The Highland reserve where millionaire wants to release wolves

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

The wolves, of course, are not here, yet. But, owner and heir to the MFI fortune, Paul Lister, has long been infamous as the man who wants to release them, here in remote Scotland, in a giant enclosure contained by 30,000 metres of fence.
In 2003, Lister bought Alladale with a vision to create an enclosure into which he could release wolves. The reserve, at 23,500 acres, was not big enough and it was evident such a project would need a neighbour on board to make the 50,000 acres that might support two packs. At the time, there wasn't such a supporter and collaborator – and, as yet, there still isn't.
Opposition to wolf reintroduction in Scotland has been vocal amongst farmers - and the NFUS has described it as "unacceptable". In 2018, Fergus Ewing, then Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy, said reintroduction of large predators would happen 'over my dead body'. Yet still Lister persists with his enclosure proposal. Two decades on, you would think he might have given up, but he is as calmly, and genuinely determined as ever.
Lister recalls that when he first arrived, he found himself surrounded by 'very traditional landowners'. Back then media articles ran headlines like 'Is introducing wolves back into Britain howling mad?'
His view on wolves hasn't changed much. 'I always think that wolves would be absolutely perfect to go back into the Highlands,' he says, 'but not in the freedom of the countryside, not running around – inside a big enclosure. My problem is that one of my neighbours is not particularly progressive in thinking, and he's rather stuck in bit of a time warp. But it's coming. There will come a time when people will see what the potential is, but it's slow.'
The wolves may still seem a long time coming, but the new young forest is slowly arriving. Over a million native trees have been planted, and, alongside this, to protect them from browsing by deer, deer numbers have been reduced from 25 per km square on the estate, to less than six per km square.
Kate Heightman, TENT outreach manager, stands atop a jeep at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain)
What was a small fragment of Caledonian Pinewood at the reserve has been expanded. The wood, which is the most the second northerly fragment of this rare habitat, had been categorised by NatureScot as being in 'unfavourable' management and declining condition.
Restored by fencing a much bigger area encompassing the fragment and replanting this enclosure with more than 180,000 trees to relieve the deer grazing pressure and give an opportunity for seedlings to grow without the risk of being eaten, it is now classed as being in 'favourable' management and recovering condition.
When Lister arrived there were between 3500-5000 veteran pine trees, so old they are no longer producing viable seeds or the potential to spread forest unaided. The Alladale team knows there had been more trees - that much, they say, can be seen from the 1000-year-old trunks buried in the peat.
As a result of the deer control, says Heightman, one of our guides on a media tour of the reserve organised by The European Nature Trust (TENT), there has been natural regeneration. 'There was a fear that the deer control would create a vacuum. But the helicopter deer count found that Alladale had the lowest density compared to other estates that had counts of up to 29 per km square.'
The deer, Lister describes, are the trees' 'nemesis'. The ubiquity of these monarchs of the glen is also sometimes given as a case for the reintroduction of wolves. A University of Leeds paper published last year modelled that control of red deer by wolves could lead to an expansion of native woodland that would take up - or sequester - one million tonnes of CO2 each year.
'We've actually,' Lister says, 'reduced our deer herds from 2500 to 500. That allows for huge amounts of vegetation recovery, which is what we need. We need trees to recover. And if you have too many deer in an area, it's impossible.'
But that nemesis, especially the imposing stag, does not go unadmired, neither amongst our group of visitors, nor those at Alladale who control it. Reserve manager and former gamekeeper, Innes MacNeill describes the species as his 'favourite 'animal. In the past, he says, he has been asked, 'So you enjoy killing your favourite animal?'
MacNeill is a true local, who joined Alladale as a deer stalker in 1991, long before the arrival of Lister and his rewilding, whose grandfather was a stalker and poacher. He shot his first deer here, he says, when he was 'very young'.
He also argues in favour of some of the old ways too – for instance muirburn. 'Fire is a tool in the toolbox. I would do it for fire breaks. You can see up there there is nothing growing in the understory. Heather is preventing tree growth.'
'Fire is a natural thing. It occurs everywhere in the world. But historically we over burnt it for sheep grazing and deer to graze on.'
'We're not trying to get rid of deer,' he says. 'Deer have an active role to play here.'
Young new pines at Alladale (Image: Gethin Chamberlain)
The result of this deer control is, for those of us staying at Alladale Lodge, plenty of venison on the table, butchered in a larder on site. The rest of the meat is sold through the local game dealer.
His own view on Lister's approach has shifted from former scepticism. 'Did I think Paul was mad? Of course I did. But I've travelled all over the world and seen places in Yellowstone, Romania and South Africa. Do I see an opportunity here? Most definitely. But it's about winning hearts and minds.'
He is also seeing how this new model can work as a business. He insists: 'This is a reserve, not an estate. We are probably employing around three times what our neighbours would employ. We keep our tradesmen local as well."
In an area of depopulation, blighted by lack of affordable housing, not far from Croick, where in 1845, 80 people who had been cleared from the land found refuge in the churchyard, people are an important factor. The question, as MacNeill puts it, is 'How do we keep people here?' The jobs offered by a reserve like this is one such way.
'Calling it a wilderness reserve,' he explains, 'was a way to break away from this Victorian idea of the estate.' He is not, however keen on the word rewilding.
'Rewilding is how it's interpreted. We're about reconnecting people to nature."
When it comes to rewilding, the terminology is slippery. Wild is an increasingly disputed term – are any of Scotland's wild places untouched by humans? – and also many, including Innes MacNeill, don't like the term rewilding. 'This is not wilderness,' he says, pointing to the grand sweep of moor rising up from the glen, 'but it's wild managed land.'
'Do not tell me,' he says, 'this is not wild. Even wilding would be a better term than rewilding. Nature recovery is the word. If I go to my neighbours and say, Let's do rewilding, the door will be slammed in my face. If I say, let's do some riparian restoration and planting, it's different."
Innes MacNeill, reserve manager, at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) The wolf plan, says MacNeill, would happen via 'a special derogation to create an African-style game reserve with two packs of wolves.' To create the enclosure would require 30,000 metres of fence, a barrier that has triggered opposition from some voices for 'right to roam'. MacNeill sees it as worth a try: 'Run that experiment for 25 years, just like a wind farm.'
'The general public has to want it,' he adds. 'I'm a Highlander. I'm from here. No one wants to see wealthy absentee landlords tell us what to do. But when it comes to wolves, we need to talk about it in a more civil and adult way. We can live together. But we've lived apart for a long time now. We are the only country without an apex predator in Europe.' He adds, pointing at another human in our group, 'You're looking at the apex predators here.'
That relative absence is striking, when you look at any map of the location of wolves across the continent. Only the British Isles is wolfless – and with no way of the species swimming the North Sea, it can only roam these lands again through reintroduction.
Lister has been rewilding Alladale for over two decades now, pushing the landscape through its slow process of change via planting, deer control, introduction of Highland cattle and other measures. These days, he does believe that some neighbouring landowners are 'listening'. 'They are progressing in their way,' he says. 'So it's good. I've seen some change in the mindset of even my neighbours.'
Both MacNeill and Lister believe they have seen a shift happen around them. It has happened in the wider public, a poll of whom revealed a majority. But they also think it has happened amongst landowners.
'I 100% think people are moving towards our view, on reforestation' says Lister. 'I get calls monthly from landowners in Scotland wanting to come up and visit.'
Highland cattle at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) But the Scottish Government has no plans to reintroduce wolves or any other large carnivorous species into Scotland, a statement which First Minister John Swinney reiterated earlier this year after lynx were illegally released in the Cairngorms. When Lister bought Alladale, a 23,500 acre stretch of wilderness near Ardgay spanned by a ridge from which it's possible to see both east and west coast, he wanted to distinguish it from the kind of hunting, shooting and fishing estate it once was.
Previously its most flamboyant tenants were Sir Henry and Lady Valerie Meux (famous for driving herself around London in a phaeton drawn by a pair of zebras), who provided stalking, fishing and grouse shooting for their friends on a grand scale.
But Lister has a different approach from past owners and tenants. He regards himself as the custodian of Alladale and insists on calling it a reserve. His mission to regenerate and restore nature was inspired by what he has seen in Romania.
In 2002, after his father, Noel, suffered a stroke, he went, he has said "into a dark place", following which he decided to reinvent himself, and consider what legacy he might have. At that point he set up TENT ahead of purchasing Alladale. Its goals were to 'protect and restore wild areas of species'; 'create 'noise' for nature'; 'connect people to nature.'
It's not only wealthy wilderness tourists, booking themselves a stay at Alladale Lodge or journalists like myself who are invited to visit, but also local young people. A schools project here is about rewilding the young.
Though Lister's wolf plan has triggered a backlash from some right to roam campaigners, he is himself an advocate of public access and right to roam and the idea of connecting people to nature.
'When you've got 70 million people living in the country the size of Britain,' he says, 'and you try and exclude them from 50% of private owned land, that's not particularly good. We want people to go into nature. We want them to fall love with nature. We want them to want to save nature. So if we just decide to shut it all off, that's not helping the cause.'
Alladale is just one of Lister's projects. TENT supports work by the Foundation Conservation Carpathia, which is 'creating Europe's Yellowstone' in Carpathia, is helping build jaguar tourism and Belize, as well as funding organisations in Spain and Italy working with lynx, bears and wolves.
Wolves may still be a long way off release in Alladale, but the reserve has done some work on introduction of another predator. Their Scottish wildcat project with RZSS contributed several cats to the Highland Wildlife Park, whose kittens went on to be released in the wild.
I visited their wildcat enclosure, where the cats could be seen clambering over branches and ladders, for all the world like domestic kitties.
A Scottish wildcat at Alladale Wilderness Reserve (Image: Gethin Chamberlain) But Scotland is not moving forward at any great speed on reintroductions. Even beavers, it turns out, are not likely for some time at Alladale. As yet, the reserve has no plan to reintroduce the species since the habitat is not ready – more willow would be needed. 'Not enough wooded debris,' MacNeill says.
Wolves also seem a long way off, with the National Farmers Union of Scotland firmly against them. They are also not what rewilding charities are pushing for.
The general view is that the first big apex predator for reintroduction would be the lynx, and an alliance of charities including Scotland the Big Picture, Trees for Life, TENT and Lifescape has come together in the Lynx to Scotland partnership.
The campaign, including consultations and research, is having an impact, which has arguably been enhanced, rather than diminished by the recent illegal dumping of lynx in the Cairngorms. What was at first suspected to be a guerrilla rewilding was later considered more likely to be the tragic dumping of neglected exotic pets.
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A poll conducted by Survation in January for the Lynx to Scotland Partnership, showed that support for the return of lynx to Scotland had increased to 61% – rising nine points since the last such survey in 2020.
Nor is the possibility entirely distant, since a licence application for lynx reintroduction via the Lynx to Scotland project looks possible in the next coming year or two.
That said, the lynx isn't likely to be seen any time soon at Alladale. The problem for the reserve is that the habitat isn't quite right for this shy, arboreal cat. 'Wolves,' says Innes, 'could hunt in this landscape tomorrow, but the lynx is an ambush predator and there are not enough trees.'
It also doesn't help that the trees would be inside their own enclosures and the deer outside.
One of Lister's arguments is that wilderness tourism employs more than agriculture or field sports. 'When I arrived, there were two and a half members of staff, and they number 12-15 in season.'
'Alladale is a beacon of hope and a beacon of a new way of running a landscape. Rather than employing two shepherds. I've got 14 full-time members of staff. I'm hosting 1000s of people, school kids and adults through the year, as opposed to a few mates who want to go deer stalking.'
However, this man with a vision for returning the landscape to nature is not really himself someone to turn to for too much hope.
'You've come to the wrong person for hope, I'm afraid,' he tells me. 'You might try and drag it out of me. I do what I do because I need to have a purposeful life. I need purpose, and I love what I do. But I'm afraid, if you were to listen to George Carlin, you would realise that we're just one big experiment that's not going particularly well, humans.'
Lister believes that one of the issues is that humans don't like change. 'They're creatures of habit, and change comes with challenges. If it's slightly uncomfortable, then we won't do it. I'm afraid to transcend what we need to transcend, there's going to be some discomfort. Otherwise, no pain, no gain.'
Already, he says, there have been 'landscape-scale changes' at Alladale, and he is proud of them - the reforestation as well as the rise in biodiversity, including eagles, red squirrels, pine martens and badgers.
Changes happen, the team at Alladale tell me, on a slow scale. There is no rushing the process of creating a forest, particularly not in these cool climes where trees grow at a slower rate.
'It's the Highlands of Scotland,' says MacNeill. 'It will take a long time. Nature recovery in this part of the world doesn't mean you'll see wildlife all over the place. It's going to take time. We've abused the landscape for centuries. We're not going to rebuild it in 25 years.'