A nature restoration consortium in Scotland is seeking to quickly recover vegetation lost to wildfires by using drones to spray seeds around the denuded patch.
The project will take place on the now bare groundsof Glenuig Hill, on the Moidart peninsula of Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, which were destroyed by a wildfire last year. There partners wants to use the brief window of opportunity for tree seeds to take advantage of the bare ground, before grasses return and dominate.
Lochaber is a region in the Scottish Highlands, known for its stunning natural beauty and outdoor activities. It's often called the "Outdoor Capital of the UK" due to its popularity for hiking, skiing, mountain biking, and more. The area is also rich in history and culture, with famous landmarks like Ben Nevis and Glen Coe.
Convened by local rewilding charity SCOTLAND: The Big Picture – and comprising nature proponents like Corrour Estate, Glenaladale Estate, Glen Nevis Estate, Woodland Trust Scotland, National Trust Scotland, Nevis Landscape Partnership, Shieldwolf Isle, Drimnin Estate, Glenuig Estate, Torlundy Farm, Ardtornish, MaCCOLL and Arkaig Community Forest – the Loch Abar Mòr nature restoration partnership aims to accelerate native woodland regeneration through drone seeding, to enable natural processes to drive distribution patterns of woodland.
“Native tree seeds will be collected by volunteers, prepared for sowing, then dispersed by drones over 24 hectares of both burnt and unburnt ground with the results compared with control plots showing natural regeneration only,” the consortium said in a press release.
“Seed establishment is expected to be more successful on the burnt ground, where competition from vigorous grasses is reduced. As well as helping to bring back native woodland, this project will test how well drone seeding works after wildfires – potentially offering a new, scalable way to help nature recover in a changing climate where wildfires are an increasing threat.
Drone seeding is an emerging approach to mimic natural seed dispersal. This involves using drones to drop seeds from the air, mimicking how nature spreads seeds in the wild. Projects elsewhere have suggested that the technology is effective, but further trials are required in areas with different ground conditions.
The Big Picture actually has previous experience with drone seeding, garnered from an innovative rewilding experiment on a hillside on Scotland’s west coast in June this year, which yielded promising results, raising hopes for faster, more cost-effective reforestation of the country’s wild and rugged uplands.
At Dubh Allt, a 780-acre landholding near Roshven on the Moidart peninsula, forester and landowner, Ed Townley and partner Becca, trialled the use of drones to disperse native tree seeds across degraded moorland that’s been stripped of natural woodland by historic grazing of sheep and wild deer.
At the time, drone seeding was one of the first of its kind in the UK to target rainforest restoration by dispersing colonising tree species from a drone, and was made possible through financial support from the University of Edinburgh, and technical input from drone specialists, Auto Spray Systems.
Three hectares of hillside were seeded by drone in April 2024, with a mix of native species including birch, rowan, alder, Scots pine, aspen and willow.
Following a detailed ecological survey carried out by Ed and his fellow forestry alumni, results revealed a seedling germination rate of 2.7 percent, well above the hoped-for rate of one percent, meaning this woodland creation method is both viable, and cheaper than originally anticipated.
“I see a big future for this approach,” said Ed.
“It could go a long way towards taking percentage woodland cover in the UK from the teens up to the 30s or 40s in a relatively short time. The beauty of direct seeding is that it finds a happy medium between the two existing methods of woodland creation – conventional planting and natural regeneration.
“Where planting is reliable and quick, it's also expensive, and therefore limited in scope. Where natural regeneration results in healthy, resilient woodland, with only the cost of fencing or deer management to consider, it can take many years, particularly in landscape-scale areas currently lacking in seed source.
“Direct seeding by drone can be done at a fraction of the cost, and replicates natural processes. Woodland will naturally establish only in suitable areas, and reforestation could be seen at landscape scale in a matter of years. Starting with the pioneers creates a resilient woodland, as those hardy species prepare the soil and conditions for the big trees to thrive.”
The team used a standardised quadrat survey technique, randomly sampling square metre plots across the three seeded hectares. Among the emerging greenery, they recorded tiny but healthy seedlings of birch, pine, rowan and others beginning to take hold.
James Nairne, Northwoods Rewilding Network Manager at SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, welcomed the results.
“Rewilding is often about working with natural processes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also embrace technological innovation,” he explained.
“What Ed and Becca are doing at Dubh Allt is an example of pioneering spirit in action – trialling new methods to scale up nature recovery in some of the hardest-to-reach landscapes. These early results are hugely encouraging.”
Regeneration at Dubh Allt – which still retains fragments of ancient birchwoods, oak and Scots pine that cling to rocky outcrops – has long been suppressed by grazing pressure.
Now, through reductions in grazing pressure, and with seeds in the soil, the land is slowly being transformed.
“Now that the concept has been proven, the next step is a large-scale trial across the hillside, with experimental controls,” Ed added.
“We also want to know about other sites where land managers are keen to test this method. One of the controls we will test is whether or not this method can work without the need for fencing, as natural regeneration is often successful in areas surrounded by woodland and open to deer.
“Even at low densities, saplings that have grown in place from seed may survive grazing better than recently planted saplings, because of their established root networks.”