Entrance to the Carrifran Wildwood is via a small car park on the A701 Moffat to Selkirk road, you might need to open the gate, it's OK to do that, but please shut it on your way out if you are the last one to leave.
Borders Forest Trust was established in 1996 to help restore native woodland to Southern Scotland and to encourage an interest in woodland culture with those in the local community. Since then they have set about reviving the Wild Heart of Southern Scotland through demonstrating excellence in ecological restoration of their own properties, and through partnerships encouraging the development of woodland culture, enabling people to access woodlands, developing habitats and supporting environmentally sustainable economic activity.
Borders Forest Trust owns six properties, Talla and Gameshope, Corehead and the Devil's Beef Tub and Carrifran Wildwood in in Moffat Hills/Tweedsmuir Hills, Ettrick Willows, Lindean Wood between Selkirk and Galashiels and Drygrange Community Wood near Earlston which you are welcome to come an explore
Carrifran Wildwood
The Wildwood project seeks to re-create a valley of wooded wilderness in the Southern Uplands with most of the rich diversity of native species that existed there thousands of years ago before human activities became dominant. The 1620 acre valley in the Moffat Hills was bought through the hard work of a dedicated team of volunteers and the help of many generous supporters.
On 1st January 2000, the purchase was completed, entry to the land gained and the first trees were planted at Carrifran. Since then over 750,000 native trees, all from local provenance stock, have been planted in the valley.
The first ecological restoration project of its kind, the Carrifran Wildwood is hoped to be an inspiration and an educational resource to many over the next millennium.
The restoration of the Carrifran valley
The Wildwood project was conceived at the time of the first Restoring Borders Woodland conference, organised by Peeblesshire Environment Concern in 1993. The vision was to restore the ecology of one entire catchment in the Southern Uplands of Scotland to approximately the state it would have been in before people began practicing settled agriculture, about six thousand years ago.
The project was carried forward by the grass-roots Wildwood Group, formed in autumn 1995 and comprising about 40 people, mainly from around Peebles. Members helped to form Borders Forest Trust at the start of 1996 and four years later organised purchase of the Carrifran valley, with funds raised by public subscription, mainly from more than 600 Founders of Carrifran Wildwood. An informal association with the John Muir Trust was a key catalyst in the fundraising process.
The Wildwood project relies on input from volunteers and BFT staff, donations from the public through a Stewardship Scheme and on grant aid from organisations such as Scottish Forestry, NatureScot and grant making trusts.
The project is overseen by the volunteer-led Wildwood Steering Group, which includes key volunteers, while day-to-day management is led by BFT Site Operations Team, which includes Steering Group members.
Whilst much of the main planting has finished, there is still plenty of work to be done in the valley. We are currently focussing our efforts on ‘enrichment planting’, that is filling in the gaps of where we have had dead or dying trees, planting more shrub species such as hawthorn and hazel, re-introducing plants such as honeysuckle and ivy and continuing to expand our areas of montane scrub.
Carrifran has become a visiting point for many universities and forestry colleges and their interest demonstrates the ground breaking nature of our work. However, the idea is that the level of human intervention will be gradually reduced as the Wildwood gains its own momentum and becomes a functioning natural ecosystem. With the passage of decades, Carrifran will increasingly provide a haven for a rich array of native Scottish plants and animals, long excluded from these denuded hills.
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Look at the gallery image of Carrifran before the Borders Trust started work on transforming it into what you see today, you can learn more from their interpretation panels
Compare that image with the one on the Carrifran Wildwood section of the
BFT website
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This cache has been placed with the permission of Borders Forest Trust especially for Carrifran Wildwood
Please do not log a Find if you have not signed the log, if you forget your pen that is too bad, if for any other reason you can't sign the log you know what you have to do.