Reforesting Scotland / Planting Trees / Rewilding Britain / Trees for life

[Music] so so we're on isle martin which is now a community-owned island when i first came here 33 years ago it was owned by the rspb and then they handed it over to the community in 99. before that there hadn't been anyone really living here permanently for many years but at one point there were about 100 people living here it's had a whole history of things happening here on the island it's quite rich historically but for me the most interesting thing is is the woodland regeneration and the soil building that has happened since all the livestock were removed over 30 years ago there aren't any deer on the island there were rabbits for many years they were introduced in the 50s and they're now on any rabbit so it's quite unique in that there is no grazing pressure here at all so when i first came to the island there were scarcely any trees here at all there was a like an old birch up on the cliff and a few small rain on the north cliff and but that was it so we just started planting uh and now there is birch woodland there's oak hazel ash holly about 30 different native trees and shrubs here all building the soil and providing habitat and firewood for anyone who's here i saw a tree creeper on one of the trees the other day there were there were hardly any birds except a few grand nesting birds the odd meadow pipette and skylark and and now there's like there's all the tree woodland species some wood warbler willow warbler tree creepers and just much much more rich and diverse i would suggest that we take a wonder through the woods and see what uh see what little trees that we can find what this was like was just rushes and coarse grass and it really didn't look as if anything could grow here and now we're walking through this sheltered woodland with green wild cherry bird cherry willow holly i'm gobsmacked i get a thrill every time i walk through here because you just know it's the right thing to do to plant trees you just know it is but you kind of don't really picture being able to walk under them and for your children to walk under them this is one of the first trees that we planted and it's a it's a downy birch which is the native birch here and we actually even have to plant tiny birches um often in places they're weak considered a weed and this was before about 33 years ago it was before the invention of tree tubes plastic tubes any of these that are modern guards so we had to make all our own guards from rabbit netting cutting them up and burying them at ground level because the pressure of the rabbits was so intense that they would just eat every single thing so this tree is now setting seed um very readily and we can go around taking the guards off now because there are now no longer any rabbits on the island um we used plastic tree tubes as they developed um to stop then rabbits eating the trees so they're just short tubes and they were especially designed uh with a rolled top which stops the edge of the tube cutting into the tree here and then they've got cable ties which you'd fasten really really tight around your stake these are nice chestnut stakes still got some strength in them but you don't put the cable tie around the tube so this needs to be removed because there is no grazing here anymore and before it grows into the tree this tree is small enough that we can just slip it up over the top for the tree these tubes are actually designed to split naturally but you still end up with a heap of plastic um that then disintegrates into the environment so i choose not to use tree tubes anymore when i see land that doesn't have trees uh you know even even growing land like the the agricultural land if there aren't trees around i just feel that there's something missing there's a layer missing um and so seeing this the trees grow here it just feels like there's a real healing taking place now that there's the woodland here and the island has you know has got a greater capacity for you know other things to happen on the island you know we could just bit by bit reintroduce a grazing animal which could help keep some of the grassland down which improves it for say the resident population of uh greylag geese and which like short grass and and certain certain species you know actually like short grass uh there's now firewood on the island there's now materials for for crafts and for um you know even timber for for buildings for rebuilding some of the old croft houses in their authentic way i think nothing better you can do than plant trees it's you just know that it's going to be beneficial to somebody sometime and it's certainly good for the planet it's good for the soil it's good for wildlife and you just know you can fanta even if you don't have your own piece of land you can phantom plant a tree you can just take it out somewhere where you know it's not going to get eaten or chopped down or not going to get in somebody's way and just go out and plant it on a little cliff along a roadside and you just know that that tree is growing away and growing away it's fixing carbon and it's growing away it might be set fruit for somebody someday you know if you can do fruiting trees all the better somebody can come along and eat eat the fruit but whatever you do plant trees [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh

Channel: LOVE IT TV - Nature, health, ethics and the arts

Views: 60,633

Rating: 4.968164 out of 5

Keywords: Rewilding, George Monbiot, Reforesting, Scotland, Tree Planting, How to plant a tree, Trees for life, Rewilding Britain, Daniel Dobbie, Angelfish Films, angelfishfilms.com, Reforesting Scotland, Findhorn, Ecology, Permaculture, Geoff Lawton, Edible Garden, Creating an edible Garden, How to create your own forest, Wildlife Trust, RSPB

Id: QBHA8ZqhI_k

Length: 7min 12sec (432 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2017