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The impact of sheep is under estimated. On Dartmoor in the UK sheep roam freely and there are very few trees. However, there are pockets of fenced areas that are thickly grown with upland oak and ash that would have presumably been what the whole moor would have had.

Turkey, Greece, and the Eastern Mediterranean generally also used to be forested, until people came with goats.

Nice! But the little island seems to be next to slopes on both sides, well protected from the elements... maybe that helps?!

Counterintuitively, the existence of a forest provides protection from the elements for the trees that make it up. Forests shape their own climate in other wonderous ways - for another example, they tend to make their biome more humid.