AN ENVIRONMENTALIST is encouraging nature lovers to plant their own native trees to help tackle the country’s growing deforestation problem and create a better environment for wildlife.

Bob Glen, 67, from Edinburgh, began planting native saplings like rowan, oak, hawthorn and juniper after his world travelling hobby was cut short when he nearly died in a motorbike accident in 2011 and almost lost his right leg.

He became absorbed in books and an allegory about a shepherd inspired him to return to Salsburgh, the old Lanarkshire mining village where he grew up, to take up another “labour of love”. He has now planted more than 200 trees across Scotland.

The allegory, published by French author Jean Giono in 1953, tells the story of shepherd Elzéard Bouffier’s long and successful single-handed effort to reforest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps in Provence throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Father-of-two Glen has been dubbed the Johnny Appleseed of Scotland, a reference to American pioneer nurseryman John Chapman, who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia.

He became an American legend while still alive, due to his generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples.

However, it was the fictional Bouffier who provided Glen's inspiration.

Recounting Giono's story, Glen said: “After the death of his wife, he decided to restore the ruined landscape of the isolated and largely abandoned valley by single-handedly cultivating a forest, tree by tree.

“The trees I planted are still fairly young. I planted old native trees like rowans, oaks, hawthorns and juniper. It is a labour of love and when I go there it gives me a real sense of achievement. It is the whole panoply of emotions.

“I can only make a modest impact because I am doing it on my own but if there were 10,000 people across Scotland and they were only planting a few hundred trees it is surprising how quickly and easily you can make an impact on the environment and how you can improve a local community environment. I would encourage people to take responsibility and pride in their own area by planting native trees. You can run into some bureaucratic obstacles but I have put some advice on my website.

“Most of the time I’ve had permission to plant but, as with the Bouffier thing, I’ve just gone ‘to hell with it I’m just going to plant it’ because I do feel it is something that is advantageous for the environment.”

The retired IT project manager revealed that many Scots were unaware that only two per cent remainsof the original Caledonian Forest, the native Scottish forest, after mass deforestation.

The Caledonian Forest is a poetic name, from a Latin word meaning wooded heights. It was formed at the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago. The peak for Scotland’s woodlands was about 5,000 years ago, when tree cover and diversity was at its greatest extent.

Glen said: “I retired in 2000 and spent a lot of time travelling abroad, walking the Alps and Himalayas and trips to South America, and noticed that there were a lot more trees across there than what we see as normal in this country. Then I had an accident in 2011 which stopped all my travelling so I was a bit more stuck to home ground.

“I do a lot more reading now and noticed that there is only two per cent of the original Caledonian Forest still left. People don’t know that and when they think of deforestation they think of the Amazon rainforest and places like that. They don’t realise that our deforestation is actually worse because a lot of it was just cut down and replaced with commercial forest which is a dark, uninviting and not very good for wildlife.”

Among the many native tree species were Scots pine, aspen, birch, oak, rowan, holly, rowan, willow, wild cherry and alder. To find out more about planting your own trees go to Glen’s website: reforesting-the-glens.weebly.com.