Save Todrig from Sitka spruce plantation
Selkirk, Scottish Borders, United Kingdom
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Aim
Campaigning to protect nature and communities around Todrig from proposed Sitka spruce plantations, and to save the Southern Uplands.
Update: permission granted by court for judicial review to proceed. We need your support to defend the threatened moorlands of Todrig.
A living landscape under threat
Todrig lies within the Ettrick Forest – a place of lochans, moorlands, grasslands, and wetlands, teeming with wildlife. Once a royal hunting ground with oak and hazel woods, this ancient landscape still holds rare beauty and biodiversity, but is at risk of being smothered by Sitka spruce.
Todrig farm (Simon Butterworth Photography).
In 2021 Gresham House Forest Growth and Sustainability Fund LP acquired Todrig farm for £12.2 million. Investors in this fund include the National Trust, whose stated mission is to protect nature, and the SNIB, with £50 million of taxpayers’ money. Their plan is to have a 1,000-acre plantation at Todrig, with the planted area being 85% commercial conifers, mainly of ecologically disastrous Sitka spruce. Next door to Todrig is Whitslaid, with a proposal for another 1,700 acres of mostly life-sapping Sitka spruce. Together, these schemes would form an industrial, monoculture forest of 11 square kilometres, wiping out fragile moorlands and the wildlife that depends on them.
Why we are taking this to the Court of Session, Edinburgh
Government body Scottish Forestry claim communities can offer knowledge for woodland creation proposals, but at Todrig they had already ‘screened out’ an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in secret, months before the public consultation with Lilliesleaf, Ashkirk and Midlem Community Council even began in March 2025.
We believe the decision to ‘screen out’ an EIA in December 2024 was unlawful, dismissing the concerns of charities and brushing aside the voices of local people - who live, work and care for this land - kept in the dark about key decisions for the benefit of absentee investors. We are delighted to announce that our solicitors, Balfour and Manson, lodged a Petition for Judicial Review on 25 April 2025 to challenge this decision.
Todrig farmhouse, originally a tower house dating to the 1600s.
(Simon Butterworth Photography).
We hope that if an EIA is required, Scottish Forestry will not approve the proposed woodland creation scheme.
Our target of £10,000 was for the initial costs of this Judicial Review. As permission for a substantive hearing has now been granted, which means the Court believes it is arguable that Scottish Forestry broke the law, we need to raise £35,000.
Please donate what you can, to fight for proper environmental scrutiny, and share this appeal with others who care about the future of our wild places. Scotland’s nature is not for sale.
Photos in clockwise order: Species-rich grassland (Apithanny Bourne), Black Grouse (Laurie Campbell), Curlew (Alex Lintott), Dark Green Fritillary and Northern Brown Argus (Apithanny Bourne).
A win could help set a new precedent
This challenge and others, such as the Stobo Hope campaign could have implications far beyond Todrig and the Scottish Borders. This case is about holding government bodies accountable, and stopping the silent spread of industrial conifer plantations across Scotland’s wildest places.
Donations will be used only for legal expenses. Any excess funds will be used to challenge other destructive forestry schemes threatening Scotland’s wildlife habitats.
We are all unpaid volunteers who love Scotland’s land and wildlife. If we have enough public support we can challenge the Scottish Government in court – and win.
Contact
Contact: [email protected]
Media articles of interest
We are grateful to the following authors and publications for their coverage of Todrig and the associated mismanagement of taxpayers’ money and mercenary destruction of the Scottish landscape.
‘SNP Bank slips £50 million of public money to firm linked to tax avoidance’, Scottish Business News, 31 January 2022.
Vicky Allan, ‘Scotland needs new forest environment impact process’, The Herald, 20 March 2025.
Katharine Hay, ‘Plans for 500-hectare Scottish plantation lodged as forestry called 'inherent risk' to community’, The Scotsman, 27 March 2025.
Vicky Allan, ‘Scottish Sitka planting schemes created ‘almost by stealth’, The Herald, 6 April 2025.
‘Black grouse at risk as plans to plant open Scottish moorland with conifers advance’, Shooting Times and Country, 9 April 2025.
Contact: [email protected]
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 31st July 2026 at 11:59pm