'What we do is incredibly rewarding. We relish every day': The guardians of an ancient Scottish forest chosen by The Prince of Wales as his countryside champions
Richard Whitcomb and Amie Dow of the Bute Community Land Company are picked out countryside champions by The Prince of Wales in his guest-edited issue of Country Life. They spoke to Julie Harding.
We manage the Bute Community Forest and its funding on behalf of the community. The forest consists of five compartments across nearly 550 acres, one of those being Balnakailly Wood, which is Bute’s last remaining rainforest and a former royal hunting forest that can be traced back to the early 1300s.
Here we are enrichment planting with species such as hazel, birch, rowan, elm and alder in among the oaks. Historically, the other compartments have been managed for commercial forestry, but, over the years, areas in these have been felled and replanted to create rainforest. The rest of the forest is owned by Tallwood, which is also on
a regeneration journey, and, once we have both completed our planned broadleaf replanting schemes, our woodlands will join up to form a giant native-woodland corridor.
The weight of evidence showing that spending time outdoors, particularly in forests,
is good for health and wellbeing highlights the importance of community forests. We have an inclusive approach to engagement and, so far, every child aged 11 and under on the island has visited the forest.
We also work with refugee communities, adults who are hard to engage or are looking for work, and we’ve given the management of a compartment at Balnakailly to teach young people land-management skills, planting schemes, carbon sequestering, invasive-species management and access creation — a project we hope will carry on for generations to come.
Much of what we do is experimental and pioneering. For example, one of our compartments has been badly affected by accidental fires over a decade and we recently obtained permission from NatureScot to install a green firebreak. Constructed to our own design, it will be unique in the UK and will involve digging a trench, removing highly inflammable bracken and planting high-moisture species more densely than in a general forest environment to create a natural wall.
We both grew up in rural settings, on the outskirts of Bristol [Richard] and on the family farm in Lincolnshire [Amie], with memories of picking blackberries and
paddling in streams. Now, we’re united in our love for Bute’s Community Forest.
Not everything is easy — particularly funding, which requires a quarter-century to a century of thinking when the current funding scape focuses on only one- or two-year placements — but what we do is incredibly rewarding and we relish every day.
This feature originally appeared in the November 11, 2026, print edition of Country Life, guest-edited by HRH The Prince of Wales. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
