Locals in a remote and rugged Scottish archipelago are planting hundreds of thousands of native trees across their isles with funding from a community-owned wind farm, setting a global example for green energy projects.
Since 2016, the Western Isles Woodland Project in the Outer Hebrides has aimed to plant at least one million indigenous trees by 2030 on underused crofts (small farms) across the isles, reports the Guardian. So far, 211,000 saplings are thriving across 245 crofts.
The project is funded in part by Beinn Ghrideag, a 9-megawatt onshore wind farm on the Isle of Lewis, which generates £900,000 (C$1.59 million) in annual profits. Owned by the Point and Sandwick Trust, the wind farm’s three turbines produce enough energy to power all the isles, with the proceeds reinvested in community projects.
The roughly £70,000 (C$124,000) the Woodland Project receives annually from the Trust has allowed locals to re-establish more than 200 small woodlands so far across the Outer Hebrides, restoring a primordial pattern of forestation lost for centuries to overgrazing.
Many of the saplings come from seeds sourced by Hebridean Tree Ark, a native trees project that collects them from trees growing on cliffs and islands inaccessible to grazing animals, writes the Guardian. Native species like rowan, Scots pine, blackthorn, and sycamore are amongst the native species now thriving across the isles, and the project is also funding three new tree nurseries.
Former Labour Member of Parliament Calum Macdonald, who now leads the Woodland Project, told the Guardian he hopes it will become a model for other community-owned energy projects.
Alluding to other multinational-owned wind farms in the region whose business models tend not to prioritize community benefits, Macdonald urged policy-makers to connect green energy with community buy-in.
“I would love to use the green energy revolution to get a lot more long-term benefits for our communities,” Macdonald said.
Crofter Jon Macleod, 57, whose four-hectare plot on the Isle of Lewis’s western coast is now home to 1,200 new saplings, made a similar point. “No one is against renewable energy here, but community benefit is key, otherwise it’s just exploitation,” Macleod said.
