Torridon becomes Scotland's newest National Nature Reserve

NatureScot approved the National Trust for Scotland's application on 6 August. The new reserve covers around 5,100 hectares, running from the shore of Loch Torridon up to the Munro summits of Beinn Alligin and Liathach. It is the first new National Nature Reserve declared in Scotland since 2017, when Glencoe and Mar Lodge Estate were given the status. Both are Trust sites too, and Torridon becomes the eighth in the charity's care.

The ground takes in native woodland, rare plants, mosses and lichens, and upland birds including ptarmigan and golden eagle. Alongside the neighbouring Beinn Eighe reserve it is one of the busiest walking and mountaineering areas in the country, with eighteen miles of maintained path carrying tens of thousands of people a year. The Trust has been custodian at Torridon since the late 1960s and has set out a two hundred year vision for the place.

Two hundred years. It makes most conservation planning look rather short-term. Torridon also sits inside the Glen Torridon Partnership, where landowners across more than 30,000 hectares are working on habitat restoration together, within the community-led Wester Ross Biosphere Reserve. NatureScot chief executive Nick Halfhide said the agency is keen to see more NNR nominations come forward from across Scotland.