Habitat Restoration Project

Helping the bedrock of biodiversity

Well managed native habitat is what underpins the rich diversity of wildlife on Scotland’s west coast. This includes woodland, scrub, moorland and wetland. But what is becoming more important is how these areas are interlinked so that they don’t just support wildlife within them but allow it to move around safely over a larger area. This is referred to as ‘Wildlife Corridors’ and is something that has been largely reduced or lost completely in many cases under intensive agriculture. Carna contains a great variety of different habitat types but could benefit from some coordination to link them, creating corridors from the shore to the centre of the island. The impact of damaging non-native species such as bracken and rhododendron is also an issue of major concern which needs to be tackled. We are enhancing existing wildlife habitat and corridors on the island by:

• Managing the land to provide year round nectar sources for native black bees and other pollinators and habitat for other invertebrates, bird and mammal life. This may involve planting some species such as gorse, hazel and individual fruiting trees.
• Joining up existing wildlife corridors and creating new ones using hedgerows and tree lines.
• Removing and managing damaging non-native invasive species such as Rhododendron and Bracken.
• Improving existing moorland habitat to maintain heather and rough grazing in optimum condition for biodiversity and summer grazing use.
• Protecting and maintaining wetland habitats on the island such as bogs and burns.
• Maintaining the small area of peat accumulation we have as a carbon sink.
• Managing Goat Island to encourage ground nesting birds which may involve mink trapping.

Want to help us with this? We are in need of donations to help us plant trees, shrubs and remove rhododendrons and anything you can donate would be very gratefully received.

Another way to help us with habitat restoration is to join us on a Conservation Experience Week on the island where you can get hands on helping with our projects and learn new skills doing it.