Red Squirrel Issues

I recently met with Craig Shuttleworth, the woodland ecologist who's taking a lead role in reintroducing and protecting the red squirrel on Anglesey. He still has a lot of concerns over the detail of tree thinning. A fragmented canopy could spell disaster for the reds as they prefer to move from one tree to another without using the ground.

It was a fascinating meeting. I was mesmerised by his enthusiasm. Good or bad, this is what is driving his concern - some would say cynicism - towards the revised Newborough Forest plans. He started the project seven years ago and has two years of funding remaining. Effectively, he has two years to realise his ambitions. And he's worried about it.

What has he and his team achieved to date? Well, he estimates there are a total of 200 reds on Anglesey now, with up to 100 in Newborough, 80 in Pentraeth, and others scattered mostly around the Beaumaris/north east area of the island. Yet it's not the number of reds that concerns him, but the number of greys.

Greys carry a virus fatal to reds, and they're simply more resourceful - they're better survivors. Since the start of the project, greys on Anglesey have been culled. Officially they're classed as vermin. Because of this, Craig explained, it's illegal to trap them, transport them off the island and release them elsewhere - something a lot of people fail to realise. And despite attitudes against culling softening, people are reluctant to report sightings. They fail to realise that they should, in the same way they would contact the council pest control if they saw a rat.

Last year (2007) Craig estimated there were 150 greys on Anglesey. In the end they found and killed 237. Craig knows he has two years left to get them off the island, or all the efforts of the red squirrel project may have been in vain.

If you're an animal lover you might think Craig is persuing the cull with just a little too much vigour. But consider this: Anglesey island represents a unique opportunity in the UK to be a "grey squirrel-free" area. In other words, it could become the UK's premier red squirrel sanctuary. An undergraduate at Oxford University is being funded to create sonic devices that would fix to Britannia and Menai Bridges, the two land-links to the mainland. Apparently most greys arrive on the island by running across the bridges, but the sound these devices will emit will stop them. This, and zero greys killed in 2009, will mean the island will be grey-free.

Put this into a national context. It was only recently that conservationists realised that red squirrels had all but disappeared from Wales. The theory was that the coniferous forests didn't suit the greys. But they've adapted. There's more of them here than anyone thought. Anglesey is the reds' best chance for survival in Wales.

Craig has no compassion for grey squirrels, and some might find that disconcerting. Yet this guy is bursting with passion. He's fiercely determined to do whatever it takes to ensure the reds' survival on Anglesey. He described the virus that greys transmit to reds - likening the slow death to mixamatosis in rabbits - and I could see the horror in his eyes. You can't say he doesn't care. Maybe this passion blurs his reason when he discusses forest plans for Newborough, and perhaps he distrusts authority just a little too easily. I think good conservationists probably need a healthy does of cynicism.

But I admire his determination and his values. I find the idea of Anglesey being a red squirrel sanctuary extremely appealing. I know that if I ever see a red squirrel in the wild in Newborough Forest, it will be a magical moment. And it will be all thanks to Craig Shuttleworth.

The Compromise

In 2004 the Countryside Council for Wales and the Forestry Commission Wales sent the map at the top of this post to the residents of Newborough. It showed that more than 100 hectares of the 600-hectare forest would be removed (areas 1 and 2), returning the area to dunes. Further large areas (3 and 4 on the plan) would be "thinned", creating a mixture of dunes and woodland. The only area of forest that would remain intact was area 5, effectively a thin strip of trees leading down to the small headland opposite Llanddwyn Island (partially visible in the bottom left corner of the plan).

Residents formed a protest group which included a petition with 8,000 signatures. At a meeting in Llangefni in September 2004 the felling plan - or Forest Design Plan as it is officially known - was scrapped. The CCW and FCW began a consultation period which would last three years. In that time it's become one of the most complex consultations for any forest in the UK.

Fast forward to November 2007, and the new proposed Forest Design Plan (the second map). Only the areas shaded green will be felled. The large blue area will be kept as woodland, but areas within it will be thinned and new species planted. The phrase "devil in the detail" was heard several times during the final Liasion Partnership meeting - exactly how much thinning will there be? But from my perspective, the latest map shows that the best part of the forest will be preserved. The Foresty Commission is at pains to say that areas to be thinned will still resemble woodland rather than tracts of dunes and grass.

Aside from the aesthetic, there is the delicate and very high profile issue of red squirrel preservation to consider. According to the Anglesey Red Squirrel project, which reintroduced the endangered animal to Newborough in 2004, there are now about 80 in the forest. The project has worked hard to get this far, so naturally they're concerned when forest managers talk about thinning and replanting.

Despite lingering concerns, I suspect the latest plan will meet with public approval when it goes out for final consultation next month. I believe Foresty Commission Wales has worked hard to create a plan that succeeds in balancing the interests of all those connected to the forest. But I also suspect that until we are several years into Newborough Forest's new future, no-one will be able to predict exactly how the plan will affect the red squirrels, the dune system, and public affection for this beautiful corner of Wales.

A new dawn for Newborough Forest?

I've no doubt that the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) will be heaving a sigh of relief today. Three years ago they contacted residents in the village of Newborough on Anglesey, North Wales, to tell them that a large slice of Newborough Forest was being felled, and would not be replanted. Something to do with the EU, and sand dunes drying out, and...

But most readers didn't get that far. They read tree-felling. They read threat to red squirrels and the largest raven colony in Europe. They read a place they enjoy for recreation, sharing it with over 100,000 visitors a year, being reduced to a windswept land of sand and scrub. The acrimony was all over the press within days, and the CCW realised it had underestimated the impact of its proposals.

Three years and a long consultation process later, at a meeting of the Newborough Liaison Partnership on November 27, a draft plan for the forest's short-to-mid-term future was effectively approved. I was among those at the meeting who saw a pretty slick video featuring a voiceover from the rather ubiquitous Iolo Williams. The more cynical might see this as a final public relations push to get the locals onside. Personally, I think it's a measure of the effort from many people behind the scenes who want to get this right. It all still needs rubber-stamping in January, when the same residents who read the CCW letter in horror will finally see the plan for themselves (and hear from Iolo in the video, no doubt) in local exhibitions. After that, and with a bit of fine tuning, the forest can be managed once more. Hence the relief around the CCW offices today.

The Newborough Forest story is a relatively recent one, but no less interesting for that. For a start, it's completely man-made. Its modest size of 600 hectares really should be made up of windswept sand and grasses and scrub, a feature that makes up a large part of the geology along this Anglesey coastline, from Abermenai Point (the southern gateway to the Menai Strait) to Aberffraw further west. But after the 1940s, when sand blowing into the village threatened a repeat of an event recorded from the 14th century, when dunes all but obliterated Newborough, the Forestry Commission planted Corsican and Scots pine trees to create a barrier.

Now, the EU wants the dunes back. They may not be the most visually appealing of landscapes, and they're even harder to walk on, but dunes are an important habitat and need protecting. Specifically, the hollows between dunes, where ponds sometimes form, are wildlife utopias that need our help to stop them drying out.

Trees need to come down to enable the water table to rise, creating ponds. The science on this is not proven, or it is proven but not predictable, or it is proven and it won't have any effect. It depends on who or what you want to believe. And mention of climate change and coastal flooding just has everyone shrugging their shoulders.

In any event, some trees will come down, to protect the dunes, but enough will stay up so Newborough village doesn't disappear under sand. Some new trees will be planted that aren't as thirsty as the Corsican pine. It's a balancing act for Forestry Commission Wales (FCW), who undertake the forest management and have led the consultation process. Given the positive outcome of the latest meeting, it appears it's a balancing act they've pulled off.

More than that: By underestimating the feeling initially, CCW and now FCW have done users of the forest a huge favour. They've brought us together. Through the consultation process they've revealed how the forest means different things for so many different people. They've revealed a collective passion and an energy that, in isolation, most of us probably knew never existed. Even the FCW, which carries out consultations on many of its projects, has admitted it has never created a management plan based on such detailed public debate before. Like us, I suspect they've learned a few things.

So the future of Newborough Forest starts here. It seemed like an opportune moment to start this blog. It may not be frequently updated, but I thought it would be useful to record the early progress of what are, in my opinion, modest changes to the make-up of the forest. I intend to sign up for a volunteer scheme, perhaps to become an early custodian of the forest. What I see, hear and do might make an interesting diary.

Why the interest for me? Well, we all have our special places. These are places, usually near where we live, that we like to tell people about. When family and friends visit, we take them there with a certain sense of pride. We say, without actually saying it, "This is part of me. There's nowhere else like this, in the same way that there is no-one else like me." Newborough Forest is part of my special place. It's a forest, two wide beaches, a rocky island with coves, a warren of dunes, and a backdrop of sea and mountains. Man-made Newborough Forest may be, but I for one believe it fits here. It completes a blend of natural elements that exercises all the senses and stirs every emotion. No other place thrills me in such a way.

In the meantime, as far as this blog goes, what will intrigue me more than the actual felling and replanting of trees is what locals and other interest groups (like the red squirrel project) will make of the forest following this lengthy consultation. Will they value it any more? Will they make more of it, perhaps through developments like mountain bike trails and a visitor centre? Can the passion and energy that's been shown so far, by so many interested parties, be carried forward now that we know how the forest will be maintained for the next 25 years?

I hope so, for otherwise it will feel like a wonderful opportunity wasted.