When More Scottish Forests Are Still Not Enough

First, the good news:  Scotland’s forests are the largest they have been for 900 years. increasing from just 6 per cent a century ago to around 18 per cent today.

Now the bad news: It's still not enough as evidenced by the fact that White-tailed Eagles in Western Scotland act very differently than White-tailed Eagles in Norway.  

While the former too often feed on sheep carcasses and the occasional newborn lamb, Norway's White-tailed Eagles are much more likely to feed almost exclusively on fish.  From Golden and White-tailed Eagles in Scotland and Norway Coexistence, competition and environmental degradation (PDF) by D. J. Halley:

The inability of two large avian predators (Golden Eagles and White-tailed Eagles) to coexist in this environment is both a product and a symptom of historically unsustainable land-use practices and consequent environmental degradation. It is an unhappy reflection that this process, although described in detail — along with the long-term consequences of continued neglect — almost half a century ago, continues more or less unabated to the present day. While the future of White-tailed and Golden Eagles in Scotland (in allopatric populations) seems to be assured, the task of their conservation is complicated and their potential population sizes restricted. For wider conservation-management considerations, and rational human land use in general, the current situation illustrates once again that west Highland Scotland is a 'devastated countryside . .. reduced to the crude values and expressions of its geological composition' and that 'no policy which fails to address this unpalatable fact... [can] hope to achieve rehabilitation'. 

Once again we are reminded that simply replanting trees after centuries of rip, rape, and rob, may not be enough to set things right. 

The deforestation of west Highland Scotland has resulted in massive soil loss, while the introduction of potatoes in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries resulted in massive population growth that resulted in the enabling of too many people living on too many small crofts.

So what's the solution now?  Scotland needs to embrace a program used all over the world: a livestock indemnity program that compensates farmers, on a pro-rated basis, for documented stock loss over a weather-and-location predicted level, and which incentivizes better stock management practices.

And trees? Plant more of them, especially native varieties.