Forgotten forests Eco detectives look to save Scotland's ancient pines

James Rainey reads trees like most people read signposts. The senior ecologist with the rewilding charity Trees for Life is using a small hand lens to identify a lichen that is wreathing the base of an aspen tree in a secluded glen on the west coast of Scotland.

- Libby Brooks

He is looking for ecological clues of species associated with the ancient Caledonian Forest which once covered most of the Highlands, like this aspen and some lichens such as Norwegian specklebelly.

Wild pines have been growing in Scotland continuously since the last ice age, offering a globally unique ecosystem supporting rare wildlife including red squirrels, capercaillie and crossbills. But now less than 2% of the original growth survives, with just 84 individual Caledonian pinewood sites now officially recognised.

Trees for Life and the Woodland Trust Scotland have now become aware of up to 50 other hitherto uncharted wild pinewoods from historical documents and anecdotal contemporary reports.

The charities have now turned tree detectives as they embark on the painstaking process of mapping - and hopefully reviving - these remote pockets of forgotten forest before they vanish for ever.

The ecological investigators use three strands of evidence to pinpoint where these pinewoods first stood, explains Rainey.