Woodland expansion in the presence of deer: 30 years of evidence from the Cairngorms Connect landscape restoration partnership

Restoring native woodlands to areas where they have been lost is a key element for tackling the nature and climate crises. Natural regeneration offers the potential to achieve this cheaply and at scale, but browsing ungulates like deer can inhibit this or alter the pattern of regeneration. This issue is particularly pronounced in the Scottish Highlands, a heavily deforested region with high deer numbers.
We describe the work of the 600 km2 landscape restoration partnership, Cairngorms Connect, in speeding up natural woodland expansion. We use 30 years of regeneration monitoring to show a consistent, large-scale expansion of native woodland, largely through natural regeneration alongside deer culling, without the use of fences. This was achieved across the partnership, despite differing management histories and land-managing organisations (comprising two statutory agencies, one private landowner and one non-governmental organisation).
During peak periods of woodland expansion, the area ..., Full methods are described in the paper and Supplementary Information, MS Excel or similar, such as LibreOffice Calc.