Aiming High

Corrour Estate is perhaps best known for its isolated train station, made famous by the iconic scene in the film Trainspotting. This was where Sick Boy, Spud, Tommy and Renton disembarked onto the deserted platform, lining up to survey Leum Uilleim before their half-hearted attempt to enjoy what Tommy insists will be some restorative fresh air.

As they set off across the treeless landscape, Spud soon lags behind. ‘This is not natural!’ he complains. Spud was protesting against Tommy’s enforced route march rather than bemoaning a lack of nature, but in ecological terms, he had a point. Like much of Scotland, Corrour’s natural environment has been degraded by a long history of overgrazing. Happily, things are changing, and if Spud was to return to Corrour today, he’d encounter a landscape in recovery. Here, they’ve chosen to restore nature – true to Renton’s mantra, they’re choosing life.

‘The deer stalking team here at Corrour are definitely the heroes of this story’

Sarah Watts is the Conservation Manager at Corrour Estate, tasked with delivering and monitoring habitat restoration projects. Full of ready laughter and can-do enthusiasm, she is quick to reject the title of ‘conservation champion’, insisting that any such accolades belong to the estate’s team of deer stalkers.

‘The deer stalking team here at Corrour are definitely the heroes of this story,’ Sarah tells me as we pick our way up the northern flank of Chno Dearg. ‘Their work underpins everything we do here. I couldn't do my job without them.’ She stops regularly to inspect young saplings or tall herbs like wild angelica, wood cranesbill and lady’s mantle, stressing that none of the ecological enrichment she’s recording would be possible without the work and knowledge of the estate’s deer stalkers.

‘Our head stalker, Allan MacLeod, knows more about the birds on Corrour than anybody else,’ Sarah tells me. ‘And he’s also a fantastic botanist. He's found incredible plants here, including several new to Corrour and one species new to Scotland. The stalking team gets into the most remote places where nobody else goes, so they've been really helpful collecting seed and cuttings from our rare montane willows too. As well as managing the deer, they’re instrumental to delivering our restoration projects.’

Reflecting on concerns that traditional roles like stalkers and gamekeepers might become less important as estates focus more on environmental objectives and less on sporting ones, Sarah is adamant that the opposite is true. ‘We've actually increased the number of stalkers on Corrour recently, from four to six. We need them to deliver our objectives and that's not going to change, because if the habitats are improving then the fertility of the deer will increase. I can't see us ever being in a situation where we wouldn't need deer stalkers. Even if we do one day have lynx and wolves, I don't think the numbers of large carnivores will ever be enough on their own.’

‘Our head stalker, Allan MacLeod, knows more about the birds on Corrour than anybody else’

Twenty years ago, Corrour had around fifteen deer per square kilometre, creating unsustainable pressure on the environment. Thanks to the efforts of the estate’s growing team of stalkers, that density has been steadily reduced to between one and three deer per square kilometre, allowing the process of nature recovery to begin. But while Sarah acknowledges these headline figures as a ‘useful communication tool’, she doesn’t focus on deer numbers.

‘Here at Corrour, we’ve not been particularly driven to achieve an arbitrary density of deer across the estate,’ she explains. ‘It’s really all about the habitat response. If we're seeing the right habitat improvements, we know we’re on the right track.’ The suggestion is that one day, if the environment allows, higher deer numbers might be sustainable again, but crucially, that depends on a lot more than just trees.

‘We’ve not been particularly driven to achieve an arbitrary density of deer’

‘Reducing deer numbers helps peatlands because it reduces trampling, which can cause erosion,’ explains Sarah. Peatlands are vital allies in the global fight against climate change, storing vast amounts of carbon, but while peatland restoration efforts are gathering pace in Scotland – with the poor condition of many peatlands linked to a combination of misguided draining, inappropriate burning and heavy overgrazing – current restoration efforts will count for nothing unless they are accompanied by responsible deer management.

None of this means that all grazing is unwelcome. ‘There's this common misconception that ecologists like me might be really excited about trees and see deer as a problem, but that's not the case at all,’ explains Sarah. ‘We hugely value our deer. They’re magnificent, iconic large herbivores and grazing is a really important part of the local ecology. It's just about tackling overgrazing rather than grazing itself being a problem.’

‘To completely remove large herbivores using fencing is unnatural’

The importance of grazing is one reason the estate favours reducing deer numbers rather than just excluding them from certain areas using fencing. ‘To completely remove large herbivores using fencing is unnatural,’ says Sarah. ‘Large herbivores cause ground disturbance, creating bare patches, which are fantastic for encouraging regeneration, whereas dense masses of ungrazed vegetation inside a fence can actually make it harder for seedlings to establish.’

Fencing has its uses, especially if your neighbours maintain high numbers of deer or other grazing animals like sheep, but it comes with significant downsides. ‘Fencing compartmentalises nature,’ continues Sarah. ‘Here at Corrour, we try to think more holistically, to enable nature recovery across the whole landscape.’

Their approach seems to be working. ‘There’s been a wide range of ecological benefits on Corrour, far beyond just trees,’ Sarah tells me. ‘With reduced grazing pressure, there's been an exciting pulse of heather growth and we’re also seeing an expansion of grazing-sensitive flowering plants like alpine saw-wort, globeflower and bearberry. Many of these provide a vital food source for insects and small mammals, which in turn support predators higher up the food chain.’

One clear example is the successful breeding of hen harriers on Corrour, recorded by the stalking team for the first time this year. ‘We're convinced this is down to the habitat restoration,’ says Sarah, who points to both the tree regeneration and increased heather growth as key reasons for the raptors’ success.

‘There's definitely a direct link between deer management and the overall increase in wildlife here,’ continues Sarah, who describes how golden eagles bred successfully here for the first time on record in 2023. She’s also recorded an increase in black grouse: ‘They’re a fantastic indicator species because they require quite diverse habitats, but we now see them regularly on the estate.’

As we pass 550 metres above sea level, Sarah squats down to show me what looks like a small and somewhat anonymous shrub, which she identifies as downy willow, one of the montane willows capable of surviving in this harsh upland environment. These trees should form a contiguous belt around our mountains but have become rare in Scotland. ‘Deer management is particularly important for high-altitude trees like mountain birch and the montane willows,’ she explains. ‘They're especially vulnerable to overgrazing and many populations have been pushed completely to inaccessible cliff ledges in Scotland, out of the reach of large herbivores.’

This is what makes this small non-descript tree in front of us remarkable. ‘Where we're sitting just now is really, really exciting,’ says Sarah. ‘Here we're seeing regeneration of our montane willows on the open hill, and we don't see that very often in Scotland.’ Crucially, this success has been achieved without any fencing. ‘We’re relying completely on deer management to ensure they aren’t over-browsed.’

The downy willow appears to be growing well with a mix of other upland tree species including downy birch, eared willow and tea-leaved willow. ‘What's really nice about natural regeneration taking the lead here is that the trees will just naturally grow in the best places for them,’ says Sarah. ‘They find the most suitable soil conditions, forming a lovely mosaic across the landscape.’

To the untrained eye, this fledgling forest is easy to overlook. For now, the montane woodland belt that should hug the contours of Corrour’s six munros looks more like a set of trailing scarves, cascading down the hill along the edges of gullies and burns. But seen through Sarah’s eyes, it’s clear that this is changing as the trees spread out and the forest begins to wrap around the hill – thanks to the ongoing efforts of the estate’s dedicated deer stalkers.

‘The future looks very exciting,’ smiles Sarah. ‘Right now we're still at the beginning of the journey here at Corrour, witnessing the early days of natural generation. But when you climb up through these landscapes and see the high densities of seedlings coming through, a kind of knee-high, forest-in-waiting, you can picture what it might look like in ten, twenty, or thirty years’ time. And that brings a lot of hope.’