Friday October 17th 2025
Senior ranger Laura Douglas
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
The planting of new trees at coastal woodlands devastated by Storm Arwen is set to begin later this year as work starts to reinstate the forest.
Around 80 per cent of the trees at John Muir Country Park were destroyed when winds of up to 110mph tore through it during the storm in November 2021, changing the rural coastline forever.
Four years on and Arwen’s path through the woods is still clear to see, with a huge swathe of the former forest remaining open with a few remaining trees still standing, survivors of the storm still bearing the scars.
An astonishing 4,000 tons of timber was removed from the site, which is privately owned, and has been sold although some remains in huge piles waiting to be moved.
And while the majority of the timber is earmarked for biomass some has travelled across the globe.
Adrian Boot, from Balanced Horizon, who are preparing to start the replanting has worked with the landowner as they recovered from storm impact over the last four years, said a small amount of the timber was sold as wood chippings for horse bedding around the world.
He said: “A little bit of John Muir Country Park is now in Dubai and Australia where it is being used for horse bedding.”
Balanced Horizon is an East Lothian charity which works to protect and restore the natural environment through projects which restore biodiversity, and involve community action and education.
One of its projects at an early stage is Muir to Forth which aims to reconnect fragmented ecosystems across East Lothian, from the Lammermuir Hills to the saltmarsh, dunes, and cliffs of the Firth of Forth, through a network of wildlife corridors linking nature-rich hotspots.
The first phase of the project involves work to restore the natural woodlands at the country park with planting expected to start later this year with the help of community groups and volunteers.
Adrian said: “The gateway to the Muir to Forth project is the John Muir Country Park. We are working with the community and the landowner to support what is already coming through there and hope to start planting late this year.”
Balanced Horizon’s eventual aim in the project is to have three core biodiversity corridors linking the Lammermuirs to the Forth varying in distance from 10km to 30km and covering an area of approximately 7,000h.
The work is being welcomed by East Lothian’s countryside rangers team who oversee the park and surrounding coastland.
Senior ranger Laura Douglas recalls seeing the damage wreaked by the storm first hand in 2021 when Storm Arwen touched land on the east coast and flattened trees in its path.
She said: “I was alerted early in the morning of a report of just a few trees down after the storm and I found a video on line which showed it was most of them.
“It was really quite shocking, we weren’t expecting that level of damage.”
And she says the land has proved resilient, recovering from the impact with the work which is due to start promising a bright future for the woods.
She said: “You can see how quickly the woodland is regenerating with tracks covered over and plants and trees starting to grow again. It has a good future.”
To find out more about the work of Balanced Horizon and their projects click here.
Watch Laura Douglas talk about the recovery at John Muir Country Park below.
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