Thorny dilemma
Spiny sea buckthorn flourishes on the shores of East Lothian, protecting dunes with its roots and offering wildlife – and humans – nutritious berries to enjoy. So why do some conservationists want it removed? asks Sheila Sim
The car park overlooking the sea at Gullane Bents on East Lothian’s coast is always busy, even on a bone chillingly cold autumn day. This has long been a popular place for a day out. The sandy beach is wide and welcoming, providing an ideal location for picnics and sunbathing in the summer and windsurfing in the autumn. Even during the more bracing months of the year, walkers – and their dogs – love it here.
In the 1930s, people would come to this beach by the charabanc load. Photographs from that time show the start of the erosion on the 12-meter-high foredune as people clambered over it to get to the beach, and further erosion caused by beach huts dug into the seaward face of the dunes.
But by far the greatest damage resulted from the training exercises conducted during the Second World War; it was here that Royal Engineers were trained in the recovery of military vehicles and tanks in preparation for action on the Normandy beaches in 1944. Nearby, prestigious Muirfield golf course was in danger of being covered in windblown sand.
That was the situation facing Frank Tindall, East Lothian’s celebrated county planning officer from 1950 to 1975, who pioneered dune restoration work along East Lothian’s beaches. When Tindall started this task in 1955, he had no park staff or countryside rangers to work with – only gravediggers. The first undertaking for them at Gullane was to protect the rear dune, which was being eroded by the constant wind, with sea buckthorn transplants.
“Migrating birds, especially redwings and fieldfares, adore the fruit”
SIBERIA’S SUPERFOOD
Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a hardy, deciduous shrub, growing up to six metres tall. Its Greek name means ‘shiny horse’, thanks to Alexander the Great’s observation that horses feeding on sea buckthorn developed lustrous coats. In summer, its bushes are clad in grey-green foliage, and in autumn its female plants (it is dioecious, meaning the male and female reproductive organs appear in separate individuals) bear huge clusters of large, bright orange berries between its fiendishly sharp thorns. Migrating birds, especially redwings and fieldfares, adore the fruit; its antioxidants help them recover from the stress of flying long distances.
In Britain, sea buckthorn is native on the east coast of England, but East Lothian marks the very edge of its range. It occurs naturally from Scandinavia to Asia Minor and is particularly well known in Central Asia and Russia, where it is also called ‘Siberian pineapple’. In addition to being a popular Russian folk remedy, it has also been given to cosmonauts, from Yuri Gagarin onwards, due to its reputation for providing protection from radiation damage.
A BOUNTY FOR BIRDS
Look for these thrush species enjoying the buckthorn harvest.
1 REDWING The UK’s smallest true thrush, the redwing is a migrating winter bird. Its orange-red flank patches make it distinctive.
2 FIELDFARE A winter visitor with an appetite for fruit, fieldfares are social birds, migrating to Britain in flocks from a dozen to several hundred.
3 BLACKBIRD Blackbirds are mostly resident in the UK; very few migrate to warmer climes. Nutrient-rich berries provide them with energy to survive the cold winter nights.
Svetlana Kukharchuk, East Lothian’s renowned cheesemonger, is originally from Kemerovo in Siberia. On one of my regular visits to her shop, I asked her whether she had memories of sea buckthorn from her childhood.
“Of course,” she replied, as though it was a foolish question, “everyone knows it in Russia. My granny and granddad grew it at their dacha, and so did all their neighbours. They used it regularly to make juice and kompot [compote or stewed fruit]. I didn’t like it when I was very young because it was so sour, but when I found out how good it is for you, I started using it.”
In his memoirs, Frank Tindall noted his belated realisation that sea buckthorn was being imported from Russia and Finland to sell at high prices in UK health-food shops. “Out there, I have planted a fortune for the beachcombers of East Lothian did they but know it,” he wrote. “But how to pick the berries without getting torn to bits by the thorns?”
Sea buckthorn thickets heavy with fruit line a sandy path leading to Gullane Bents beach; 
the cheerful bright-orange berries turn paler as they ripen, indicating the best time to harvest; 
the berries grow in tight clusters and are difficult to pick from the branch – whole branches are cut from the plant then frozen to make the fruit easy to remove
NUTRITIONAL POWERHOUSE
Kirstie Campbell has figured it out. Hers is one of only three small businesses licensed by East Lothian Council to harvest sea buckthorn berries. Wearing the strongest gauntlet (“the thorns are a nightmare!”), she harvests short branches selectively from the shrubs, then takes them straight from the beach to a local farm to freeze them. They are later bashed and sieved to remove all the leaves and twigs, and then pressed and filtered four times to create a vibrantly coloured juice. Kirstie describes the flavour as “an amazing, super-sour taste with a citrus scent and a hint of strawberries”.
“The juice has an amazing super-sour taste with a citrus scent and a hint of strawberries”
She leads me along a path through the thickets, telling me with enthusiasm about the wonders of this fruit. It contains high levels of omega 7 as well as omega 3, 6 and 9, plus vitamins A, C and E. In addition to being consumed as juice, it also makes a tasty tea. Chefs deploy it as an ingredient in sauces, and local ice-cream parlours sometimes offer it as one of their flavours. Beauty companies use it in skin products.
But is it a good thing to be growing here? I ask Roger Powell, senior countryside ranger at East Lothian Council. He agrees that sea buckthorn can be extremely invasive, and he oversees volunteer work parties to remove it in places where it has spread.
As for its nitrogen-fixing properties, in areas where it has been removed he hasn’t seen any wildflowers emerging – which, to Roger, suggests that there is no latent seedbank here waiting to blossom. He points out how useful sea buckthorn is for wildlife. “We carry out breeding bird surveys here; they love the berries. But it’s also great scrub habitat for deer, foxes and small mammals.”
So far, everyone I have spoken to has only good things to say about sea buckthorn. But there is someone to give me an opposing view. Professor Stewart Angus, coastal ecology manager with NatureScot, Scotland’s nature agency, doesn’t mince words on the subject: he would prefer us to be rid of it completely.
THREAT TO NATIVE PLANTS
“NatureScot’s position is that it is not native to Scotland,” Stewart says. Outlining his case against sea buckthorn, he cites the “astronomical” levels of nitrogen it fixes in the sandy soil via its root nodules. Nitrogen encourages dominant nettles and grasses – and these crowd out more fragile native flora.
To Stewart, this demonstrates the vital need for complete clearance and removal of the plant. He is immune to the suggestion that a few bushes should be retained to keep the birdwatchers and the foragers happy.
Stewart tells me he is originally from the Western Isles, where the machair – sandy grassland with a high shell content, where nitrogen levels are low and the flora is extremely rich – is one of nature’s finest treasures. In this context, it is easy to understand his wariness of an invasive plant such as sea buckthorn. Does he think it should be banned from use and prohibited from sale at garden centres, I ask? He wouldn’t go that far. “We prefer to work with people and communities to advise them, rather than actually prohibiting it,” he says. Sea buckthorn, it seems, can be both a pest and a superfood. It looks like it’s here to stay in East Lothian, so perhaps we and the birds should continue to enjoy it, while hoping it doesn’t spread further afield.
Sheila Sim is a writer and photographer who is passionate about gardens and horticulture, food and travel, culture and the arts. Also a keen walker, Sheila lives in Dunbar, Scotland.