Land Healers
Feeling penned in by the frantic nature of life in the city, Andrew and Jess Spence moved north to Sutherland, where they’ve embarked on an ambitious rewilding journey that involves the whole family.
Perched above Loch Shin in Sutherland, Jess and Andrew’s timber-clad home commands panoramic views of regenerating woodland to the south and the distinctive mountains of Assynt to the west. To the north lies the Flow Country, the largest blanket bog in Europe, while at the head of the loch, in the middle distance, a tumbling burn attracts spawning salmon every autumn and, in some years, congregations of feasting sea eagles.
Jess and Andrew moved to East Overscaig in late 2020, eager to escape their city lives and embrace a wilder future. Cooped up in their Glasgow flat through Covid, they had felt the same frustrations as everyone else, but the forced isolation also provided them with an epiphany of sorts. Cut off from the city, yet still confined within its limits, they had found themselves increasingly self-sufficient, no longer bonded to the city or its conveniences. ‘We weren’t city people,’ reflects Jess. Covid just provided the nudge they needed to leave for good.
‘My motivation for moving was to offer our children the sort of childhood that I enjoyed in Ayrshire.’
As newly qualified GPs, they knew they could find work almost anywhere, but when they first saw East Overscaig they felt it was too far north, too much land and, perhaps, too daunting a project. However, back in the city, East Overscaig’s airy appeal steadily grew. ‘It was really the land that drew us,’ recalls Andrew. With 168 acres, East Overscaig offered them lots of space and a chance to enjoy the sort of life they wanted: a simpler life, closer to nature, where their children – Eilidh and Finlay – could have endless adventures. The decision was made.
'A large part of my motivation for moving was to offer our children the sort of childhood that I enjoyed in Ayrshire,’ says Andrew. ‘I grew up surrounded by nature, making dens, gardening, camping and hill walking.’ Added to this, there was the excitement of having their own bit of land and becoming invested in its recovery. ‘There’s an element of adventure to all of it,’ admits Andrew. ‘There’s the thrill of seeing eagles from the kitchen window, of becoming immersed in the land’s seasonal changes, or just spotting bugs with Eilidh and Finlay. Nature is a huge part of our family’s routine.’
‘Rewilding, and being involved with the land’s recovery, gives me hope.’
The couple met in Glasgow, with Jess having moved to Scotland from Wales. Before she moved north, Jess recalls how she used to imagine Scotland as vast and wild, without realising that the dramatic hills and glens were bereft of the mosaic of natural habitats they once supported. Andrew helped her see what was missing and that the ‘wildness’ was largely illusory. This awakening came at a cost. ‘It can be depressing sometimes,’ confesses Andrew. ‘Like a lot of people, we suffer from eco-anxiety, so it would be easier to ignore what has been lost, but rewilding, and being involved with the land’s recovery, gives me hope.’
Jess describes what motivated them to join the Northwoods Rewilding Network in 2022: ‘Being part of a community of like-minded individuals, sharing knowledge and resources, empowers us to feel like we can make a difference here and in time, we hope we can share our experiences, to give more people hope.’
For now, that hope is rooted in trees, with Andrew and Jess’s rewilding efforts focused on expanding and diversifying the fragment of ancient woodland that clings on here. Deer browsing had eliminated many tree species except for downy birch, and so, using saplings grown from seed or sourced from local community nurseries, the couple have been working to restore the wood’s natural assemblage of native trees.
Young rowan sapling, plnated as part of rewilding project, Overscaig, Sutherland
‘We give nature a nudge from time to time but ultimately, no one can recreate natural processes better than nature itself.’
Across their 168 acres, they have now planted more than 8,500 saplings, including alder, aspen, rowan, oak, Scots pine, bird cherry, juniper, willow, hazel and holly, carefully sited to avoid areas of undisturbed deep peat. Some of the saplings are protected within ‘seed islands’ – temporary fences that will enable the woodland to spread. Other young trees have been planted within brash piles, behind dead hedging, or within gorse patches; whatever might serve as protection against the sika and red deer which emerge out of the nearby plantations at dusk.
Andrew sometimes shoots these deer, providing venison for his family and, he hopes, making the deer more reluctant to loiter too long within East Overscaig’s regenerating woodland. ‘I don’t want to remove the influence of browsing altogether,’ says Andrew. ‘It’s about helping a more natural system get re-established. We give nature a nudge from time to time but ultimately, no one can recreate natural processes better than nature itself.’
Aside from planting trees, Andrew and Jess have been working to rewet the blanket bog, which covers more than half their acreage. On arriving at East Overscaig, they sought advice from NatureScot, conscious of the peatland’s critical importance as a carbon-sink, as well as its contribution to flood mitigation and river health. Surveys revealed the overall condition of the peat was good, but they were told that they could improve it further by blocking two historic drains. Using his digger, Andrew set about reprofiling the peat and blocking the offending drains, helping to rewet about 5 acres of peatland.
Round-leaved sundew, a carnivorous plant, that thrives in wet bogs and peatland.
Planting trees and blocking drains might be characterised as a less passive form of rewilding – intervening in the present to intervene less in the future – but whatever people call it, it’s what it delivers that matters to Jess and Andrew. ‘Rewilding enriches our experience of nature,’ says Jess. ‘Already in our four years here, we are seeing signs that nature is recovering – that wildlife is increasing.’ That wildlife now includes ospreys nesting on a platform Andrew erected on the loch shore.
They are also seeing red kites for the first time. Black-throated divers occupy the loch in summer and red-throated divers call overhead, heading to smaller breeding lochans nearby. Adders, water voles and hen harriers are all notable sightings, while butterflies – Eilidh’s favourite – increasingly flit along the edge of the heathland.
‘There are lots of people coming together in this area to improve the odds for nature.’
‘I think all children are born with a fascination for nature,’ says Andrew. ‘But somewhere along the line, that interest gets lost. If we are going to value and protect nature, then we need that sense of wonder to stick, to remember why wild things matter, and how wildness enriches our lives.’ Without shouting about it, Andrew and Jess are quietly demonstrating what rewilding can achieve, for them, their community and the wild things that share their land. Happily, they are far from alone.
‘There are lots of people coming together in this area to improve the odds for nature,’ Jess tells me. ‘There is tree planting, landscape-scale river restoration and reductions in certain herbivore impacts, so we are excited to see what the future brings.’
As I drive away from East Overscaig, I scan the young trees sprouting along the loch shore before looking back in my rearview mirror at the young family that planted them – at Andrew in his hi-vis orange jacket, at Jess waving with one arm, while cradling Finlay in the other, and at Eilidh, crouched over some unseen wonder, examining it intensely with her ladybird magnifying glass. Looking forward again, I too find myself excited to see what the future will bring here, because surely, the future at East Overscaig looks increasingly bright.
