Nature travel company banks Loch Lomond estate for growing temperate rainforest

Hampshire-based NatureTrek acquired the 3,609-acre Stuckendroin Estate in August last year. Founded in 1986 by David Mills, the company has long specialised in small-group expeditions that combine tourism with conservation, taking travellers around the world to visit habitat restoration and wildlife projects.

Now, in a move that reflects a wider shift within the industry, the company says it is “investing the profits from 40 years of operating wildlife holidays” in buying estates to protect existing habitats and restore degraded landscapes. Stuckendroin, which now has a 200-year-long nature plan, is its first landholding in the UK.

Read more: Why removing sheep off Scotland's uplands could hinder climate goals

The estate had previously supported 250 breeding Cheviot ewes, which have now left the hills along with the former farm manager. Previous owners also had 248 acres of native broadleaf woodland planted as part of the Rural Priorities Woodland Scheme in 2012.

Recent surveys commissioned by Nature Trek and published by Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) identified areas of “excellent rainforest habitat”. The site was divided into three main sections, with 11 rainforest indicator species recorded on one and 25 on each of the other two.

Read more: Former west coast landfill site discovered to be temperate rainforest

These include bryophytes, of which the liverworts were pseudomarsipidium decipiens, plagiochila heterophylla and leptoscyphus cuneifolius, alongside the filmy fern hymenophyllum wilsonii and a range of lichens.

Temperate rainforest depends on high levels of rainfall and relatively little variation between summer and winter temperatures.

“Those are the two main climate factors that make it suitable for it to grow and what creates the oceanic, or hyper-oceanic, zone,” said Natalie Cozzolino, a project lead at the LLTNPA.

“Any native woodland that falls within that zone is, or has the potential to become, rainforest.”

Ms Cozzolino said rainforest indicators found at Stuckendroin are small in size and are at risk of disappearing altogether as there is no, or limited, natural woodland regeneration occurring.

Threats identified in the survey include browsing by herbivores, extensive bracken and the spread of non-native rhododendron across the wider landscape.

The report concluded: “This site should be given priority status to allow expansion of the existing seed sources into open areas dominated by bracken and into areas beyond the livestock fence. If the deer browsing is not reduced this woodland will not regenerate. The canopy is an open one with mature/post mature trees and no understory, therefore action here is critical.”

Ms Cozzolino added: “It doesn’t look like a temperate rainforest at the moment because of human pressure or herbivore pressure.

“But given time and removal of these pressures, it will start to look more like temperate rainforest you see in places further west than here.”

According to the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest (ASR) — a partnership of more than 25 organisations including RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and community groups — Scotland is home to about 30,000 hectares of temperate rainforest, an area slightly larger than Edinburgh. Another woodland, which developed on a former landfill site at nearby Holy Loch, has recently been designated as temperate rainforest.

NatureTrek is in discussions with a Scottish charity about managing the site on the company’s behalf.

Although the estate remains accessible under Scotland’s right-to-roam legislation, it is not intended to become a visitor attraction. Instead, there are plans for it to serve as a centre for education and volunteer work focused on temperate rainforest restoration. A farmhouse on the estate is intended for a future site manager, while a cottage will accommodate visiting guests.

Dom Hall, future nature development manager at the LLTNPA, said a long-term management plan is still being developed following the change of ownership.

The estate has a history of efforts to improve the condition of a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which Mr Hall said had suffered under sustained pressure from deer and sheep grazing.

“The overall herbivore pressure across the national park is too high,” he said.

Earlier this year, the LLTNPA put forward a new five-year herbivore management plan with suggestions of launching its own Loch Lomond venison brand as a way of reducing deer numbers. Park officials warned about a third of its designated natural areas are in “unfavourable” condition.

Mr Hall compared Stuckendroin’s future to look potentially like areas of nearby Great Trossachs Forest. The 16,500 or so hectares was home to sheep farming before being taken over by a partnership with three main landowners: Woodland Trust Scotland, RSPB Scotland and Forestry and Land Scotland. Farming still exists on the site, but focuses on conservation grazing. A small sheep flock is kept for grazing 24 research plots that are part of a long running experiment set up to monitor how changing grazing regimes affect upland ecosystems.

“There will be grazing brought back to Stuckendroin,” he said. “Just not yet, and it will likely be cattle when that happens.”

Elsewhere, Nature Trek owns a cloudforest in Ecuador and built a ‘cloudforest corridor’ between two Andean national parks. The company also owns a forest in the Apennines where it is assisting an association of volunteers with their focus on the conservation of large carnivores.

Scotland’s temperate rainforest areas hit headlines after a fungus that turns spiders into “zombies”, made famous by the video game and hit TV show The Last of Us, was found in the 45,000-hectare West Cowal restoration area, which includes remnant and fragmented temperate rainforest.

Once the fungus, Gibellula, attaches on to a host, it eats the spider from the inside out leaving the exoskeleton whole. Its takes over and spread its spores to ensnare the next victim.

In the Bafta award-winning television adaptation of The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal, humans are transformed into violent zombie-like creatures by a fungal infection inspired by Cordyceps. Over time the infected mutate into “clickers”, blind predators whose faces are split open by mushroom-like fungal growths.