New hope in the Highlands: Estate battles to breathe new life into Scots wild lands

The drive from Braemar to Mar Lodge in the Cairngorms following the River Dee is impressive, especially if it’s some time since you have been. A visible transformation is apparent right now.

On this gusty morning, bruised clouds chase across a brooding sky as sunlight battles to peek through.

In the courtyard of Mar Lodge silence reigns where just a few months earlier the frenetic, chattering house martins were dipping and diving from nests under the eaves, and the cacophony of jackdaws in a redundant chimney mingled with the gentle songs of willow warblers.

“What would you most like to see?” says Mar Lodge’s conservation officer, Andrew Painting. He laughs when my response is the narrow-headed ant, and we begin a tour of just some of the estate.

The National Trust for Scotland acquired Mar Lodge in 1995. At 300 square kilometres (115 square miles) and with 15 Munros – Scotland’s mountains over 914m (3,000ft) – including four of the highest in the country, it is a place of superlatives.

“Yes, it’s big,” Andrew says, a glorious understatement. “It would take three days for a fit person to walk the estate’s boundaries.

“The ultimate aim here has always been a symbiosis between environmental conservation, Highland sport and open access for all. This is no quick fix – it’s a 200-year vision. To understand the Highlands, you must first understand two species – the Scots pine and the red deer. Both have existed on Mar Lodge for 8,000 years, but things have since altered.”

This is one of the coldest and windiest parts of the country. Indeed, Braemar frequently records the lowest temperatures. It also contains the most significant area of subarctic habitat in the UK and is the largest nature reserve in Scotland.

As sun wins over cloud shadow, the landscape with its burgeoning mosaic of bog and arboreal cover might seem heavenly – yet, to reach this point, there have been hard decisions, controversy and conflict.

“This is a contested place, damaged by difficulties that blight the nature of Scotland and continue to divide its people. I think it’s changing now, though, and communication with neighbouring landowners and the local community is good.

“Mar Lodge sits in the middle of environmental restoration – and we need to retain a hybrid management approach. For now, these woods need a chance, so we have had to cut back our deer. Yet the woods need deer, so they’ll be back.

“Our model for stalking is simple. We want to maintain a comparatively small herd of around 1,500 and to be able to offer a high-quality stalking experience in a healthy ecosystem. This way, there is no impact on financial income and significant ecological benefits. Stalking here is of the old school.”

Perhaps one of the most challenging issues with conserving and regenerating Scotland’s majestic landscapes is persuading people to recognise that there is a problem in the first place.

Shifting baseline syndrome has much to answer for – many still believe our bare, open landscapes are the norm. For Andrew, this is not only about regeneration, but also about redemption and reconnection.

“We don’t come to nature as impartial observers – we all have an emotional and cultural attachment to all life with which we share the Earth.”

It’s also important to recognise that everyone has a different agenda. I witness that the Mar Lodge model is, indeed, different. Stalking and walked-up grouse shooting continues, the public is actively encouraged and yet wildlife is flourishing – visibly.

For tree lovers, there can be no more dramatic and impressive species than the Scots pines of the Cairngorms.

We stop to admire an extraordinary Scots pine – reputed to be the second-biggest in Scotland. “It’s nearing the end of its life,” says Andrew as we stand beneath the behemoth next to massive fallen boughs that are as vast as mature trees.

We talk of the tree’s vital relationship with other species – birds, including woodpeckers, invertebrates, and red squirrels, and how its fissures and crannies provide roosting sites for pipistrelle bats, treecreepers and dozens of microorganisms, rare mosses and lichens.

We discuss its vast, unseen underground root network, its mycelial connections spreading wide and communicating with every living thing around it. We also talk about the paramount importance of dead wood.

Before the National Trust for Scotland bought the estate, the far shorter-lived birch had also come to the end of the line. We laugh as we discuss its dramatic takeover bid as dozens of pushy young trees scrape across the vehicle’s flanks.

We stop to see a nest of the fabulous rare narrow-headed ant –only found in five locations in Scotland and one in England. I am in heaven.

The golden eagles are holding their own and, for the first time, sea eagles nest on the estate, too.

Later we watch the ethereal grey-white gleam of a male hen harrier quartering the moorland above the river.

“So, you see,” says Andrew, “you can have grouse shooting and hen harriers, and we no longer carry out muirburn – the burning of grasslands and heather to provide fresh growth.”

Though public access is actively encouraged, campfires are not. We stop at Derry Lodge and Andrew clears up the ash of a camper’s fire.

“Peat can go on burning underground for days, and a ring of stones is no protection. Leaving this might encourage others to do the same.

“Nothing will ever be perfect, and it’s OK to admit it. But we’re blinkered if we don’t accept that by not managing for one specific species, overall, things do far better. People don’t realise the seriousness of the climate crisis, so we need to build resilience into the landscape and complex habitats, which is what we are doing here.

“For me, the real power of Mar Lodge Estate is not in the amount of wildlife or carbon it holds but in the example of ecological restoration that it sets to other Highland estates.

“So when I wrote my book – Regeneration, I realised that the social and political complexities of the ‘Mar Lodge experience’ were just as significant to discuss as the successes.”

Aged just 32, Andrew Painting has wisdom beyond his years. I witness his excitement as we find a new stand of healthy young aspens on the riverbanks, and he shows me the rare mountain sorrel growing on the shingle.

He has been working on the estate since 2016, and is now hefted to this place with a deep holistic understanding of how to tackle the numerous challenges the estate faces.

Indeed, Mar Lodge represents an optimistic future of how Scotland’s wild lands might begin to recover.