AFTER THE HARVEST

Skye is peppered with commercial forestry plantations. Usually conifers, but now becoming a more pleasant mix that includes deciduous trees, the wood is used for making paper, cardboard and softwood furnishings. There are also community owned forests such as Tormore, which supplies wood pellets as renewable fuel for the nearby Sabhal Mòr Ostaig National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture

The harvesting of the forests always looks incredibly brutal. Massive machines chop and slice, changing the landscape so quickly it feels wrong. It’s easy to forget that the trees are planted by people in order to be harvested, rather than having grown organically. Rewilding initiatives are taking place, especially by fencing off areas of land to prevent deer eating vulnerable saplings of native species.