Threave Landscape Restoration Project: our 100-year vision

The National Trust for Scotland has been building up research on how we do this at Threave since 2017. Working with experts in woodlands, grasslands and wetlands, we have sought out new technologies for conservation grazing and studied the whole site holistically. We’ve now put together both an immediate and long-term plan to help kickstart and support natural processes, but we’ll also use this site as a massive experiment to help us find best practice and methods. We hope these will be useful and inspire others in similar settings, whether in Scotland or further afield. It will be an exciting experience for our visitors and members to learn and engage with landscape restoration in action.

Working with our local funding and project partners, the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership scheme, we’re putting £250,000 into establishing some major initiatives in 2021. This year, we’re looking at how the land can be undrained, allowing flow to be restored and wetlands fully re-created. We’re shifting from non-native plantation woodlands to trialling replanting methods and native woodland regeneration – we want to see a 30ha native woodland established here. We’re taking away fences but keeping ecologically valuable conservation grazing, using new technology to help farmers manage their livestock from their smartphones. We’re also slowing waterways, monitoring key species of fish, geese and invertebrate, helping to restore our rich wildflower meadows in time.

Through this project, Threave will become an established centre of excellence in landscape restoration, providing visitors, other land managers and the National Trust for Scotland with best practice methods and approaches.

Work starts on site in spring 2021, with primary improvements scheduled to be complete by March 2022. Keep an eye on the website for further project updates.