Farmers aim to tackle biodiversity decline with formation of West Loch Ness Farm Cluster (WLNFC)
Farmers with a passion for nature have joined forces to improve and protect their environment near Loch Ness.
The West Loch Ness Farm Cluster (WLNFC), the second of its type in Scotland, is a farmer-led group of land managers who are working together to find solutions to local biodiversity decline.
Each member already champions environmental projects on their own ground.
But they recognise that to progress further, they need to work collaboratively to achieve landscape-scale changes.
The cluster brings together crofters, livestock and arable farmers and estates and Forestry Land Scotland.
The group covers an area including Groam and Kirkton Farms by the Beauly Firth, inland arable areas of Belladrum and Moniack, Dochfour estate, Dunain farm, and Cullaird Farm with arable operations and traditional livestock by Loch Ness and forestry land uses higher up.
The group is the second of its type to form in Scotland after the Strathmore Group.
Employing the help of local professional ecological and wildlife consultants and working with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), it arranged for initial baseline surveys establish the presence of species of birds, fauna and flora and habitat.
The results showed that diminishing habitat and reduced ecological connectivity were having a detrimental effect on local biodiversity.
Cluster priorities have now been set to boost the presence of key species through the restoration and creation of endangered habitat and increasing their connectivity through wildlife corridors.
Work has already begun on these themes.
Last autumn, work began rewetting the poorly-drained marsh area of Conanbank farm, near Moniack.
For over 200 years, there have been repeated attempts to drain the area with limited success. Drains were blocked and ditches reprofiled to replace the dangerous steep ditches with longer shallower profiles.
This has created a more diverse wetland area to encourage a richer biodiversity and better safety for livestock.
Since the restoration work goldeneye, widgeon, teal, tufted duck, oystercatchers and lapwing have been recorded there, as have a newly arrived pair of otters.
Elsewhere in the cluster area, work has been carried out to install owl boxes, apiaries and tree alleys (for connectivity) along with ecologist-led reconnaissance to locate and plan other habitat creation and connectivity projects.
Cluster manager Fred Swift said it was just the beginning.
"We are very much still in the initial stages," he said.
"It is very exciting to see the wildlife respond so quickly to the habitat creation projects we have already begun and we are working hard to roll out similar projects across the cluster area.
"It is such an advantage to us, and the wildlife, to be working as a coordinated group rather than in isolated pockets.
"The climate and biodiversity crisis is a landscape scale problem and we need landscape-scale solutions to begin to improve it."
He added that while farmers were commonly associated with habitat destruction, pollution and species persecution, this was a great opportunity to show that farmers were a large part of the solution.
Hundreds of trees planted near Loch Ness
Ross Macleod of GWCT, was delighted by the formation of WLNFC.
"This is a really important development, along similar lines to the farmer-led clusters established in England with the help of the GWCT a few years ago," he said.
"These have taken off down south, backed by facilitation funding from Natural England.
"The learning that the WLNFC will gain from the collaborative work should put it in a strong position when the Scottish Government introduces changes to agricultural support from 2025, which will include encouragement of landscape-scale initiatives through both public and private funding."
