An interview with Pieter-Paul Groenhuijsen, manager at Alladale Wilderness Reserve

Photography Pete Helme & Max Milligan

Alladale Wilderness Reserve is a 23,000-acre gem in the Scottish Highlands, about 1.5 hours North of Inverness. They work hard to keep this part of Scotland truly wild, by replanting lush forest and reintroducing original Highland plant and animal species. Alladale’s rugged terrain, dramatic glens, colourful hills, glistening rivers, and herds of majestic red deer will take your breath away.

Alladale offers three types of accommodation on site: the luxury Victorian lodge, two comfortable self catered cottages, and a rustic bunkhouse tucked away deep in the reserve. 7% of their accommodation revenue is transferred to its partner The European Nature Trust. So by staying with them, you will contribute directly to a variety of conservation and restoration efforts throughout Europe.

Pieter, firstly a big thanks for taking the time to answer a few of our questions. I hope you and all the staff are all keeping well, what are you doing to keep yourself busy in this lockdown period?

My work hasn't really slowed down all that much to be honest, but for our team as a whole it certainly has because all our guest bookings for April, May, and early June have either been cancelled or postponed. We've got lots of maintenance jobs to do, and we're all pitching in. We are very fortunate to be quite self reliant and well-stocked, so we can continue doing all sorts of jobs, big and small, around the reserve and on our various accommodation. 

A big project we are all working on, is the construction of the country's largest Aquaponics Vegetable Garden. An amazing effort, aimed at producing all our own vegetables and herbs, using a system of trout to supply nutrients as fertilizer for the plants. The whole team has started to grow all kinds of veggies at home, which we're placing in the greenhouses that we've built. I now have a variety of herbs, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, onions and lettuce growing at home, which is a great past time. 

Before the gravity of the Covid-19 situation really hit, I had ordered quite a lot of dried plants, herbs, and powders to make tea infusions and tinctures with. And I ordered a capsule making machine, so I've made capsules with activated turmeric and various powdered fungi for everyone, to boost their immune and respiratory system.

Wow, what a great idea to utilise the estate resources for such a beneficial use. So let's start from the beginning, what brought you to Alladale?

That's a story that starts in Haarlem, The Netherlands, where I used to live. I was going through some personal changes at the start of 2015, and shortly after climbing the Kilimanjaro I moved to London to work at a tech company friends of mind had started. They asked if I wanted to join them, to help with all the practical matters involved with building and growing a business.

So I packed my bags and moved to London to start a new adventure. It certainly was, but not the kind I had expected. My new job proved not to be what I had hoped it to be, and I found myself doing something I had absolutely no passion for. Because of that, I wasn't committed and to be honest, was failing my friends and myself. We parted ways, and I realised I needed to reset my dials. So I started looking online for remote work and found a job as a volunteer teaching English in Colombo, Sri Lanka at a private school. I bought a one way ticket to a country I had never been to and where I didn't know anyone.

While in Colombo, I found another job as hotel manager of an amazing place called Ashburnham Estate, and found myself a new calling that didn't feel like work: remote hospitality set in nature. I absolutely loved working at Ashburnham, but also knew it was a temporary gig. So I started looking for the next step, and came across Alladale Wilderness Reserve. I started working here in September 2017, and next to not feeling like I have a job, I've also found a place that feels like home, because I've found purpose. 

It’s always great when your work becomes your passion. Could you tell us a little bit more about the estate and its challenges?

Well, the fact that you use the word 'estate' is already the answer in a way. Set in the Scottish Highlands, Alladale used to be a very traditional sporting estate, of which you can find so many up here. Paul Lister bought Alladale in 2003 with the intent to have a controlled release of two packs of wolves within a fenced 50,000 acre area. He wanted, and still wants, to show how heavily managed estates with a vast over population of red deer, can be rewilded to their former natural state. 

The challenge he encountered soon after buying Alladale is the so-called Freedom to Roam Act in Scotland, which ensures everyone has access to even private estates. This does of course come with a certain etiquette and a respect for privacy, but the act does not allow for a massive fence to be built around a large piece of land. So the challenge is to have enough land for the wolves to roam, and to get a temporary derogation from the Freedom to Roam Act. Those are the biggest challenges for the wolf project. Until it becomes a reality, some amazing projects have seen the light here, making Alladale the UK's biggest and longest standing privately owned rewilding effort.

We've planted close to a million native trees, tried bringing back European Elk and Bison, saw one the country's first peatland restoration projects to stop the release of massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, successfully translocated Red Squirrels, we're breeding the almost extinct Scottish Wildcat in a captive breeding programme, and so much more. And most importantly, we've brought down our deer population to numbers that are close to the natural carrying capacity of our lands. Deer stalking has always been a great source of revenue to the business side of Alladale. Since we've stopped all commercial stalking at Alladale at the start of 2018, the challenge was to replace that source of income with a different kind of business. 

Congratulations on your recent award at the Boutique Hotel Awards. Since arriving, what have do you feel you have changed and achieved in the past few years?

Thank you! It was really great for our team to win that award, Europe's most eco-friendly hotel 2019. That award is proof that it is possible to change the business of commercial deer stalking to one that connects people to nature in a different way. I use the word 'different' here very consciously, because some of the greatest nature lovers and connoisseurs I've met at Alladale are avid deerstalkers. 

What has changed at Alladale since I started, is the type of activities our guests enjoy while they are here with us. Alladale is now host to all sorts of retreats, from yoga to Wim Hof method retreats in winter, to corporate retreats revolving around creating new business and economic models that respect nature and support nature restoration. And we welcome people from all over the world who are looking to soak up a bit of nature while enjoying our hospitality. And we've seen our fair share of TV, Commercial, and movie productions, and product launches over the last 3 years. 

Sounds like you’ve been keeping extremely busy. Why do you feel Alladale is becoming so popular and recognised as a place to escape to?

I'm not sure if it's Alladale that's becoming more popular, or if it's the growing recognition in general that we are dependent on nature and people are more actively looking for places that offer clean air, water, no noise or light pollution, and a natural setting. And one might question why we have created a world where we need natural places to escape to? We work on rewilding at scale here at Alladale, but urban rewilding can be just as powerful. I saw a very interesting presentation in early 2019 during a rewilding conference in London by a gentleman who stated that, if we combine all gardens in the UK, we'd instantly have the biggest national park of the country. 

Just imagine what cities would look like without high rise towers where people are cramped into, with far greener designs allowing for insects, birds, small mammals, thousands and thousands of different plants, fruit bearing trees, electric and hydrogen powered vehicles only. Such ideas are what we talk about at Alladale on a daily basis, and I've come to find that many of our guests are looking for locations (and people) where these ideas are being promoted and turned into reality. 

Alladale has some of the most isolated accommodation in the UK, how do you cope with the isolation and do you have any advice for people struggling with the lockdown they currently find themselves in?

I love remote life amidst nature, and I feel far more myself than I was five years ago. So being isolated isn't really an issue for me. And don't forget that I have a 23,000 acre wilderness reserve at my doorstep where I can cycle, hike, run, swim, and be miles away from anyone. It's a different kind of isolation, and I do realize that of course. But I can imagine that being self-isolated in a town or city can be quite challenging and hard.

Everyone's individual situation is different of course, but the best advice I can give is to try and focus on self development. Try to find some sort of enjoyment in doing something that is hard. Take pride in overcoming yourself during these trying times, and don't be too hard on yourself. Us humans have a tendency to raise the bar way too high for ourselves. 'I'm going to be in the best shape of my life! So only healthy food and no booze from now on!' Slow down, do things step by step, and allow yourself to take time to do things differently. Success and progress is never a straight upward line; there's no such thing as perfection. Dare yourself to learn something new, and allow yourself to make mistakes. And hopefully, the current global situation challenges us all to learn how to lead a far more sustainable life in balance with what nature can supply. 

When this is all over, what are your plans for the future of Alladale Wilderness Reserve? 

We plan to go full steam ahead with developing Alladale into a self reliant, remote, and groundbreaking combination of nature restoration and hospitality. We are going to finish our aquaponics gardens and host many amazing culinary events with celebrity chefs. We're going to build a multi purpose yoga barn, plant more trees, have ongoing research projects, translocate more native animal and plant species to our reserve, and many more projects that will be announced over the next two years. We will keep growing our nature based business model, employ more local staff and support more local suppliers, while becoming a carbon positive for profit endeavour which reinvests directly in our own rewilding efforts, and others throughout Europe. And we will continue to welcome guests from all over the country and further afield who are looking for a break amidst our stunning part of the Scottish Highlands.