West Stormont Woodland Group

West Stormont
Woodland Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC051682

Join us today to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into community ownership

So it’s March 2020. What has WSWG been doing this month?

West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today. Working with local people to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
West Stormont Woodland Group
  • On 15 February, another small band of WSWG supporters braved the elements to do some underplanting in Five Mile Wood. About 100 hazel saplings were planted to diversify the future woodland habitat. Thanks you to energy company Ovo and The Conservation Volunteers for donating these trees to WSWG.
  • More User Surveys completed by dog walkers and families out for a breath of fresh air and exercise.
  • Mapping ideas for access improvements in both woods – ongoing as part of community consultation.
  • The car park entrances at both woods are suffering a lot of litter and some flytipping. WSWG volunteershave litterpicked, filling bags and bags of needlessly and sadly discarded rubbish. More of that soon.
  • This month saw the first in a series of monthly blogs for WSWG by Margaret Lear, writer, gardener and green woman engaged with change, to help us follow our two woods through the coming seasons.Margaret is doing this as part of her “Comments on the Nature of the Universe” blog where she ask questions about nature, the universe and where we fit into it all. This month’s beautifully written piece entitled “A February Morning at Five Mile Wood” can be read on the WSWG Facebook page and website.
  • Networking meeting with group working to bring Dalrulzion Wood, Kirkmichael into community ownership.
  • Presentation to Luncarty Lunch Club about WSWG Project. A big welcome to 11 new WSWG members!

WSWG Word of the Month – Mother Tree

  1. In forests, the system at work is not a Darwinian “survival of the fittest” where trees are vying for space and light but instead one of co-operation and nurturing. A series of underground fungal networks connects the trees in a given area to each other. These mycorrhizal fungi have a beneficial, symbiotic relationship with a host plant, in this case through the trees’ roots. They allow trees to communicate with one another and actually movecarbon, water, and nutrients between trees, depending upon their needs. The Mother Tree will typically be the dominant, larger, older tree in a network and it’s this Mother Tree that controls and determines the nutrient transfers for that network. Mother Trees manage the resources and take care of the trees in need. Without the vital role of the Mother Tree, many tree seedlings wouldn’t make it. The concept of symbiotic plant communication has far reaching implications in both the forestry and agricultural industries. This knowledge could be used to change the way we approach harvesting forests, by doing things like leaving the Mother Trees intact to foster regrowth.

What’s coming up next?

  • Community Consultation is high on our agenda but we are re-examining how to progress that in the light of the Coronavirus crisis. We will keep you posted on this and other news by email, Facebook, posters on community noticeboards, etc. Please let us know if you would like to get involved in helping with any WSWG activities.

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – September 2024

Latest on Stanley Wildwood (Rookery Wood). You may remember that we dedicated our July Monthly Update to making the case for community ownership of Stanley Wildwood, with subsequent mailouts and Facebook posts to encourage our members and supporters to vote in PKC’s recent public consultation for a community-based future for this small but important woodland in Stanley village. We are therefore delighted to tell you that the Council has reported that 65.6% of respondents in the Stanley postcode area were in favour of a community outcome for the woodland. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the consultation. WSWG and Tayside Woodland Partnerships are now in discussion with PKC to explore further the option of bringing the woodland into community ownership and management. We will keep you posted including ways individuals and the wider community can get involved going forward.

Read More »

Community Monthly Update – July 2024

Something quite different has cropped up for WSWG and Stanley village recently, so we have decided to make it the sole topic of our update this month and a simple appeal to you at the same time. PKC who currently own the 0.56 acre Stanley Wildwood (the Rookery wood) have decided it is surplus to their needs. They have launched an on-line consultation to find out whether the local community thinks it should be sold to a private neighbouring resident as an extension to their garden ground or sold or leased to a willing community organisation. The area owned by PKC is shown in yellow. It has had a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) since 1987. We believe the best interests of the Wildwood and rookery will be served through community not private ownership. Please support our goal by voting for Option 2 in the PKC consultation, using the link shown.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2024

Our main focus this month has been collaboration with all sorts of people and organisations in our ongoing programme of events in Taymount Wood and outreach activity for the WSWG Project. Each and every event has been a source of real joy at seeing so many people benefitting in so many ways from spending and sharing time in our lovely woodlands on a diverse range of activities. Whilst we cannot claim to have beaten the record set in 2019 for our oldest participant at a WSWG event (she was an amazing 96 years old!), at only 5 weeks old a little treasure beat the record of our youngest attendee to date by a whole 11 weeks! How cool is that? Read on to find out more about these wonderful, moving and uplifting events.

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Community Monthly Update – May 2024

We are really delighted this month to start with the announcement that the winner of the WSWG April Photography Competition in the Children’s category is Dougie from Highland Perthshire. His stunning and clever photograph was taken at the head of Loch Rannoch, looking west, on Saturday 20 April. Such a beautiful, calm scene in our precious Perthshire countryside, but just look at the perfect capture of the beautiful splash effect at its heart. A truly super photo.

Congratulations, Dougie. Thank you very much for taking part in this competition and your well-deserved prize will be making its way to you very soon.

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Community Monthly Update – April 2024

On Sunday 14 April, a lovely bunch of people turned out for a WSWG Guided Climate and Biodiversity Walk in Taymount Wood to celebrate the start of the new Perth & Kinross Climate Action Hub (PKCAH) for which funding has been secured from the Scottish Government.

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Community Monthly Update – March 2024

It is a disappointing thing to have to do, but a surprisingly rewarding thing to have done. We are talking about picking up someone else’s litter. We all know Taymount Wood car park occasionally suffers from fly tipping, but it is regular littering which is more of a chronic problem, clogging the ditches, being strewn around the verges, blown into the brambles and nettles, overgrown by rank grass, buried in the soil, or crushed by vehicles if not removed regularly.

Read More »