Since the days of the early settlements over 10,000 years ago, two key components have paved the way for sustainable life, water and woodland. As a place that attracted Mesolithic people, we can surmise that the river provided clean healthy water with plenty of fish stock and that the land was covered with native broadleaf riparian forest, that provided a perfect habitat for animals and men alike, also providing wood for shelter, boats and tools and plant life for weaving and eating. Over the 10,000 years the forest has shaped the development of the Glen, continuing to provide timber and a natural habitat, though thanks to modernization, from bigger boats, steam power, electricity, roads, the people of the Glen have come to rely less and less on the abundance of what the natural woodland has to offer.

In 2013, everything changed again, when the community of Colintraive and Glendaruel, led by their development Trust, in a ground breaking ‘community right to buy’ initiative, bought the Stronafian Forest as the first ‘community owned’ asset. Its early stages, the aspiration for the Forest is that it will once again become a working, living, sustaining place. From forest crofts, to timber harvesting, community woodland garden and employment, our forest once again can become a real tangible asset to the people that live here, something that once again, after hundreds of years, the Glens people really connect to.

As part of our Project we explored through multi media, what our community forest means to us, in the words of our kids: the video is to come.

Please visit the CGDT website for more information on the progress on the community woodland