It seems a long time since our winter gathering event at the Woodland Shelter, when a good crowd coalesced around the fire collecting Christmas trees, and the other event around that time, when Santa Claus was once again installed in the Conservation Hub as part of the Christmas trail put on by Laura Pasetti and the Theatre of the Seven Directions. Now it is spring and the flowers, bees and the light are returning.
So much has been happening in the intervening months. This was brought home once again when I wrote a summary for our whole team meeting at Cullerne. The main topic was to progress the changes in structure of the charity to ensure its sustainability and resilience well into the future. As part of that I will be stepping down as FHT Chair in September – I will be staying on as a trustee, probably involved in a new Education and Community team that is forming. All will be revealed in the next newsletter when decisions have been finalised and the new structure will hopefully be in place!
Back to my summary of events – it’s a long list!
Land Transfers – Two land transfers, from the Findhorn Foundation Trust and Duneland Ltd, are almost set to go. These will bring the FHT land holding to over fifty hectares – a huge step forward that will be celebrated once the transfer has gone through. Still pending is the in-settlement land offered by Duneland Ltd that now includes other areas with conservation value, over and above the Diamond Woodland already offered. An agreement with Findhorn Wind Park (FWP) has been drawn up and approved by both parties, which will allow FHT to collect an annual income from renting out the land under the turbines, which is about £8k/annum. This income is very welcome as we will use it to carry out the imminent restructuring of the charity.
Dune Restoration Project Phase 2 – The Land Management Subgroup (LMSG) gave the go ahead to extend this work this year by a further 0.5ha, and to seek funding for this and associated survey work, particularly for beetles. An expression of interest has been submitted to the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Foundation (HEIF) fund for the physical work and project management. Further PR work continues – I spoke about the project at the North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership seminar in Inverurie, alongside Alan who was there to speak about rewilding Caledonian Forest work. The seminar was a real eye opener, showcasing 12 other inspiring and very different projects along with ours. It was great to feel part of a much bigger and positive environmental movement and see so many younger people enthusiastically involved.
Local Biodiversity Action Plan – The LMSG has been working with ecological consultant Sean Reed to review and look at creating a new plan, which will be an important tool to guide our future work. It’s still in its early stages but should be complete later in the year. We have applied for funding through the Neighbourhood Ecosystem Fund, along with the beetle survey work mentioned above.
Land Management Plan – The LMSG believes a working document setting out the vision and priorities for the next five years and beyond is necessary, and has set aside time over the coming months to look at this. Included is the future of Wilkies Wood as well as ways forward for the green burial work, as well as other fellings and plantings.
Partnership with Forres Academy – FHT is looking to host 180 S1 and S2 pupils on the land during their activity days in May, plus the regular biology field trip event in June with a further 80 pupils. Talks in the school are still to go ahead.
Partnership with Findhorn Bay Holiday Park (FBHP) – We are looking forward to exploring what works with FBHP, as they had about 10,000 visitors to the site last year. This is a large potential audience that might like to get involved in some of our activities and workshops. FBHP is also willing to book our 12 camping spaces on the edge of Wilkies Wood, which would help create another source of income as well as introduce more people to our work. Right now George is creating a map of how to reach our camp pads, to be used in a brochure. We’re in discussions with the bee group about including campers in our weekly inspections, and Roy is looking to offer regular ‘sharing nature’ mornings for families. There are still many details to sort but it will be good to be trying something different this year to engage more people and develop other income streams.
2025 Educational Programme – This will be a repeat of many of the offerings made last year and it is hoped that some of the Holiday Park visitors might get involved. Laura is developing a new workshop around green burials in conjunction with Laura Pasetti.
FHT Personnel – There has been some movement here: our secretary Talitha has left, and Fiona is now temporarily filling that role. Carolin joined the team as Membership Secretary and will be back this month after some time in India. Jacqueline has been taking time out as a trustee but is now back this month. Dell was asked if she could take over production of the newsletter from Jonathan and has joined the team. Kajedo our Land Manager expressed dissatisfaction about elements of his present role which triggered discussion – challenges have been looked at and many resolved. There is a need for one or two more trustees, and a big unresolved question is: who will take on the Chair role from September?
Completed Projects – FHT involvement in the new Sanctuary build is almost there and the Local Place Plan for the Park Ecovillage Findhorn has now been submitted, so our involvement is no longer needed at this time.
Ongoing Projects – With Jaqueline taking a pause and Val of Digital Routes having a parallel large project, work on the New Website Project has been slow, but momentum will pick up now.
Community member Jane Rasbash, who died at the end of last year, very kindly left a bequest to FHT, stipulating it be used to support young people engaging with the work on the land, and suggesting it could go towards purchasing or building appropriate accommodation. Her family is still sorting out her estate, which will take some time. The exact amount has yet to be determined but it could be in the region of £20k. This has inspired the charity to seek further legacy financial support for our good work, which is being included in a new green burial leaflet.
There’s plenty more happening that’s not on the list! So far this winter all hives in our apiary are buzzing with all but one in good condition – we look forward to a productive season with the bees but as usual this all depends on the weather. We are actively looking for younger people in our community who might be interested in learning more about beekeeping, so that our huge knowledge can be passed on to the next generation – do get in touch if this could be you.
Another happening has been the repair of some of our structures in Wilkies Wood, such as the seating around the fireplace at the Woodland Shelter and the picnic bench by the main track. This work has been carried out by a small, enthusiastic team led by George and I and includes new members Sam and Ida Nye.
One other event to add was a visit from mover and shaker Ariane Burgess, our local MSP and former Park Ecovillage Findhorn resident and active FHT member who helped get our Woodland Garden established. It was good to show her what we have been up to and also to connect with the larger green initiatives happening in Moray.
FHT members, with the help of some of our chainsaw equipment and Isle of Erraid residents, were also involved in a week’s chainsaw work party on the West Coast in January tackling a pile of over forty tonnes of firewood. Our efforts were much appreciated by the new Findhorn Foundation SCIO as they prepare for a new and busy guest season this summer.
There will be other things I will have missed but I am sure that is enough information for now. Enjoy the coming of spring with its new growth and flowering as the weather warms and we connect more deeply with the wonder of the world around us.
Jonathan Caddy
FHT Chair
9th March 2025
Lichen spotting – at 50 miles
Rare lichens, remote research and AI habitat mapping – how new technologies are making conservation more efficient.
Ecologist James Bunyan is closely examining a small patch of lichen on the dunes just outside Findhorn. That’s remarkable for two reasons: first, that some of these lichens are found in only a few other places in the world, and second, that he’s actually sitting on the Black Isle, about 50 miles away.
James, of Tracks Ecology Ltd, is using two technological advances – high resolution drone photography and GIS (Geographical Information Systems) digital mapping – to monitor the pioneering restoration experiment taking place on our dunes.
Importantly, the results have the speed, efficiency and scale that would be impossible to achieve by a human on foot.
The detail is astonishing. From an image of the Findhorn peninsula, James zooms in to show the Hinterland, then an area of gorse, then a small patch of heather, with the tiny individual flowers clearly visible. He settles on a stone, which he then measures (it’s 12 centimetres long).
In September 2024 he used his drone to photograph the area of gorse earmarked for the dune restoration project. A second drone flight in November captured baseline images of the newly cleared dune, bare sand that will hopefully over time develop the wild ecosystem that was once part of the second largest sand dune system in Europe, of which only small fragments now remain.
‘Before the advent of drones, monitoring and mapping how habitats change with precision was very difficult,’ says James. ‘Not so long ago it involved ecologists out with pencils, paper and maps, which could potentially impact delicate habitats and disturb protected species. The results could be subjective and involve significant errors. So drones and GIS make the information-gathering process that much more robust.’
This technology is particularly useful because dune habitats are mobile – the wind blows and the dunes move. This is why too much gorse becomes a problem: it stabilises the dunes, squeezing out the precious dune habitats. ‘With an aerial view we can more easily measure changes in sand dunes, where sand is accumulating, and where it’s eroding.’
The high resolution imagery offers another advantage: it can show exactly which vegetation is returning, and whether this dune restoration approach is succeeding in fostering the habitats and super-rare species that are critically endangered. At Heathneuk, just outside Findhorn village, the lichens are being monitored on a site that was cleared four years ago. This small area was mapped with very high resolution, with each pixel measuring 3 millimetres, allowing you to zoom in to sub-centimetre level.
(Pixels are the square blocks you see when you zoom right in on an image. The smaller the pixels – or the number of pixels in an image – the more detail you can see.)
This is where machine learning, a useful branch of Artificial Intelligence, can come into play. ‘With machine learning, we can use computers to identify species, by training them to analyse and recognise what a particular pixel is.
‘There are different ways to do this – you can either teach it to recognise objects, such as invasive species like rhododendrons, or to recognise pixels. For example, we are mapping seagrass in intertidal zones based on the differences in the colour of the sand, which show where the sea grass is. That would obviously be impossible on foot. It’s also more robust, more easily repeatable, and far quicker than on-the-ground work.’
Technology can also create 3D models of the land, as you can see in this ‘fly-through’ of the dune restoration area.
Data captured from a drone with a LiDAR sensor or optical camera can be used to create a 3D model of the landscape or object, by collecting data points mapped in three dimensions (a point cloud). The process of photogrammetry matches thousands of recognisable points in at least four separate, overlapping images. The accurate three-dimensional location of each of these points can then be calculated, with the composite of all points forming the point cloud, a 3D model.
There are other very down-to-earth benefits. The Hinterland Trust works with educational groups like the Forres Academy, and now learners can see the land’s full scale (even when it’s raining). Plus, being able to offer visible proof of habitat restoration successes at scale will be invaluable in securing grant funding for the ongoing conservation of the land.
Working with lichen expert Heather Paul, James is trialling whether machine learning can be used to map lichen in small areas – 60 by 60 metres – from the very high resolution imagery. ‘In addition to optical data, like the red-green-blue that our eyes see, we can gather multispectral info, in other words beyond the spectral range of human vision. This gives machine learning more data to train with – additional info to help with identification. This is the beginning of a journey – we may in time be able to identify if not actual species, then species types and certainly habitats.’
James is working with the Findhorn Hinterland Trust as he’s on a mission to improve the technologies used in ecological consulting and conservation. ‘This is a testing ground for new approaches and I want to get the technology understood more widely. And I believe it can really contribute to the Hinterland’s success.’
This high resolution habitat mapping, plus using GIS to also analyse and store the data gathered by others in the Hinterland Trust team, such as Neil Miekleham and Alan Watson Featherstone, creates an accurate image of what’s happening in the Hinterland right now, as well as an invaluable resource and record of the land, to be handed on through time.