Professor Kate Holl, NatureScot,
“ Re-Flowering Scotland: what the flowers are telling us about our woods.”
Kate Holl only appreciated the impact that herbivores, deer and sheep, were having on our woods when she visited a wood that had been securely fenced against deer for more than 30years. In the talk, Kate will provide evidence that with far fewer herbivores munching on them, our natural woodlands would be richer in biodiversity, more productive and structurally diverse, and they would regenerate with little or no costly management intervention. Given where we are in the biodiversity and climate crises the stakes could hardly be higher.
Kate Holl has been woodland advisor with NatureScot for over 30 years, specialising in assessing woodland habitat conditions, particularly the evaluation of the herbivore impacts on natural woodlands. She is joint author of the Woodland Herbivore Impact Assessment method, and in 2017, under a Churchill Fellowship, travelled widely within the northeast Atlantic bioregion to learn more about the flora of woodlands with lower impact from herbivores.