06-05-2025
Decade of conservation efforts wiped out in Arran wildfire
High up on an Arran hillside stands the green shoot of a single tree. The endangered whitebeam species, which is only found on the the Firth of Clyde island, is all that has survived one of the devastating wildfires that swept across Scotland earlier this month.
About 27,000 trees — including whitebeams — were destroyed when a blaze ripped through Glen Rosa, a conservation area, before Easter. Scientists also believe hundreds of reptiles and amphibians — adders, slow worms and frogs — died.
Kate Sampson, the National Trust for Scotland's senior ranger on Arran, said a decade of work to restore the valley had been wiped out. Apart from the solitary whitebeam sapling, which sits on a charred slope near the Blue Pools, one of
