Return to Rùm (film)

I returned to the Isle of Rùm in 2023, over thirty years after my last visit, to explore and film the places I studied in the 1980s: the relict woodlands of Glen Shellesder, the tree plots in Kilmory Glen, Primrose Burn and the North Side Exclosure.

I was curious to see how well the trees had grown. I was not disappointed.

Rum National Nature Reserve

Rum National Nature Reserve, in the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland is an internationally important site for its geological features, upland habitats, plant communities and breeding birds.

The Isle of Rùm is an important cultural landscape in Scotland.

Rum is also an important cultural landscape in Scotland, dating back to the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived over 8,000 years ago. Generations lived there until 1826 when the infamous clearances reached the island. Four hundred people were evicted from their farms to make way for sheep and shipped out across the Atlantic to Cape Breton, Canada.

The last of the sheep were removed in 1957 when the Nature Conservancy Council acquired the island and Kinloch Castle from its last private owner, Lady Monica Bullough. NatureScot owns and manages most of the island. The Isle of Rum Community Trust owns some property and land in and around the village at Kinloch.

Expeditions and research

My first expedition to Rùm National Nature Reserve, Scotland, was in 1985. Our team of environmental science students, lecturers and technicians travelled from Norwich, England with their equipment and food packed into wooden crates. South first to London, then north on the overnight train to Fort William. Our epic adventure continued, to the fishing village of Mallaig and a sea crossing on the Cal Mac ferry, The Lochmor, over to the Inner Hebrides.

Ashley Nixon in Coire Dubh, Isle of Rùm, Scotland, 1989. © David West

Despite the masses of midges and their bigger biting sisters, the Clegs; despite the intense deluges off old volcanic mountains that trap the rain clouds as they race across the Atlantic from Canada, I fell in love with Rùm.

I repeated the journey many times over the next five years, to run field courses and conduct my PhD research into environmental changes associated with the native woodland restoration program, which began in 1958 and led to the planting of over a million Scots pine, alder, birch, and other species.

My PhD research examined environmental changes associated with the return of native woodland to Rùm.

I studied soil chemistry and ground flora communities in growing tree plots and neighbouring, unplanted moorland areas. After seven years of field work, chemical and multivariate analysis of soils and vegetation data, I was able to show that, particularly in relation to birch trees, a major aim of the planting program, namely the restoration of fertility and biological diversity had begun to be met less than thirty years after the return of native woodlands.

Documentary film: Return to Rùm

My short documentary film Return to Rùm was shortlisted and shown to a capacity audience of over 600 people at The Bella Concert Hall, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada on November 9, 2023 as part of the Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership (ETOL) Film Night.

More photographs

Please visit my Photography website to see more images from the Isle of Rùm.

Oak tree, Quercus robur, North Side Exclose, Isle of Rùm, Scotland. © J. Ashley Nixon