Regeneration of the native pinewoods has long been a major of aim of national forestry policy and Rothiemurchus has been at the forefront of this for many years. Since the large scale felling of the two world wars early last century, more than 1000ha of woodlands have been established or re-established at Rothiemurchus.

Our series of forest regeneration images monitoring woodland development was started back in 1994, as part of an Annual Management Grant programme funded by the Forestry Commission. Our fixed points covered areas where the process of natural regeneration was at an early stage or where regeneration was likely to begin in the near future.

Although the Forestry Commission project has come to an end, we have continued this photographic monitoring, adding new sites and re-visiting previous ones over the years. Some of the early 1994 sites have now been photographed 3 times and many images show dramatic change, reflecting the estate’s very positive management of the forest.

Our images are captioned with the site number, year and OS Grid Reference, eg 01 1994 GR NH936 101.

To view our Living Forest images galleries click on the links below: