Project aims to reforest Outer Hebrides with 1m trees planted on crofts

An ambitious plan to plant at least 1m native trees on crofts in the Outer Hebrides has taken root, its organisers say, with more than 200 small new woods planted across the islands.

- Severin Carrell

The Western Isles woodland project hopes to re-establish a thriving mosaic of small woods dotted across the islands by using vacant or underused crofts to reforest the Hebrides and promote nature restoration.

Funded mainly by profits from the UK's largest community-owned windfarm, which sits west of Stornoway, the project has so far resulted in 211,000 trees being planted on 245 crofts, plots of land that were historically family-run smallholdings.

Some of the new woodlands include up to 1,500 trees grown from local seeds, featuring alder, hazel, birch, rowan, Scots pine, blackthorn, sycamore and various species of willows. The project has been so successful it has helped establish three new tree nurseries on the islands.

Many of the saplings come from seeds sourced by the Hebridean Tree Ark project, which harvests seeds from native local trees found clinging on cliffs and islands inaccessible to the red deer and sheep that suppress natural regeneration on land.

PJ Maclachlan, a keen kayaker and retired meteorologist who began planting trees in 2018 on his 1.4-hectare (3.5-acre) family croft near Stornoway airport, often sees old native trees clinging to cliffs and ungrazed islands during his kayaking trips along the coast. He has planted 950 trees in a boggy, unproductive area of his croft. It was "a great thing" bringing woods back.