Scotland focus on juniper campaign
13 January 2012
A campaign to save the nation's populations of junipers, Juniperus communis, one of our most ancient native plants, is boosting its efforts in Scotland following the success of projects to rescue the shrub from extinction in southern England.
The Forestry Commission, Scotland, and plant conservation charity Plantlife are calling on managers and owners of private Scottish estates with juniper on their land to step forward and join the fight to reverse its decline, with the help of grants from the Scotland Rural Development Programme.
'Juniper is not going to stage a comeback without our help,' says Deborah Long, of Plantlife. 'Scotland's juniper population is vital to the survival of juniper in the UK – and with concerted action we can help to revive the species and make it a common and widespread feature in our landscapes.'
Scotland is home to about 80% of the UK's surviving population of juniper, a priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. However only a third of those are healthy, with the rest suffering from grazing, land clearance and age, as existing populations get too old to produce viable seed.
Conservationists are already working to revive eight juniper populations growing on forest land owned by the Scottish government using techniques including propagating new plants from cuttings or berries, and protecting existing seedlings from rabbits and grazing.
Similar methods have returned juniper populations to health on the chalk and limestone lowlands of southern England, where two years ago they were within 50 years of extinction. Now about 300 new juniper seedlings are growing at nine sites where populations had all but died out.