The complex mosaic of habitats covering Scotland's land and seas provides the essential food and homes for all of our wildlife. They range from the high mountains, almost untouched by the influence of man, to intensively managed farmland and gardens. In between are some of our most well-known semi-natural habitats - the woodlands and moorlands. All have their own charm and their management poses individual challenges.

• Woodland
• Moorlands
• Marine
• Farmland
• Montane Scrub

Woodland
Native woodland is one of our most important habitats, providing homes for a wide variety of species of animals and plants. Many different woodland types are recognised in Scotland and most of these can be found on National Trust for Scotland properties.

Scots pinewood is probably the best known woodland type and good examples are to be found from Torridon and Shieldaig Island in the west to the magnificent forests on the Mar Lodge Estate in the east. Scots pine is home to distinctive species, such as the capercaillie, pine marten and twin flower but it is also rich in lower plants such as lichens and fungi. Mar Lodge has one of the longest lists of fungi of any site in the United Kingdom.

Towards the wetter, western seaboard, oak and birch woodland predominates, and this is characterised by a particularly rich flora of mosses and ferns, sometimes referred to as temperate rainforest. Visitors to Glencoe are all aware of the towering mountain ridges on either side of the main road, but few appreciate the excellent examples of broadleaved woodland clinging to their lower slopes. Careful grazing management is underway to allow these to expand through natural regeneration.

Further up the slopes, the woodland grades into montane scrub including willow.

The lowland estates contain examples of more managed woodland, often with their own distinctive communities of species. The Old Wood of Drum in Aberdeenshire is predominantly of oak and has a recorded history of silviculture stretching back to the thirteenth century. For many years it was subject to grazing and many of the ancient trees retain features of wood pasture.

Woodlands are also managed commercially on National Trust for Scotland properties and often timber harvesting provides an opportunity to replant with native tree species to enhance the nature conservation value.

Moorlands
Scotland is of course famed in pictures and song for its heather-clad uplands, great expanses of moorland that are unique in Europe, if not globally, and home of the red grouse, the red deer and the golden eagle. the National Trust for Scotland owns swathes of such moorland in its mountainous properties - from Torridon in the north, through Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms, to Goatfell on the Isle of Arran.

The moorland landscape is often a mosaic of both heathland and peat bog, and the great peatlands of Scotland are of international importance - reservoirs of carbon that will be increasingly valued as carbon sinks in a warming world. The Trust's Inverewe Estate, as well as hosting one of the finest gardens in Scotland, also boasts some of the country's finest peat bogs.

But moorland is not confined to the mountains: all the larger islands in the care of the National Trust for Scotland - Fair Isle, Canna, Mingulay, Staffa, Iona, St Kilda - hold large tracts of moorland, which are often the common grazings where crofters graze their sheep, where nature and man have worked in harmony for generations.

Marine
Although the overall number of species on land is not exceptional, the sea contains a richer array of wildlife than almost any other country in Europe, the result of its structural complexity, the strong tidal streams and its proximity to the warm currents of the North Atlantic - one of the most productive parts of the world's oceans. Above the surface this is revealed by the teeming populations of seabirds and the growing numbers of seals, whales and dolphins, but it is below the waves that the diversity is most obvious.

Top of the list must come St Kilda, whose surrounding waters provide food for the largest seabird colony in Europe. The reefs and caves that characterise the rugged underwater topography of the archipelago have recently been designated as a European Marine Site and proposed as a World Heritage Site. Because of the remarkable clarity of the water, kelp can be found growing to exceptional depths of around 50m and the islands are one of the prime destinations for experienced divers. The rocks below the influence of the violent waves are encrusted with a glittering array of jewel anemones and other colourful animals.

Strong currents also characterise the European Marine Site off Balmacara, which includes the tidal rapids of Kyle Rhea and Kyle of Lochalsh. Further inland, Lochs Duich, Long and Alsh open up into deep, sheltered fjords with remarkable communities of organisms clinging to their precipitous sides.

The St Abb's and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve was the first such reserve in the United Kingdom and attracts divers from all over, being one of the most accessible and finest dive sites on the east coast. It too, has been designated as a European Marine Site and NTS employs a Marine Reserve Ranger to help to protect the site and interpret its treasures to visitors.

The shallow, more sheltered conditions found at Rockcliffe, Murray's Isles and Montrose Basin, include seagrass beds and provide important feeding grounds for populations of waders and wildfowl. Sensitive management of these with a spectrum of other users can help to reconcile conflicting demands and protect the nature conservation interest.

Farmland
Over the past hundred years or so Scotland has lost much of its rich variety of plants that would have added colour to the lowland landscape. This loss has been brought about principally by the intensification of agriculture - the use of fertilisers and herbicides, the ploughing-up of old meadows and the draining of wetlands. However, a few fragments of this once flower-rich landscape survive and some of these areas are now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. The fields of Wester Kittochside on the outskirts of Glasgow are probably the most wildflower-rich area of lowland summer meadow in central Scotland, a relict of a former landscape before the intensification of farming practices. Species present include the frog orchid, greater butterfly orchid, moonwort and wild pansy. Grazing also maintains the rich wildlife found on the beautiful machair of Iona or the coastal grasslands around St Abb's Head National Nature Reserve, home to the northern argus butterfly, and the limestone grasslands of Meall Mor in Glencoe. The crofting communities of Fair Isle, Balmacara and Iona help to maintain a characteristic landscape which is fast disappearing in much of Scotland and which provides a haven for wildlife, notably the globally declining corncrake. At Rockcliffe and Venniehill, we manage summer hay meadows which are alive with wildflowers, such as yellow rattle, and black knapweed, and an abundant insect life. At other properties, for example at Culloden, the Trust is managing farmland in a way to try and bring back the lost diversity of flora.

Wildfowl, too, benefit from management of the farmland in some of the coastal lowlands. At House of Dun and Montrose Basin Local Nature Reserve there are internationally important numbers of waders, wildfowl and swans, while the floodplain of the River Dee at Threave is also a long established wildfowl refuge. At both of these sites, trails and hides are provided to encourage visitors to enjoy the spectacle of thousands of winter wildfowl without disturbance.

Farmland constitutes a major part of the landscape setting around many of the large houses owned by the National Trust for Scotland. Fine examples can be found at Crathes, Brodick and Culzean Country Parks, Drum, Fyvie and Craigievar Castles, House of the Binns and Hill of Tarvit. Many of these retain ancient parkland trees which both enhance the landscape and provide homes for mosses, lichens and invertebrates.

Montane scrub
Montane scrub is the Cinderella habitat of Scotland, having been largely neglected by conservation until recently. It may be largely juniper, or various species of willow, or perhaps dwarf birch, or of mixed species composition, all growing as small shrubs at altitudes too high for normal tree growth. Although some good stands of juniper scrub have survived, the habitat and some of the scarcer species have been drastically reduced to mostly small and isolated populations, many of which can no longer sustain themselves by reproduction. Treeline woodland - trees growing at the altitudinal limit for growth - is even scarcer and equally deserving of conservation.

Willow scrub has been a particular concern at Ben Lawers NNR, where it is one of the notable features of the site. However, it is so depleted by man's use of the land that it will inevitably decline to extinction with out intervention. We have begun projects to restore breeding population of willows, which we hope will enable the species and the habitat to survive there into the future. This requires protection from herbivores by fencing, and planting clusters of new plants to achieve a viable population size.

Another important habitat occurs on the same sites as willows, often closely mixed. These tall herbaceous plants are also limited by grazing animals to inaccessible ledges. The fences allow them to regenerate from the plants on cliff ledges to re-occupy the grassy ground below and away from the cliffs.

Linn of Tummel