Scotland’s bold and ambitious tree planting programme is falling short of its target. So what or who is to blame for the shortfall?

Scottish  Woodlands is the largest forestry management company in Scotland.

The firm is 80% owned by its employees and has a history that goes back almost 100 years, with its roots in a timber cooperative.

David Robertson, Director of Investment and Business Development at Scottish Woodlands, points out that the firm has some 250 employees across 19 offices in the UK. This includes two offices in the north of England and one each in Northern Ireland and Wales. 

“We provide a full forestry service for clients, including sourcing land and forests and managing everything from the approval processes to planting and ultimately to timber harvesting if the forest is productive. We have the largest tree-planting programme in the UK. Between 30 and 40 per cent of all the trees planted in Scotland are planted by us,” he notes.

“We are also the largest carbon developer in the UK with some 2.5 million tonnes of potential woodland carbon credits over 12,500 hectares of recently planted land. Approximately 70% of these projects are carried out for farmers and existing landowners with an eye to them voluntarily offsetting their unavoidable emissions. Any spare carbon units can then be sold to other organisations to do the same.

"This is a strategy to consider their own needs first, before selling any carbon to others.

“We are also branching out to undertake extensive restoration over almost 10,000 hectares of degraded peatland on behalf of existing clients.”

On top of this, Robertson says that the firm’s harvesting division will harvest over one million tonnes of timber for clients annually. 

He points out that Scotland is committed to a very bold and extensive tree planting programme. The current Scottish Government target of 16,500 hectares of new woodland creation this year will rise to 18,000 hectares by 2025. Across the UK the target is 30,000 hectares per annum.

However, despite this apparent enthusiasm for new woodlands, and rising targets, actual new woodland creation projects are falling way short of these targets and are dwindling. Since Scotland’s Forestry Strategy was launched in 2019 planting has reduced year-on-year from 11,200 hectares to only 8,200 hectares in 2023.

The Herald: David Robertson is Director of Investment and Business Development at Scottish Woodlands

 

“We find there is a significant lack of consistency when it comes to the approval process for new planting schemes. The way applications and approvals are handled in specific geographical areas vary both with each other and over time,” says Mr Robertson.

“You can have similar planting schemes, with similar site factors in different years and get a completely different treatment from the regulators (Scottish Forestry) for each scheme. This is hugely damaging to applicants’ confidence, especially when approvals can take up to three years,” he says.

Given these timescales, inflation is having a great impact on the cost of establishing new woodlands, which, given the time between making the decision to proceed with an application and getting trees in the ground, can have a dramatic effect on the expected financial outcomes from the schemes. It is not surprising that Scotland is not achieving its new woodland planting targets,” he comments.

Part of the problem is the polarisation that has developed over the relative merits of broadleaf woodland plantings and schemes that are primarily aimed at producing timber for a wide range of uses including construction, pallets and packaging, panel board, fencing, paper, and biofuels. 

“There is a perception that purely broadleaf forests create better outcomes for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. However, Forest Research figures show that productive conifer forests could provide far greater mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (up to 13 times more) than broadleaved woodland over the period 2022-2050 – which includes Scotland’s ‘net zero year’, 2045.

Robertson argues that the narrative needs to move away from talking about broadleaf and conifer plantations as if they were mutually exclusive alternatives. 

“The way we plan a new woodland today is governed by the UK Forestry Standard. The standard does not allow a single species of tree to exceed 65% of a new planting, and the reality is often much lower than that, we do need a balance,” he notes.

Any new planting proposal designed to produce timber will also feature a significant proportion of broadleaf trees and open ground for habitat and biodiversity.

“We already have one of the most regulated forestry sectors in the world,” he notes. 

There are regulations laying out how an applicant must deal with habitats, watercourses, archaeological sites, deep peat and so on. 

Unfortunately, Robertson says, all too often the vital consultation process with local communities can be heavily influenced by those who may have already formed their opinion simply because conifer planting is proposed.  

This consultation process is essential to allow communities to have an input into proposals, but often views can be extremely polarised, which is never a healthy starting point.

“From 1990 to 2017, the UK planted 360,000 hectares of new woodland, and 240,000 hectares of that total was broadleaf, much of which will not help produce timber vitally needed for a sustainable future.” 

“We rely heavily on imports of forest products, with over 80% of all forest products being imported into the UK. 

“It is vital that we look at timber security in the UK and rapidly reduce our reliance on imports and continue to produce timber for the sector which supports tens of thousands of jobs in the rural economy”.