ASR Learning Day, Morvern, 2 June 2026

Words and photos by Calum Robertson, ACT Rainforest Squad Trainee

A small herd of rare-breed cattle roams quietly through the woodland at Ardtornish Estate on the Morvern peninsula, grazing lightly and trampling dense grasses underfoot. Higher up the hill, Konik ponies pick their way through ash woods, already widening their range just a couple of months after arriving. Their presence here is a welcome reminder that rainforest restoration is not always about fencing animals out, sometimes it’s about letting them back in.

Earlier this month, members of the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest gathered here to explore these innovative approaches to landscape-scale recovery through a series of site visits and conversations. The day centred on the idea that while too much grazing can prevent woodland recovery, too little can also be a problem, and that the real challenge lies in finding the right balance for the land.

Ardtornish Estate: Introduction & Context

Under the guidance of Land Manager Henry Dobson, Ardtornish Estate recently began trialling various methods of land management aimed at supporting nature recovery across approximately 12,000 hectares. A shift in approach to managing 60 Luing cattle towards a fully regenerative model of ‘nature-friendly’ farming, or “minimally biodiversity-damaging”, in Henry’s words, as well as the introduction of rare-breed cattle and semi-wild ponies are already helping to restore natural processes. Recovery is needed here, as the five designated woodland sites across the estate are all currently in unfavourable condition, largely due to historic deer browsing pressure.

 Encouraging signs of progress are already being seen, with recent drone surveys suggesting that deer numbers are now approaching target levels across around two thirds of the estate, with densities of approximately 2–4 deer per km². Fencing has also helped keep deer out of certain areas, with more than 100 hectares of woodland protected from browsing for over two years, and a further 1,100 hectare enclosure recently established, to allow palatable tree species to regenerate before moving grazing animals in. In areas dominated by dense grasses and bracken, trampling is just as important as grazing, the aim is to create open ground for regeneration, reduce wildfire risk by breaking up dead vegetation and create opportunities for greater diversity of plants and habitats to develop. The goal here is to work with local people with their own passions and long-term objectives, to integrate a range of approaches to restoring the land. This approach is about moving away from managing solely for individual species and towards building resilient systems that integrate people, livestock and ecological recovery.

Nomios Pastoral

In the first site visit of the day, Alec Heywood and Lizzie Mackenzie of Nomios Pastoral shared their experience of developing a ‘light touch’ approach built around the principles of reciprocity and cultural connection. Their work is a modern interpretation of an ancient practice; ‘transhumance’ is a traditional herding model involving movement across the landscape based on seasonal cycles, and can be seen as a cultural practice as much as a grazing system. Targeted movement sits at the heart of this system, with their herd of 18 rare-breed cows typically remaining in one area for around 17–18 days before being moved on, with the aim of leaving the land in a better state than it was found. Alec explained that grasses need time to regrow their ‘solar panels’, or leaf area, to recover properly. If animals stay too long in one place, then roots may struggle to recover, and repeated grazing on new growth will hinder regeneration.

One part of the solution is the use of ‘no fence’ collars to manage the movement of the herd, and another is to challenge the idea that cattle are purely grass grazers; if given the opportunity, they will eat heather, bog myrtle and woody vegetation, particularly during winter. Tree fodder is generally an underused resource, with native trees including ash, willow, holly and cherry considered valuable sources of nutrition. Seaweed is also highly valuable, with both cattle and ponies known to seek it out as a natural mineral source where they can access the shore. Animal health and wellbeing is an important focus of this approach, Alec and Lizzie spend time with the herd every day to feed and monitor them, noting that more time leads to a deeper and more intimate relationship. The cows are also tested annually for liver fluke and treated over winter, if necessary. In a best case scenario, these treatments should be avoided, as veterinary medicines can have negative ecological impacts, particularly for insects and fungal networks in the soil. Cattle can tolerate low levels of fluke, unlike sheep, and a combination of diverse diets and careful monitoring could help reduce reliance on treatments in future. In the long term, once the habitat is restored and can cope with deer pressure, allowing the cows to roam freely would be preferred. This is all part of a vision that goes beyond simply restoring habitats, it is about rebuilding relationships between people, livestock and landscapes, by bringing back some of the natural processes that have been missing from many west coast landscapes for generations.

Touching Wild

The next stop was with Bonnie Mealand, who introduced Touching Wild’s two year pilot project using Konik ponies to explore the role of wild-living horses in rainforest restoration. Animal welfare is intentionally placed at its centre, rather than viewing the ponies as management tools, the project seeks to create conditions in which they can express natural behaviours while contributing ecological benefits. There is great importance placed on keeping the ponies wild, with human interaction deliberately kept to a minimum and natural societal structures maintained, both for the animals' welfare and to ensure that their behaviour remains natural for the sake of gathering useful data.

Bonnie emphasised that allowing horses to live ‘wild’ is not an abdication of responsibility, but a different way of caring for them based on regular welfare monitoring and an adaptive management approach. After only a couple of months on site, the ponies have already begun expanding their ‘home range’, crossing streams and exploring more of the hillside, and observations so far suggest that they spend most of their time grazing, but also browse woody vegetation. This diverse diet is beneficial for their health, with the lack of nutrition in some leaves and buds being a desirable element, as this avoids the ‘disease of domesticity’ and encourages healthy natural weight loss and gain throughout the seasons. Their diet and associated habits make ponies naturally good at maintaining woodland edges and glades, and while tree bark stripping can occur under resource-limited conditions, their browsing behaviour may in fact complement that of cattle and deer, contributing to greater structural complexity across woodland landscapes. Their charismatic nature also makes them powerful ambassadors for rainforest conservation, opening opportunities for public engagement, education, research and nature-based tourism as the project develops.

Rhemore Croft

The final visit was to Rhemore Croft, where Alasdair and Sam Firth shared their experience of managing cattle within a rainforest landscape. They moved onto the croft in 2020 with three initial objectives; maximising biodiversity, carbon sequestration and community benefit. Over time, these objectives evolved into a broader philosophy centred on balancing the wellbeing of land, animals and people. The herd currently comprises eight cattle, with ten considered likely to be the optimum number for the site, and although conservation was the primary motivation for keeping cattle, the cultural and ethical value of producing local food could not be ignored. The herd is estimated to provide enough protein for around 6,000 meals each year, enough for every resident of Morvern to eat local beef once every fortnight. With this in mind and considering the nearest abattoir is only a short distance away on the Isle of Mull, the herd is now managed for food production as part of a suite of benefits related to nature conservation and the sustainability of the local community.

The croft also contains a small but globally significant area of hazel rainforest. Historically, hazel woodlands were often classified simply as scrub, meaning their ecological importance has frequently been overlooked. Alasdair estimates that the Morvern coastline may support around 10% of the world's hazel rainforest resource, with approximately 1% occurring on Rhemore croft. Oliver Moore, Lichen & Bryophyte Specialist at Plantlife Scotland, took this opportunity to highlight the importance of maintaining a diverse age structure within hazel woodlands, well managed grazing can help maintain a "conveyor belt" of stems of different ages, creating the changing bark chemistry and moisture conditions required by many specialist lichens, such as the endemic White Script Lichen (Graphis alboscripta). Excessive grazing, by contrast, may encourage more uniform, tree-like growth forms and reduce structural diversity, once again it’s about getting the balance right for the land.

Reflections

Throughout the day, discussions kept returning to balance and relationships; between animals and landscapes, between people and livestock, and between ecological restoration and cultural heritage. There is no single perfect formula for achieving this, and the challenge lies in creating systems that make those aspirations economically and practically achievable. In any case, these inspiring projects demonstrate that observation, experimentation and a willingness to let go of some control can help create grazing systems that work for land, livestock and community.

Richard Thompson, Native Woodland Ecologist at Forestry and Land Scotland, summed up the day well:

"You can't codify this; it's intuitive and it comes about through tenderness… it's about understanding the land and the animals, happy animals probably means that the habitat is okay, and there's probably quite a wide spectrum of 'okay'…we ought to take a broad view of what success could mean.”

Read more about our work to Save Argyll's Rainforest