This Guide deals with the management of the semi-natural pinewoods of the Scottish Highlands which are usually called native pinewoods or Caledonian pinewoods. Although they have been exploited and managed to a considerable extent, these woods are amongst the least modified in Britain. Those parts of them which have descended from one generation to another by natural means are an unbroken link with the natural forest which developed after the end of the last glaciation, some 8,000 years ago. They are an irreplaceable reservoir of adapted genetic stock of plants and animals. They have been shown to contain several sub-populations of Scots pine which collectively form a genetically and biologically distinct western outlier of the vast Eurasian distribution of this species.
