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Scotland's Native Trees and Shrubs
Scotland's landscape: historical context
Scotland's landscape has undergone many transformations since its emergence from the end of the last Ice Age about 8,000 years ago. Traces of this forbidding landscape remain in the watery bog-land of the Flow Country, the wind-blasted outer islands of the Hebrides and the bare-topped mountain ranges of the Cairngorms. Millions of years of natural geological processes, combined with climatic influences and several thousand years of human-engineered change, have produced a complex landscape consisting of particular vegetation types. Small remnants of the ancient Caledonian pine forests that once covered large areas of the country still remain, mostly in the north and west.
These forests, perhaps the best known and most accessible being at Rothiemurchus, represent the nearest we have to the original natural coniferous forests of Scotland. Farming, moorland management, commercial afforestation, industrialisation and development have all altered the landscape so that now only 15% of Scotland's land area is wooded. However, Scotland is being re-forested and by the end of the 21st century the area given over to semi-natural woodland is expected to be substantially expanded.
Preserving and enhancing Scotland's rich natural heritage of native trees and woodlands must be a key step in securing Scotland's unique landscape character for future generations to enjoy.
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