The project set out to map all Scottish woodland and tree toponyms across the Gàidhealtachd, which, co-ordinated with other evidence, helps to map the historical presence of woodland. Some of these areas are still wooded but, of particular interest, are the current areas of open ground, with no records of previous land-use beyond linguistic clues – the ‘forgotten’ woodlands.

The project was carried out in partnership between NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, and Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (AÀA), the national advisory partnership for Gaelic place-names in Scotland. Future Woodland Scotland was the main project funder but they also received funding from the Forest, Peat and Rural Land Management programme at the University of Edinburgh, and NatureScot.

Outcomes

Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba produced a short report about their project. NatureScot has developed and published the full dataset under the Open Government Licence v3.0 with no limitations on public access. It is available on the Scottish Government’s spatial data website and the Open Data Hub.

They have also produced a bilingual, interactive StoryMap that showcases the project. The StoryMap is hosted by NatureScot and is available in English and Gaelic.