• last month
Landward episode 18 2024
Transcript
00:00A dear green place, home to a wealth of wildlife, just a stone's throw from the city centre.
00:09Welcome to Lambeth.
00:10This time I'm not in some far-flung part of the Scottish countryside but right in the
00:35heart of Glasgow, at the Claypits local nature reserve.
00:40As the name suggests, this was once a quarry, a wasteland for decades, now being transformed
00:46into a thriving inner-city parkland.
00:49Later I'll be meeting some members of the community who look after this urban oasis.
00:53But first, here's what else is coming up.
00:59Cammies in Orkney to meet the Shetland Cheebiot.
01:01If you always stock your farm to what suits what you've got, it'll always do better.
01:07I'm not so good with wood.
01:10I'm botching at the moment.
01:14And we are ready to cook.
01:15Excellent.
01:16I'm Anz in Lerwick with the Shetland Chef.
01:26But first, as we've seen before on Landward, tree planting is an important tool in the
01:30fight against global warming.
01:32But to create mighty forests, you need lots and lots of saplings.
01:37Rosie is in Fife meeting a tree producer, helping to meet the demand, without creating
01:43a carbon footprint in Zuland.
01:50Near Kirkcaldy is the Acre Tree Nursery.
01:53So called because this state-of-the-art greenhouse has a whole acre under glass, space to grow
01:59seven million trees a year, in what is said to be the world's first verified carbon-negative
02:05nursery.
02:08That means the business removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it produces.
02:15Power on the site comes from solar panels, and the saplings are watered with rain collected
02:20from the roof.
02:21Renik, what an amazing place this is.
02:25Yeah, it's pretty cool.
02:28Acre is the brainchild of Renik Drysdale.
02:32This is the glasshouse area, so this is where most of the growing happens.
02:36And yeah, you can feel the conditions in here are perfect for trees.
02:41Right next to us here, we've got some Scots pines.
02:44These pines are destined for the wild hills of the Cairngorms.
02:48So why start them under glass?
02:51We need to improve the way in which we grow trees.
02:54Between now and 2050, we have to grow an additional one trillion trees around the world.
02:59And using traditional methods, that would be quite hard to do.
03:03So what we're trying to do here is build a system that does it more efficiently and more
03:07sustainably.
03:08Seeds are sown initially in tiny cells.
03:12Then the seedlings will be transplanted into finishing trees.
03:16And eventually, we'll get to something that looks a little bit like that.
03:20And you've got lots of kind of fantastic white roots there.
03:23That's supercharged.
03:24And then it goes into the ground.
03:25Bang.
03:26It's ready to go.
03:27It's ready to go.
03:28Everything here is designed to give the trees the best possible start.
03:33The whole glasshouse system is automated, and we've written our own proprietary software.
03:38And what it allows us to do is control the internal environment so that it's perfect
03:42for native trees.
03:43We've got a bunch of different sensors dotted through the glasshouse.
03:47So we have soil moisture, temperature, humidity, photosynthetically active radiation, CO2.
03:55That data is collected, analysed, and then you can hear in the background, the environment
04:01will automatically adjust to make sure that the conditions in here are perfect.
04:05So what do you do?
04:06Sit up with your feet up in a cup of tea, that's it?
04:09Yeah, just nodding as I have a cup of tea and wait for the trees to grow, yeah.
04:13There are some labour-intensive jobs, but not many.
04:18This machine is preparing compost-filled paper tubes, ready to take the seedlings from the
04:23white starter trays.
04:25Seems like an unnecessary step.
04:27Why not grow them all in the larger trays to begin with?
04:33We've got 126 cells in this tray.
04:38If we fill the glasshouse with these trays, you'd have 890,000 trees in the glasshouse.
04:46Which sounds good, but if we use one of these trays, there are 504 cells in this.
04:54Wow.
04:55And that means you can get 3.5 million.
04:57In that?
04:58In the glasshouse.
04:59Really?
05:00Alone?
05:01Yeah.
05:02Just that one acre?
05:03Yeah.
05:04But it's also important because when you sow 100 seeds, you might get 70 that grow.
05:08That means that 30 are wasted, and the soil medium that you use in those 30 is also wasted.
05:14So if we sowed all of those into the finished cells, we'd be using six times more compost
05:19and wasting six times more compost.
05:21So we get that mistake out in the mini-plugs.
05:25Before moving on to the next stage.
05:27Exactly.
05:28That's so clever.
05:29Yeah.
05:30Amazing.
05:31It's a lot more efficient and a lot less waste.
05:35Once they're transplanted and after they've spent time in the glasshouse, the saplings
05:40are finished off outside.
05:43When they're used to the Scottish weather, they'll be sold on to landowners and tree-planting
05:47projects around the country.
05:51From the solar panels on the roof to the tiny cells, this whole system has been designed
05:57to minimise environmental impact and maximise the output of trees.
06:03Why is that so important to you personally?
06:06Because it's possible, I think, is the main point.
06:10If everybody engages with the process, then we can actually have a meaningful impact on
06:16atmospheric carbon.
06:17We can also restore some pretty important habitats.
06:21But I think alongside that, if we're going to be helping other businesses to reduce their
06:25carbon footprint, then it makes sense for us to have done it ourselves first.
06:29We've got to walk the walk.
06:33And they're certainly walking the walk here in Hamilton Hill in Glasgow, creating a special
06:43green place in the city.
06:49This is Claypit's local nature reserve.
06:52At one time a quarry, the clay they used to dig here was used to line the Forth and Clyde
06:57Canal that runs right by it.
07:01Now it's a haven for wildlife and people.
07:06At the last census, there were over 620,000 people living in Glasgow, Scotland's biggest
07:12and most densely populated city.
07:15So for Glaswegians, an escape like this is extremely valuable.
07:21It's good for nature too.
07:23There's an ever-expanding list of wildlife here, including roe deer and all sorts of
07:29birds and beasties.
07:31The community pushed for this to happen.
07:34With help from public agencies like Scottish Canals, they campaigned and raised money.
07:41The reserve is now managed by local volunteers, and Bob Alston has been involved right from
07:47the start.
07:48That was in 2015, I'm still here today.
07:52And what did this look like when you first got involved back then?
07:55There was nothing here.
07:56This was a dump.
07:58There were no paths, there were nothing.
08:02We had to create everything.
08:04So this was a bare hill, covered in rubbish.
08:07That's right.
08:08Wow.
08:09So that was the first thing that we had to do was to clean the place up, then create
08:14the path and create the environment that people see today.
08:19The combination of careful planting and natural regrowth has created a mixture of woodland
08:25and meadow habitat.
08:28And the constant flow of human visitors doesn't seem to bother Claypit's wild residents.
08:35And it's busy too, there's a lot of people here.
08:38People are through here all the time.
08:39We've been open three years and we've had two and a half million visits.
08:45So I mean, obviously it's providing a service for them that hitherto wasn't here.
08:50That's true.
08:51That is true.
08:52Right, we give people nature in the middle of a city.
08:57You're walking here and all around us is Glasgow, yet we're in the middle of nature.
09:06Thirty enthusiastic volunteers work hard to maintain the reserve as a safe and pleasant
09:12space.
09:13And new infrastructure, like this bridge, has connected surrounding neighbourhoods
09:18divided by the Forth and Clyde Canal.
09:21As Community Development Manager, Julianne Leavitt explains.
09:26We have Pawser Park up there, Hamilton Hill, and down there we have Woodside and MacMurray
09:31Hill and you've got Fir Hill.
09:33So this connects all the communities round about.
09:36It has become an important community resource.
09:40We bring nursery schools out here, schools come out here.
09:43We do different projects.
09:44They're out in nature, they're playing, they're making things with trees, they're looking
09:49for bugs, they're pond dipping, there's lots of things, so I get satisfaction at seeing
09:53people use it.
09:54And getting back to nature, I guess, is key here.
09:57Absolutely.
09:58Nature plays a big part in health and wellbeing for people.
09:59I mean, if you go a walk out and about, it makes you feel so much better.
10:03We have people who come here for that reason, specifically for a walk to clear their head.
10:09We have groups who use it for recovery through nature and things like that as well, so it
10:12plays a massive part.
10:15And just like anywhere else, the best views are always at the top.
10:20Oh yeah, hello, look at that.
10:23So this is the West of Glasgow.
10:25A lovely view of the dear green place.
10:27That's right.
10:28Wow.
10:29That was worth the wander up there.
10:33But creating the reserve in the first place was less of a gentle wander and more of an
10:39uphill struggle.
10:40It was a seven-year slog, getting plans, getting the money, getting everything in place.
10:49Every time it's a barrier, we found a way around it or through it or over it or under
10:53it or whatever way to get it done.
10:57And the results speak for themselves.
11:00All the time that we were going through this, we realised that this would be an oasis for
11:07local people and that was worth doing, as simple as that.
11:19Remember, if you've missed anything or you want to catch up with any of our previous
11:23episodes, go to the BBC iPlayer and search for Landward.
11:28North now to Orkney, where Cammie is meeting a farming family who made the crossing from
11:32Shetland to create a herd and a flock of hardy crossbreeds.
11:42For thousands of years, farmers have been selectively breeding livestock.
11:48That's taking two different purebred animals to produce a crossbreed, selecting a particular
11:54characteristic for a particular purpose in a particular place.
11:59Here in Evie, on the Orkney mainland, Brian and Campbell Ridland are leading the way producing
12:09crossbred animals that thrive here.
12:12Brian, how are you?
12:14Hello, aye, good, yeah.
12:16Nice, the rain's off for an hour.
12:18Yeah, it is, yeah.
12:19It was quite wet this morning, first thing, but it's fared up a nice day.
12:23The family made the crossing from a croft in Shetland to set up a much bigger farming
12:28business in this more fertile land.
12:31So I understand you're a Shetland man down in Orkney, how did that come about?
12:35Well, we got the chance to buy Echerness Farm here in 2008, so it's just kind of evolved
12:41from there.
12:42And I understand you've brought a little taste of Shetland down into your farming practices
12:46here, is that right?
12:47Yeah, well, we were quite involved with the Shetland sheep breed in Shetland, so we obviously
12:53were bringing down Shetland sheep at crosses here to use as yows, and also some pure Shetland
12:59yows.
13:00They do really great in Orkney here.
13:03I like it, well we'd better get a look at some of them, won't we?
13:05Yeah, no, that'll be good.
13:06In here?
13:07Yeah.
13:14The lambs are the offspring of a pure Suffolk ram, with that characteristic black head.
13:21But the foundation of the flock are the females.
13:25The yows is the Shetland Cheviot cross yow.
13:29They're two good maternal breeds, that's hill type breeds.
13:33They just mark for an efficient yow, for the grazing side of things, and lambing, and productive
13:40yows, and we find them hard to beat.
13:42So essentially what you're saying is you're selecting your females based on the farm,
13:47based on the type of ground you have?
13:48Yeah, well, one of the main things with farming is to select a breed type that suits what
13:54you're doing, to suit the type of land you have.
13:57So you can adapt your cross to suit your farm too.
14:01Aye, don't worry about everybody else's doing nearby.
14:03Aye, well if you always stock your farm to what suits what you've got, it'll always do better.
14:09Well it's a cracking group of yows you've got here, credit to you.
14:14Yeah, they're looking good at the minute, the yows, yeah.
14:18But the Shetland Cheviot crosses are just half the story.
14:2515 miles south at Hall of Clestron Farm, the Ridlands cattle are enjoying the sunshine.
14:36I join Campbell to see if I can work out what breeds they've crossed here.
14:42So Campbell, what are we looking at here?
14:44Well, for us here we've got a Cemental Ling cross cattle here.
14:49Known as Simlings, these cattle combine continental with native and are used for breeding.
14:57With the Cemental and the Ling cross, then you're kind of getting the equivalent of the Shetland Cheviot cross
15:03because they get the hardiness of the lings in and the power and the strength from the Cementals
15:08and they make really good, strong cattle.
15:10Okay, but why not just stick with a Ling? Have you got the ground suited for this?
15:15Aye, the cattle here is very well suited to the land we have here at Clestron too.
15:19They're a bigger type of cow, so they are able to rear this bigger calf off the Charlie Bull.
15:25And obviously you've went with the Charlie calf, is this for a size thing or what's the reason for the Charlie?
15:31Well the Charlie calf, they give you maximum growth for the type of cow.
15:37They work very well, you're getting the growth and they sell well too.
15:43We've talked about the benefits of Shetland livestock coming down to Orkney
15:47and maybe the more fertile pastures here and the benefits it has to them
15:50but you obviously made that cross in your cell when you were a bairn.
15:52Aye, yeah.
15:53Have you benefited from it?
15:54I made the move along with mum and dad in 2008, I was only six.
15:58So really all I know is what goes on here in Orkney.
16:02You say you're a bit of an adopted Arcadian?
16:04Ah somewhat, depends who's asking I guess, yeah.
16:07So you can switch back to being a Shetlander if need be?
16:09Yeah, I guess you can.
16:16By crossbreeding their sheep and cattle, the Ridlands are selecting traits that produce animals
16:21that are ideally suited to the Orkney landscape.
16:24With a wee bit of influence from Shetland too.
16:28Now, Anne's a little further north than Cammie, making a return trip to see Shetland chef Akshay Borges.
16:3615 years ago, he swapped Mumbai for Lerwick.
16:40Falling in love with the place and using its incredible produce
16:44to find the culinary sweet spot between East and West.
16:49So you can take your bannock, dip it in the curry.
16:52Oh wow.
16:54That's delicious.
16:57This time, he's giving us another taste of his Shetland.
17:01Bringing his own twist to one of the island's superstar ingredients.
17:07It's said you're never more than three miles away from the sea in Shetland.
17:12It's little wonder then that the produce you get out there is such a big part of life here.
17:18The island's boes are the perfect place to harvest seafood.
17:22And Akshay has one particular shellfish he wants me to try.
17:27We got some Shetland mussels that has been just harvested yesterday.
17:32Oh wow, look at the size of those.
17:34These rope-grown mussels are just some of the 8,000 tonnes cultivated here in Shetland every year.
17:41More than 80% of Scotland's mussel production.
17:45The fantastic thing is because we live so close to the sea,
17:48it gets harvested, it goes to our fishmongers,
17:52and then through the day, it just comes straight to us.
17:55It must be a dream for a chef to have all this abundant fresh produce on your doorstep.
18:02Yeah, and that's what's kept me here for the last 15 years.
18:06What are we making today then? Well, what are you making now?
18:09I'm just wondering.
18:11Today I'll just make some simple garlic butter mussels with some of my home-grown greens
18:18and we'll eat it with some local white sourdough bread.
18:22I can't wait. Shall we get going?
18:24Yeah, let's go.
18:25Yes.
18:28And we're better to cook it than Bains Beach, just a stone's throw from downtown Lerwick.
18:34Oh, look at this.
18:36And we're better to cook it than Bains Beach, just a stone's throw from downtown Lerwick.
18:40Oh, look at this. What a lovely spot.
18:42It's only accessible at low tide, so we'd better get cracking.
18:47And we are ready to cook.
18:49Excellent.
18:51Lovely. Wow.
18:53So I'm putting some Shetland butter,
18:57and to that I will be adding just simply my chopped onions and garlic.
19:03And this is from your own garden?
19:05This is from my own garden.
19:06I'm kind of proud of myself for growing more than just potatoes and some rhubarb.
19:12Yeah, so you should be.
19:13We'll be adding some mussels in here.
19:16The star of the show.
19:17The star of the show.
19:19And top it off with some white wine.
19:22This looks amazing.
19:23Yeah.
19:24And it smells even better.
19:26To our white wine we'll just be adding some Shetland cream.
19:31And we'll let this cook and reduce for a few minutes.
19:36Put the lid on.
19:47Oh, look at that.
19:49Wow.
19:50Isn't it amazing?
19:52So now to finish it off, I'm just going to add the end of my greens.
19:57Some spring onions.
19:59Some spring onions.
20:00You've got spring onions, the leek tops that I've grown, and there is some peas.
20:06I'm just putting it at the very end because it takes literally a minute or a few seconds to cook.
20:12So should I just dish it up?
20:14Yes, absolutely.
20:16Made with love, eh, actually?
20:18Yeah, that's exactly what my mom says.
20:20Make everything with love.
20:23I think we have been lucky with not only using local produce,
20:28but also with the weather that changes by the hour.
20:32So thinking about that, maybe we should, like, drill, go into the mussels before the weather changes.
20:38Okay.
20:39Let's do it then.
20:40Shall I squeeze the lemon?
20:43That's my contribution.
20:45All right, let's dig in.
20:48So good.
20:49Yeah.
20:50It's so simple, though.
20:51It is.
20:52It's so straightforward, but if everything's fresh, and you've got a good chef, of course,
20:56then that's all you need.
21:00It's local produce, just done right, you know.
21:03You respect the ingredients.
21:06Yes, so good.
21:07Isn't it delicious?
21:08Oh, my goodness.
21:10It's so good.
21:11It's so good.
21:12It's so good.
21:13It's so good.
21:14It's so good.
21:15It's so good.
21:16It's absolutely delicious.
21:25We started this programme with trees, and now we're going to end with one species in particular.
21:30In the summer, I went to Royal Deeside to meet a man who wants us all to know about
21:35the threat facing one of our most cherished trees, the ash.
21:40The Norse people saw the ash tree as the tree of life.
21:46And that wasn't just by chance, that was because they realised the importance of it.
21:51In knowing the importance of ash, and understanding the trouble it's in,
21:55I started to work a lot with ash, and get a real handle on the material.
22:00And when working with hand tools on ash, I'm constantly thinking about the reasons it's been used over millennia.
22:07It's a real friend to have in the workshop.
22:12Tom Addy loves ash.
22:15It's a regular element in the furniture he makes here, not far from Ballater.
22:20But Scotland's 11 million mature ash trees are facing an uncertain future.
22:27And that's because of a disease called ash dieback.
22:31It was first spotted in the UK back in 2012,
22:34and is now widespread across Scotland.
22:37It's thought the fungus could kill up to 80% of our ash population.
22:44The disease attacks the tree from the top.
22:47It will lose leaves from the crown, the dead and dying branches become brittle and fall off.
22:53In many cases, the only solution is to take the whole tree down.
23:04And Tom wants to make sure the trees aren't felled for nothing.
23:10Tom, this is really beautiful. Is this ash?
23:12Yeah it is, thanks. This is handmade, only hand tools, from a log to a chair.
23:18And tell me, how big an issue and a problem is ash dieback?
23:22Well potentially it's a really big problem. An awful lot of trees are going to have to come down.
23:26Not all of them, some trees with dieback should be left,
23:29but there is quite an issue with trees over roads, railways, things like that.
23:33They're going to need to come down.
23:35I would imagine some people think using diseased trees for furniture is an odd thing.
23:40There's no impact on the timber at all.
23:42The fungus lives in the leaves and the foliage, and you dry the timber, there's nothing to be seen.
23:49And how easy is it to work with?
23:51It's really good to work with. It works really well with a sharp plane, sharp hand tools.
23:55We can have a go. Do you want to go?
23:56I really do.
23:57Let's do it.
23:58Let's do it.
24:00Tom wants to get the word out about the potential of ash, and also the threat the tree faces.
24:06He's collaborating with colleagues from the Worlds of Scottish Forestry,
24:10Timber Production and Furniture Making, to create Ash Rise,
24:14a travelling exhibition that will visit three sites across Scotland.
24:19They even produced a movie.
24:22So we're making a post and rung chair, the rungs being the horizontal part,
24:27so that's what we're doing here.
24:28So we need to turn this into this, which is more or less round.
24:32We're not looking for perfection, just near perfection.
24:35And we've got a couple of days to do that, right?
24:37We've got 11 to make.
24:3811!
24:39Right, so in here...
24:41That's right, and then you push against it with both feet.
24:43So the first thing to do, you're looking to turn that square into an octagon.
24:47Tell me about the Ash Rise exhibition and film.
24:51So the idea behind the exhibition was really to take one tree that's affected by ash dieback
24:58that we have found at Killaren in Stirlingshire,
25:01and demonstrate how many wonderful things we can make out of it.
25:05I'm listening, sorry, I'm just making an absolute mess of this.
25:09No, it's all good. You can make lots of mistakes and still polish them up.
25:13It's all good.
25:14So we had an open call to makers and artists across Scotland.
25:18We had a huge response, and we whittled it down to 20 makers, 10 furniture makers,
25:23members of the Furniture Makers Association,
25:25and 10 other makers of craft items or artists or sculptors and things.
25:30We've got quite a lot of chairs, some beautiful sideboard, we've got a kayak.
25:35Historically it's an incredibly versatile material,
25:38and we really wanted to show that that use and the versatility hasn't died.
25:43So at the moment it's looking like a pretty good tent peg.
25:45Yeah, well tent pegs are traditionally made of ash.
25:47Oh, really?
25:48Yeah, so maybe we should start a tent peg factory instead of a chair.
25:53Well, I've done the heavy lifting.
25:55I'm botching at the moment.
25:58But I think I'll leave the fine work to Tom.
26:03And how worried are you about the future of the ash tree?
26:07To begin with, when I started looking into ash I was very concerned,
26:09I thought they were all going to die.
26:11But actually an awful lot of trees will survive, a lot will be quite poorly,
26:15but there are some resistance strains that are going to come through.
26:17And I think that the key is that if they can stay, poorly trees should stay,
26:21but that we should make useful, good things, beautiful things with the trees that do have to come down.
26:27I hope Tom's right and there's a brighter future for the ash tree.
26:31It certainly makes a lasting piece of furniture,
26:34but I wouldn't want to lose the chance to see it as a living tree as well.
26:41And you can find more information about where to see Tom's exhibition on our Facebook page.
26:47And that brings us to the end of this programme.
26:49Here's what's coming up next time.
26:53You know, it's...
26:54Turn!
26:55Sorry, that's us, we've got to go.
26:56Oh.
26:57Arlene joins the firefighting farmers.
27:01I'd like to see the lamb.
27:02Almost as much as I want to taste it.
27:04Cammy's made to wait for some smoked lamb.
27:07And we take a trip on the world's first solar-powered fishing boat.
27:13Please join us for that and much, much more if you can.
27:16In the meantime, from all the Lambert teams around the country,
27:19and me here in this little oasis overlooking the city of Glasgow,
27:23thank you so much for your company.
27:25Bye for now.