Turning over new leaves

Seeing the wood and the trees

Forestry Commission Scotland's mission is 'to protect and expand Scotland's forests and woodlands and increase their value to society and the environment'. The Commission, first set up in 1919, changed its structure on 1 April 2003 following the Forestry Devolution Review; it is directed by Scottish Ministers and funded by the Scottish Parliament. Working closely with the Scottish Executive (particularly the Environment and Rural Affairs Department) the Commission manages almost 667,000 hectares and has five key aims. 1) To maximise the value to the Scottish economy of the wood resource becoming available over the next 20 years. 2) To create a diverse forest resource of high quality that will contribute to the economic needs of Scotland throughout the 21st Century and beyond. 3) To ensure that Scotland's trees, woods and forests make a positive contribution to the environment. 4) To create opportunities for more people to enjoy trees, woods and forests in Scotland. 5) To help communities benefit from woods and forests.

Further, in line with the growing awareness that woods in highly populated areas provide much more than recreation opportunities, the Forestry Minister, Allan Wilson, has asked the Commission to find ways of moving woodland expansion and forestry activity closer to where the people of Scotland live and work and this is the remit of the Woodlands in and Around Town initiative. In May a new strategy was launched for the Central Scotland Forest between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Since 1995 almost 5,000 hectares of woodland have been established in the Central Scotland Forest with more than 600 hectares of this on derelict land, old mines and landfill sites.

The Commission is building on work that is already well underway. In the past ten years Scotland's forest resource has become increasingly diverse and more 'natural' through the use of open space and encouraging the increased use of native and broadleaved trees, often planted in mosaics along with more productive conifers. This brings environmental benefits as well as providing a haven for wildlife and opportunities for recreational enjoyment. Scotland's native forests, principally of Scots pine and birch in the eastern highlands, oak, ash and elm on the western seaboard (the so-called 'Atlantic Oakwoods') and mixed broadleaves, pine and oak in the lowlands are particularly important for the wider environmental benefits they provide.

Forestry expansion today undergoes careful scrutiny to try to ensure that each new woodland enhances the environment and provides opportunities to increase the diversity of wildlife and to this end the Commission designs and disseminates indicative forestry strategies, local forestry frameworks and local woodland biodiversity action plans and landscape design guidelines. A wealth of fascinating information is available via Forestry Commission Scotland. For planting and managing woodland there is information on grants for planting trees; the regulation and control of tree felling; and plant health.

From little acorns

Education is a key aspect of the Commission's work, enabling people to enjoy trees, woods and forests and to help communities benefit from them. The Tree Trunk is an on-line schools resource; the Forest Life Picture Library contains images that can be downloaded for classroom use; and the Forest Education Initiative (FEI) is a UK-wide initiative that aims to increase young people's understanding of the local and global importance of trees and promotes learning through a network of local cluster groups throughout the UK.

Of course, woods, trees and forests have always been enjoyed and a healthy proportion of Scots and visitors to Scotland include such habitats for recreation along with the mountains, lochs and coastline. Around 26 million visits are made to Scotland's forests every year with more than 40% of all Scots visiting a wood or forest in the last 12 months. Treefest Scotland, a celebration in 2002 of Scotland's trees, woods and forests, was a remarkable success revealing the breadth of interest. More than 800 events were held across the country.

Green light in the Borders

The traditional trades of timber and sawmills continue in Scotland, especially in the west of the country and innovative means of transporting logs via sea and canal and thus getting haulage off the road are being successfully implemented. Innovative approaches are also being made to one of Scotland's most eulogised trees – the silver birch. The trunk of the silver birch has always been too gnarled and bent for commercial use, but one of the world's richest private companies, Tetra Pak, is looking to change all that. A silver birch specialist is being briefed to find the least crooked birches he can in Scotland's woodlands. Twigs from the selection will be used to grow new plantations of straighter, taller birch from which timber can be efficiently harvested. Tetra Pak already uses huge quantities of birchwood pulp in Scandinavia to make its beverage cartons and if the project is successful, up to 10,000 hectares of silver birch could be planted as part of a new Scottish birch industry. On a much smaller scale, the Frasers at Moniack Castle, near Inverness have been tapping the birch for many generations now to make their inimitable Silver Birch Wine, which was Prince Albert's favourite tipple when visiting Balmoral.

But maybe the biggest area for Scottish business growth in the forestry sector is green tourism and forest recreation. The Tweed Valley Forest Park in the Scottish Borders is a shining example. An 8000 hectare forest park stretching from Peebles to Selkirk, it has had £700,000 of investment funding to develop leisure facilities along the Tweed Valley and is proving a sensational success. The osprey has re-established itself in Peeblesshire after an absence of more than 50 years and a second season of bird-watching is about to draw more visitors to augment the 364,000 visitors who made use of the walking, biking and bird-watching facilities last year. (This was an increase of 130,000 on the previous year.) A number of individual forests lie within the boundary of the park, notably Glentress, which is a now a world class centre for mountain biking enthusiasts. It has been voted the best trail in Britain. Its popularity is reflected in its own visitor numbers, up by 90,000 to 252,000, and the Hub Café and bike shop in the forest help to keep the local economy buzzing. More green lights like this and the future of the forests of Scotland are assured.