing a sounder scientific basis for predicting and modelling environmental trends arising from natural or man-made change. The results of this research are available to those responsible for the protection, management and wise use of our natural resources.One quarter of ITE's work is research commissioned by customers, such as the Department of Environment, the Commission of the European Communities, the Nature Conservancy Council and the Overseas Development Administration. The remainder is fundamental research supported by NERC. Preface Forestry and its effects on our countryside are very much in the news. The concern of Scottish ecologists was expressed through the organization of at least 3 conferences during November and early December 1985. Our meeting is just one of them. It is nonetheless timely, and it brings together a wider range of people than the other 2 meetings. The first, organized by the Scottish Ornithologists' Club, discussed the interactions of commercial forestry with birds. The second, under the auspices of the Countryside Commission for Scotland, was concerned mainly with broadleaved trees. We are concerned with wider aspects, including both birds and broadleaved trees, although primarily with conifer plantations in the Scottish uplands. However, it is impossible to consider the impact of any aspect of afforestation in isolation; forestry in the Scottish uplands is not a separate industry from forestry in the lowlands, and the industry is international.The concern of foresters to integrate their management policy with the requirements of the rest of the rural community is obvious. The new policy of the Forestry Commission with regard to broadleaved trees has arisen at least partly as a result of public concern. The economic demand for more home-produced timber may be satisfied only by planting up open hillsides and spoiling views which many people have come to regard as part of their heritage. It may be necessary, though this is still unproven, to afforest part of the habitat of upland birds which are rare in Britain. Decisions on some of these points may be political, but the widespread public concern remains. This concern is about integrating the need for timber with maintaining the richness of the Scottish upland countryside, of which the forests are very much a part. Nature conservationists and animal and plant ecologists already haye a great deal of practical knowledge on the management of semi-natural habitats, but their knowledge of the fauna of commercial forests is, in some cases, not as great as they would wish. The purpose of this meeting is to bring toge...