A businessman bought a 23,000-acre Scottish sporting estate and spent two decades rewilding it; one million native trees later, red squirrels have been reintroduced

An English businessman who bought a traditional 23,000-acre Scottish hunting estate in 2003 has spent more than two decades changing its heavily grazed landscape, planting one million native trees and successfully bringing red squirrels back to the glens. Paul Lister bought the Alladale estate in Sutherland, about an hour north of Inverness, when it was mainly used for traditional activities such as deer stalking and salmon fishing. Over the past 23 years, the property has been transformed into the Alladale Wilderness Reserve, an eco-tourism retreat and a major ecological restoration project in the Scottish Highlands.

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