What became of the great Caledonian forest?

Take a look at the desolate beauty of the Scottish highlands.  

Source: Wikipedia

Once this was a great forest.  Now, in this view, a Scots Pine stands as a sole tree surviving from the forest.  The great forest has fragmented into 35 isolated forest pockets.  In each forest pocket Scots pine, birch, rowan, aspen, juniper and oak are the dominant trees.  The forest is rich in wildlife not found elsewhere in the British Isles.  

The Scots Pine is the dominant tree of the Caledonian forest.   This great emblem of Scotland is found in a great swaithe of land from Scandinavia to Siberia.  The Scots Pine likes a cool climate.  Scientists think that this tree came to the British Isles at the end of the ice age when the ice retreated.  The warming climate opened up new northern lands for the tree to colonise.  At the same time the climate in England was growing too warm for the tree.  The result was that this tree species migrated north out of England into Scotland and established  the great Caledonian forest.  Nowadays, the tree will not grow naturally in England.  Although the Scots pine is locally common on the sandy soils of Surrey, the sands of the Suffolk Brecks and on the high grounds of England it is not native.  Even in Scotland these days the Scottish Pine is at the extreme end of its range.    

Although the long process of climate warming since the last ice age is causing the Caledonian forest to retreat the influence of man is not benign.  The Caledonian forest has suffered the deprivations of over cutting for timber, intentional burning, overgrazing by sheep and deer, and deliberate clearance to deter wolves.  These human pressures escalated some two hundred years ago when the highlands were developed for sheep farming. Once the forest trees were gone the poorly drained soil reverted to bog and moor.  In places, the bleached remains of the fallen trees can still be seen in the mire.

Even today wood from a Scottish Scottish Pine is highly prized.  It is slower growing than the English tree, which makes for a stronger wood.

Only 1% of the original 1,500,000 hectare Caledonian forest remains.  The largest surviving remnants of the CAledoniona forest are the Abernathy Forest, Glen Affric, Rothiemurchus Forest and the Black Wood of Rannoch.  

Rothiemurchus Forest Source: Wikipedia

The remaining parts of the Caledonian forest are home to an extra-ordinary range of birds and animals that are rare elsewere in the British Isles. 

These include:

Breeding bird found breeding nowhere else in the British Isles:

Black-throated Diver , Capercaillie, Common Goldeneye , Crested Tit, Golden Eagle,  Greenshank, Slavonian Grebe ,Parrot Crossbill, Red-throated Diver,    Redwing , Scottish Crossbill , Temminck’s Stint and the Wood Sandpiper

and the following mammals

European Beaver, Feral goat, Mountain Hare , Pine Marten , Red Deer, Red Fox , Red Squirrel, Roe Deer, Wildcat