Thankfully, very little litter gets dropped in the woods themselves, which is great. Did you know that Keep Scotland Beautiful have now launched their “Upstream Battle” campaign on the River Tay catchment? As 80% of marine litter comes from land, where litter is washed into gutters, blown into streams and in our case, flushed into the Tay and swept down to the North Sea, we really need to address this problem all over. WSWG will aim to help as much as we can with this campaign.
What has WSWG been doing this month?
- Completing the Shadow Board’s programme of site visits to fine-tune our woodland management plans for inclusion in our Business Plan going forward. Ongoing on-line meetings of the WSWG Shadow Board too, working together to bring our final plans together for you in the next few months.
- Margaret Lear’s lovely blog took us through the pros and cons in being “Becalmed in Five Mile Wood” – “just the opportunity to get close to flowers, fruits and seeds, to admire their detail and mutable colours, and then to take photographs, but glad of a breeze to keep the summer flies at bay.” Find the full blog on our website!
- Gathering more fascinating local history on both woods from several WSWG members – the ancient road through Five Mile Wood and the “Newfie Camp” in Taymount Wood. So many stories to be told through our project.
- Our final Info Walk of the summer on 15 August in Five Mile Wood again brought pleasant weather, great chat and lots of useful advice for WSWG to take on board across a range of topics as we strolled through the wood.
- Thank you to Stanley Store for hosting a small stock of houseplants grown in peat free compost to raise funds for WSWG. Thank you to anyone who made a donation to this little venture. Every penny counts, so we may try this again.
Word of the Month
Newfie camp: Overseas supplies of raw timber became severely restricted during World War II, as the German Navy attempted to isolate the British Isles by disrupting the convoys bringing essential supplies by sea, forcing the country to try and satisfy demands for material such as timber from local resources. However, this problem was not restricted only to material resources at that time, as labour was also in short supply, since most of the men had been conscripted into the Armed Forces. This shortfall in labour was addressed in part by calling on overseas assistance from Canada, and locally, by the creation of the lumberjills, female volunteers recruited to work in forestry. The Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit (NOFU) was active between 1939 and 1945. There were 71 loggers’ camps set up across Britain, and one of these, Camp 53, was located by Taymount Wood from 1940-41 and known locally as “the Newfie Camp”. Source: www.secretscotland.org.uk
What’s coming up next?
- We would love to find out more about the Newfie Camp at Taymount Wood as part of the second world war effort, so we’d be delighted if you have anything more you can tell us about this interesting piece of local history.
- WSWG is extremely pleased to have been invited to attend the meeting of the new Perthshire Nature Connections Partnership (PNCP) on 29 September. PNCP encompasses a long-term, nature-based vision for Perth and Kinross that aims to create a distinct connection between the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Parks. PNCP facilitates connections and identifies possible actions to help land managers, communities and businesses bridge the gaps, engage one another, better support nature, mitigate climate change and carbon sequestration, and restore ecosystems. As WSWG and West Stormont Connect aim to do locally too.
