What's going wrong with Scotland's forests?

That contract is now set to see Scottish Forestry in court. A group of campaigners, Stobo Residents Action Group, have been awarded a judicial review, its focus being to challenge Scottish Forestry’s decision to allow the Stobo Hope woodland creation scheme to go ahead without an Environmental Impact Assessment. Their crowdfunder, Save Stobo Hope, is edging close to the £35,000 they need to fund the legal costs.

What’s striking though is that two issues around the planting tap into bigger controversies, and a wider story about what powers and forces influence the creation of Scotland’s forests.

One is that the Stobo Hope planting is chiefly the fast-growing Sitka, a non-native tree whose monoculture blankets have long been both lauded, for speed of production, growing in 35 year cycles rather than the longer 45-60 years of many trees, and derided on both aesthetic and ecological grounds.

The other is whether environmental impact assessments need to be bolstered or mandatory.

Both happen to be issues that were touched on earlier this year by a Royal Society of Edinburgh inquiry into the public funding of forestry, which recommended both that the “Scottish Government should discontinue subsidies for coniferous commercial tree planting”, and that it should “increase capacity in Scottish Forestry for independent scrutiny of planting applications, including an increased number of EIAs”.

80 percent, the report noted, of the £390 million public money spent in forest subsidies over the past decade was spent on commercial conifer plantations.

Many involved in nature restoration or forestry are critical of the high levels of grant support for industrial conifer planting. Especially in comparison to the grant support available for the sustainable management of existing forests. Among them is Willie McGhee, a forester who is a board member of the Forest Policy Group.

Area treated with herbicide at Stobo Hope (Image: Stobo Residents Action Group)

The issue of Sitka spruce, he says, "is not that Sitka is a bad tree, rather it is a great tree that we have become over reliant on, and we plant as a default to any other timber tree and, and in the last thirty odd years we have forgotten how to manage it properly", and he notes, that “Sitka is a driver at the heart of many issues in forestry”.

An analysis of official forestry data by the Ferret, found that Sitka spruce “makes up 43 per cent of Scotland’s woodlands, more than triple that of Scotland’s national tree, the Scots pine”. The percentage in the south of Scotland is still higher.

But it’s worth noting that there are no new plantations that are 100% Sitka. The UK Forestry Standard already does not allow for any single species of tree to exceed 75% of a new planting, and following a review this figure is set to be dropped to 65%. The Sitka monoculture is already on its way out.

Change, as a Scottish Forestry spokesperson pointed out, responding to the RSE report, is already happening: "A number of the recommendations made are already in place including changes to sustainability standards increasing the required proportion of tree species diversity, tougher measures on deep peat planting, and supporting an increase in woodlands by rivers across Scotland.

“What we are very clear on though, is that Scotland needs to plant a mixture of both productive species as well as native broadleaves if we are to tackle climate change, nature loss and a growing demand for timber."

Sitka remains symbolic of a particular approach to woodland, oriented around conifers and revolving around planting rather than using natural regeneration, and relying on clear cutting large areas of forest at the end of a rotation, rather than long term management of continuous cover forests.

It’s also a key element in an economic landscape that includes commercial timber production, a developing carbon credit market, and a grants system, all of which are impacting on land prices, land use and ownership.

Sitka plantation (Image: Getty/stock)

Part of the problem, says Willie McGhee, is that in Scotland “we have a forestry industrial complex” that dominates the forestry sector. This, he sums up, is a connected web “which includes land agents, forestry companies, investment companies like Gresham and Foresight and goes all the way down to through forest management companies, and from sawmills to contractors."

He adds: “You have this web and a Scottish government who in their haste to do something about climate change has inflated this system. When, in Nicola Sturgeon’s government, net zero targets were all announced, forestry was latched on to, It was marketed, as a means of reducing emissions liabilities, specifically those associated with Land Use and Land Use Change (LULUCF) such as agriculture."

“That’s effectively taken the government down the route of giving very generous grants to establish what they’ve been told by the industry is the most effective tree species for offsetting carbon, Sitka spruce.”

"Ever since Fergus Ewing was in post you had this drive to plant more trees, to reduce the Scottish Government’s liabilities in terms of net zero and increase timber production. That’s the driver at the heart of this whole forest industrial complex."

Like many, McGhee would like to see what he calls “a more mature debate about what kind of forests we want in Scotland.”

“I am 100% for a thriving and profitable forest sector, and Sitka spruce has a big part to play in this. However if you’re planting Sitka spruce forests all over Dumfries and Galloway that are effectively unmanaged for 35-40 years, where’s the public benefit? The Scottish Government is giving away millions of pounds to people to essentially plant private forests to give returns to private investors, with very little coming back to the public, to Scotland’s people. 

"Communities cannot afford to compete and buy land. We could use that money much more effectively if we target at a different type of forestry – forestry such as Continuous Cover Forestry – where the forest stays in perpetuity - that may be more complex to manage but would deliver many public benefits, more economic growth where forests are planted and  would involve more local communities.”

Most recently planted Sitka plantations, he observes, are destined for clearfelling and offer little for the community. A contractor comes in and plants them, then 35 years later another company comes in and harvests. There is no management of the forest; for the most part there are not even any tracks or forest roads into it until it is harvested.

The result, he says, is “nothing has stayed in the community. All that the community has seen is that their hillsides have changed and then these socking great lorries and machines appear after a long period of time and all the timber disappears. There may be some increased access but there is no rural development. There’s little or no community benefit in there.”

Another concern is that a forestry system so built upon Sitka is potentially less resilient - particularly given a beetle called the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle has already impacted German and Baltic spruce and is spreading northwards now from the south of England.

But Stobo Hope is just one story in Scotland’s forestry web. There are many others - and some of the most high profile of recent months have been in the Cairngorms National Park.

They are reminders of the fact that Sitka spruce is part a broader debate around planting, grants and finance - as well as the question of whether many sites might be better left to naturally regenerate.

It’s a tale that has been told many times by campaigner Nick Kempe in his parkswatchscotland blog. The blogger was key in bringing to public attention the dead trees at Brewdog’s Lost Forest at Kinrara. He documented the withered saplings in photographs of the snow-covered slopes in December. “High up,” he noted, “there were dead planted pine everywhere and I couldn’t find a single live saplings.”

Ultimately it was revealed that over half the trees it had planted, using £700,000 of public money had died - and the loss was blamed by the company on the hot weather and drought last spring. Replanting began.

Brewdot's Lost Forest promotion

More recently, Kempe has documented Muckrach, a site being developed by the Calthorpe Group, and managed by Savills, in a blog titled “£2,581,220 from Scottish Foretry to trash the natural environment”.

What’s striking is that the two sites, both in the Cairngorms national park, seem to be following similar management methods, and therefore tell a wider story of how forestry can go wrong.

“The mounding,” says Kempe, “is very much the same forestry techniques. The ignoring natural regeneration on site is the same. The forest fencing is basically the same.” They are also, he observes, “both financed by Scottish forestry grants and a system that is driven by tree planting targets”.

This for Kempe is the key issue. Mistakes like these are coming out of a system that is oriented clearly around planting trees.

Kempe sees both Brewdog and Calthorpe Group as having had good intentions. “The family trust that are behind Muckrach are basically wanting to do the right thing in terms of carbon offsetting and Brewdog was wanting to be seen to be doing the right thing. They have seen an opportunity and both have handed the execution over to forest land managers, Savills at Muckrach and Scottish Woodlands at Kinrara, and that combined with the grant systems has led to two disasters.”

“People," he adds, "are wanting to do the right thing but often the consequences are the opposite to the stated intentions.”

Kempe goes further than the Royal Society of Edinburgh in his recommended solutions. Not only does he want conifer grants stopped, but the “whole Scottish Forestry grants system” halted. "The Scottish Government,” he says, “don’t have a lot of money anyway. They should be putting the money into deer control and a focus on natural regeneration.”

He also advocates that the Scottish Government “take another look at the Woodland Carbon Code”.

“I think if they looked at the woodland carbon code, Scottish Forestry could design something that with the reform of the grant system favours natural regeneration and much more environmentally friendly methods.”

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For Kempe, who also has an eye on estates involved in natural regeneration rather than forestry,  like  Far Ralia, owned by abrdn Property Income Trust,  this is not just about grants, but how natural capital is distorting not only what is done with the land, but who owns it. “There are huge amounts of money sloshing around in the city. It’s very difficult to find profitable investments and people are carbon offsetting, creating a carbon market, basically a new market is a new opportunity for profit. So you’ve got these financial interests completely in there, seeing the opportunities.”

Significant grants have awarded to such companies. In August 2023, for instance, abrdn Property Income Trust ltd received a £2.5 million grant from Scottish Forestry to plant 1.5 million trees and restore degraded peatland at Far Ralia.

Or look at Gresham House, one of the largest private owners of Scotland’s forests. In 2021 the Scottish National Investment Bank agreed a five-year £50 million investment in a forestry fund managed by London investment company.

SNIB stated: “As a cornerstone investor of the Gresham House Forest Growth & Sustainability Fund, the Bank’s capital will support widescale new planting and is predicted to capture 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 over 20 years

“It will also target generating stable returns through the sale of timber and the capital growth of land and trees. Any trees harvested by the fund will be replanted and the timber products generated will enable the provision of raw materials for more sustainable packaging and building materials.”

Even without the grants, Kemp believes, such investors would probably carry on investing in natural capital. “If the Woodland Carbon Code stays as it is, it’s now profitable enough that they could just do it without any public support. But obviously if the code was changed that would influence them a great deal.”

The impact of such a market was described by land governance campaigner Andy Wightman at a Forest Policy Group conference earlier this year.

“Fundamentally, we’ve contracted out forestry to financial interests in the city of London,” he said. “We let them operate in an unregulated land market with no regard to the interests of local communities. Ask yourself whether we genuinely have joined-up thinking over Scottish land use. Private investment is vital, but it has to come from a more diverse range of sources.”

We also know from a report, co-authored by Andy Wightman, that fewer people now own 30 percent more woodland than in 2012.

Without a doubt Sitka has been part of that story of driving up land prices.

But one of the big arguments for Sitka and other conifer plantations is that we need wood - and if we don’t grow it here, ultimately we will have to offshore it to other countries, whose landscape and habitats will be impacted by these trees.

A recent article in Forestry Journal, by deputy editor Jack Haugh, for instance stated: “Everyone wants sustainably grown produce, just not in their neighbourhood. Rather it seems those who spend their lives opposing planting plans would be quite happy for the UK to export the problems (as they see them) with commercial plantations to other countries."

When the RSE published its paper, the industry responded by getting a group of academics to look at its data and methodology.  

Confor Chief Executive Stuart Goodall said: “The RSE report reached a number of conclusions that we do not believe are supported by the best available evidence. Experienced and knowledgeable University academics at Aberdeen, Bangor and Edinburgh Napier have also read the report and they identified significant weaknesses in the methodology underpinning the RSE report and an apparent selective use of information to present quite opposite conclusions to those presented in the quoted evidence.

“All new forests must adhere to the UK Forestry Standard, which ensures that they contain a diversity of tree species and include areas managed for biodiversity. Fast-growing conifer trees in these forests will lock up the most carbon in the coming decades and provide increasing supplies of the wood we use in our everyday lives.

“The evidence shows that conifers are vital in maintaining a vibrant rural industry and in helping Scotland meet its climate change targets while also providing places for people and wildlife. Planting trees and actively managing them until they are fully established is vital to ensure they do survive and are suitable for high-quality wood production. It also results in the greatest carbon benefit.”

Meanwhile, the story of Scotland’s forests is not all gloom.

Scottish Forestry points out that Scotland is already delivering nearly 75% of the UK's new woodland. “This,” a spokesperson said, “includes the highest level of new native woodland since 2001, with 7,700 hectares being created. This is more than twice the previous year (2,900 ha) and makes up half of the total area of new woodland in Scotland in 2023-24. There were 300 separate woodland creation projects in Scotland last year and around half were taken forward by farmers, crofters or other small scale landowners.

Scotland also has the highest level of woodland creation for 34 years, with a total of 15,000 hectares of new woodland created in 2023/24. “Around half of all the new woodland creation applications," says Scottish Forestry, " were for small-scale projects, taken forward by farmers, crofters and other small woodland owners."

But there remains a wider debate to be had over what our forests and woodlands are for, who we want to control them, and what we want to influence them.

Mistakes happen. Estates are mismanaged. Trees die. The Lost Forest story is nothing new. The question is whether behind these bright figures of tree plantings is a more complex and varied story, and what that means for biodiversity and whether the net zero planting project, and associated carbon credits, really does do what it says on the tin.

Given the foresting of Scotland is such an important project, with so many impacts, it is all the more important that it is done well - and many believe it could be done better, and that is within the Scottish Government's remit.

As Willie McGhee says, “the Scottish Government is the only entity who could change this by altering the grant system and making it less attractive to plant large quantities of monoculture conifers. It’s within the gift. In the 1990s and into the early 2000s, we were planting more native woodlands than we were conifer plantations.”