Volunteers from across Fife have come together at Roscobie Reservoir to help create over a hectare of new native woodland on the Scottish Water site.
The volunteer event, which took place over two days, saw people from local communities join Scottish Water and Fife Coast and Countryside Trust (FCCT) representatives to plant around 1,600 silver birch, downy birch, oak, elder, hawthorn and crab apple tree saplings across a 1.4 hectare area surrounding the reservoir.
The project is part of a wider woodland creation programme that Scottish Water is delivering in its drive to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and improve biodiversity across its sites.
It also contributes to the aims of Fife Climate Forest, showcasing partnership in action to deliver a larger planting project involving communities.
Scottish Water project manager Steve Garbett said:
“It was great to work with Fife Coast and Countryside Trust to organise this event and to see people coming together to enhance the existing biodiversity on the site.
“This is one of the first sites we are delivering in this season’s woodland creation programme and it was fantastic to see all the planning coming together and the trees going in the ground.
“Ensuring that woodland and natural habitats across Scottish Water land are thriving is essential to tackling the biodiversity crisis, as well as helping to lock up carbon and maintain the quality of our water supplies by stabilising the soil surrounding our lochs and reservoirs.”
Robert Boughen, community tree planting officer at FCCT, said:
“It was absolutely brilliant to see so many people out on site helping to plant the trees and a great example of good multi agency working too. Hopefully a really good number of these trees will survive and give this site a lot more canopy cover which is great for biodiversity and for climate change as well.
“This will become a great resource for local people and hopefully somewhere that they can come to enjoy this lovely new woodland that we have put in. And of course, this planting helps to establish the roots of Fife Climate Forest.”
Roscobie Reservoir is also the first location at which Scottish Water is trialling the use of innovative fungal pellets which aim to produce more resilient forests, increase carbon capture potential and reduce the need for fertiliser.
Half of the trees planted at the site have had pellets planted alongside them, to create a symbiotic underground nutrient network that helps both trees and fungi to flourish, and will be monitored against the growth of the trees without them.
Steve added: “We are excited to trial the use of these innovative fungal pellets, which have been produced by Rhizocore Technologies, and will continue to monitor how the trees are developing across the site in the coming years.”
