We killed 10,000 trees to restore an ancient forest

Death, destruction, decay. Wait what? This is a good thing? In this video we're heading into the misty highlands of Scotland to discover a new and unexpected way of restoring nature. It involves killing thousands of trees but eventually will turn this into this. Forget everything you know about reforestation. We're Planet Wild, welcome to mission 12. The Scottish highlands are one of Europe's most iconic landscapes but few people know that they used to be covered by old growth forests some 5 000 years ago stretching from coast to coast and hosting wolves, bears and wild horses. This ancient forest inspired a whole canon of tales and legends but this mystical vision we have of the highlands is sadly not our reality today because centuries of human exploitation have wiped out most of its biodiversity. But can the Scottish highlands be restored to the former lush and biodiverse glory? A problem of this scale requires thinking way outside the box and that is exactly our jam. So we sent Cameron from Planet Wild to the Abernethy Reserve in northern Scotland where we teamed up with a team of renegade foresters that have found a surprising way to breathe life back into this once magical place. This is probably what most of us have in mind when we imagine going for a beautiful walk in nature. Tall trees everywhere, spongy green moss on the ground and the sounds of birds singing and squirrels playing in the trees above me. It might feel like a magical forest but in reality it's not a forest at all, it's a plantation. The trees around me are all identical, the same species planted at the same time only to be later harvested for timber. This is known as a monoculture. These trees are planted way too close together at around 3 000 trees per hectare. This overcrowding means that hardly any light can get down here to the forest floor making it impossible for most creatures to survive. So this nice squishy green moss is actually the only plant that can live down here. The trees race upwards in competition for the light but they grow so fast that up in the canopy the trunks and branches are incredibly thin meaning that they can't support birds and squirrels nesting. So those lovely foresty sounds you're hearing, we added them in for effect. It's actually dead quiet here. This scenario is not unique to Scotland. Exploiting the land as we have done in many countries means that humans have created these so-called green deserts everywhere. The tragic fact is that we've gotten used to this image of nature. So once you realize where you are, walking through this ordered lifeless place isn't magical at all but actually pretty creepy. And for the sake of all of the creatures that have been pushed out of their natural habitats it's clear that something drastic needs to be done and this is where something quite unique is happening in Scotland and it has the power to transform this ghost town of a forest back into this. In the Abernethy reserve they also have one of the few remaining pieces of ancient Caledonian pine forest. Only one percent of this precious habitat is still standing and here I'm meeting Fraser. Fraser is a warden at the UK's largest land regeneration project and we're going for a walk back in time to find out what a forest really looks like. Forest I guess is better for nature just because it's so much more diverse. We've got so many more different species like here we've got a juniper and we've got birch trees we've got different age classes of tree. Essentially it's chaos. Birds and young mammals exploring the canopy of old growth trees, an understory rich in shrubs, flowering plants and young growing trees and a forest floor that acts as a base layer feeding the entire ecosystem. It's down here that you might occasionally hear a very special sound. The capercaillie. Also known as the cock of the woods this curious creature with its iconic mating behavior is so rare that forest wanderers are warned not to go looking for them because they have just a few pockets of forest left. In Scotland their numbers have fallen by and recently they were estimated at only 542 individuals. Fraser and his team have an action plan that can bring back the capercaillie as well as countless other animals by transforming Scotland's green deserts into the lively biodiverse ecosystems they used to be. But for this plan to work one unexpected ingredient is absolutely essential. Death. What we need here is some disorder. We need to shake it up. We need a big storm to come through and create some chaos but these monoculture plantations would stay like this for hundreds of years. So in order to disrupt this unnatural organized human structure we need to give nature a bit of a push. Or a pull. And in case you're wondering who we are, Planet Wild is a growing community which anyone can join to help give back to nature through monthly missions like this one. So if you want to help restore nature consider joining Planet Wild as a backer. There's a link in the description and more information at the end. Now back to the video. Winching. During the cold winters here at Abernethy a revolutionary and controversial scheme of restructuring is underway. The team here are literally pulling down or winching thousands of trees every year, uprooting them just like a violent storm would. In fact they're recreating storm pass through the plantation and leaving a trail of deadwood in their wake. This is not destroying a natural landscape but sparking a new wild forest where nature can take over. All this deadwood is essential to feed that new forest. So this restructuring project will give all living organisms here room to breathe. This approach to rewilding certainly seemed radical and it did in fact stir controversy at first. After all aren't we supposed to plant trees rather than felling them? But once you understand that Fraser's team is simply mimicking the natural process it becomes clear that they are providing exactly what this landscape needs to bounce back. It's a break from the norm. A lot of people have grown up seeing plantations and seeing what they think a forest should look like. So us creating dead trees is not normal for people because for me it was against the norm as well. And then slowly but surely I got educated. I began to learn and see how a lot of life can start from this deadwood that we're creating. In nature death brings life. When a tree like this falls it clears vital space for other organisms to inhabit and light can break through the canopy. Meaning that tree saplings and other plants can start to grow. But more than that a dead tree actually hosts more life than a living one. It becomes a home for millions of microorganisms, fungi and insects who kickstart the entire food chain in a beautiful hodgepodge of emergent life. And so over time with just a little push this will turn into this and eventually into this. And of course we wanted to help as well. That's why the planet wild community is financing the rewilding of 30 hectares of forest in Abernethy to turn even more monocultures into wild habitats. The beauty of this work is that the first effects will already be felt within a few short months. As soon as spring and then summer comes around all these trunks will start teeming with life taking over this new patchwork of microhabitats with a diversity that we all want to see. And you can now be part of this transformation as well because we will sponsor one extra square meter of forest to be restructured for every comment we get on this video before the end of March. So go hit the comment section and let's rewild even more forests together. And it starts right here. Okay to be honest it does not feel good to be uprooting and killing this tree. But you just have to remember what it's for. Winching! With every fallen tree a process is being set into motion that will have an effect far into the future. Some things don't happen tomorrow or in my lifetime. It maybe happened in my children's lifetime or even in my grandchildren's lifetime. They'll be the ones to see that forest acting more naturally and being beautiful and not just being a really boring plantation. It's creating change which gives an opportunity for nature to breathe and to grow and to flourish. The vision of Fraser and his team is an amazing example not only of long-term thinking but also of radically challenging our approach to nature and finding new solutions to protect it. You too can make our planet a little wilder by joining Planet Wild as a backer. Together we can protect endangered species, clean up our oceans and rewild entire landscapes. As a member you get to vote on how we spend the money, connect with me and others on our discord and see your own impact in the Planet Wild app. So make sure to sign up today there's a link in the description. And of course a big thank you goes out to all our existing Planet Wild members for making any of this possible. And you just unlocked your new mission batch in the app. If you want to watch some more go check out our two previous missions over here or down here. All right that's it from my side see you all again next month over and out.