A Scottish Forestry Summit is to be chaired by rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon after new forestry measures were announced recently to encourage more landowners to get trees in the ground.
It will be held along with industry leaders and land management bodies to improve skills and speed up the woodland creation application process.
Ms Gougeon confirmed that Scottish Forestry has increased its staffing by 20% and will now invest £1 million to give forestry professionals more training.
Other measures include increasing grant rates and eligibility for riparian planting across Scotland.
New figures released state that last year, Scotland had created 8,190 hectares of new woodland out of Scotland’s national target of 15,000 hectares, with over 17,000 hectares already approved for planting over the next three years.
Scottish Forestry had approved 11,000 hectares worth of applications in 2022, however 25% of these projects were either delayed or not taken forward by the landowners.
The main reasons for this ‘slippage’, which is higher than in previous years, is thought to be around skills and capacity in the sector.
A further 29,000 hectares of Forestry Grant Scheme applications and projects at planning stage are currently being worked on by applicants and Scottish Forestry.
In 2022, England planted 3,130 hectares, Wales 1,190 hectares and Northern Ireland 450 hectares.
Ms Gougeon said Scotland has the most ambitious woodland creation targets in the UK and despite the challenges of Brexit, Covid and vicious winter storms, landowners have created around 51,000 hectares of new woodland in the past five years – around 102 million trees.
“This is a tremendous achievement and I know so many organisations and Scottish Forestry have worked flat out to make this happen,” she said.
“It is clear that although Scotland is performing way better than the rest of the UK, our planting rates are not meeting our ambitious targets. Action is needed and both the private and public sector must collectively step up and improve its output.
“We need to dramatically increase the level of woodland creation approvals and improve on the quality of applications being submitted as quite frankly the current status is not acceptable.
“We also need to work with the sector to try to increase capacity and reduce the proportion of woodland creation projects that are being delayed after approval, as this is key to increasing confidence about future planting levels.
“The new measures I announced earlier this week signals a determined commitment and investment from the Scottish Government to turn this around, but government cannot do this alone.”
Woodland creation targets are set in the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan and are rising year on year, jumping to 18,000 hectares per year by 2024/2025.
Within the Bute House Agreement, a target to create a minimum of 4,000 hectares each year was agreed.
Current figures show that 74% of the Scottish native woodland target was met, with 2,945 hectares being created.
