DECEMBER marks a year since Scotland’s forestry summit.

Held in the wake 2023’s planting struggles, it gave stakeholders from across the country a chance to air their views directly with government officials.

Forestry Journal caught up with Scottish Forestry CEO Paul Lowe to find out what progress has been made during the last 12 months. 

WANT MORE ON THE SUMMIT? 

FORESTRY JOURNAL: What did Scottish Forestry learn from the summit? 
PAUL LOWE: “Collaboration – for me that was the big message from the summit. Everyone attending embraced this and emphasised its importance. 

“Woodland creation can’t be delivered in silos; it’s a team sport and we all need to work collectively across the sector to increase planting and maximise the benefits of forestry for our economy and jobs, to tackle climate change, enhance resilience and diversity and to deliver wellbeing benefits for society.

“The discussions identified a number of themes that require collective effort, how we can improve communications and information sharing, areas where SF processes and systems can be improved, and the importance of effective engagement with communities. We also reflected on the balance between effective regulation and enabling delivery. 

“The summit was a major undertaking and it was great that so many gave their time to attend; it was really useful and for people to meet face to face. 

“However, it doesn’t take a summit to engage, and many valuable conversations happen all the time, at different levels and throughout the country. It’s a constant thing and that’s how it should be.”

FJ: What is the latest with the “Route Map” that was planned?
PL: “A key reflection from the day was the need to develop a clearer picture of the changes coming down the line that will shape woodland creation in the next few years. This was to help plot out the direction of travel due to the many cross-cutting government policies and legislation being worked on but also a number of improvement projects being taken forward by Scottish Forestry. 

“Immediate action was taken to address this point, with more discussions about this future change and activity with key sector leaders since the summit – I’ve been pleased to be involved in a number of these. The summit and these subsequent discussions have been used to develop the route map. 

“It has taken a little longer than expected. It has been a complex piece of work and we have all experienced shifting priorities, including the results of the budget announcement, which impacted Scottish Forestry’s budget and the money available for woodland-creation grants. 
“What I can say is we have been discussing the final version with some stakeholders and following agreement from Ministers, we aim to publish this in the early new year.

FJ: Can you outline what Scottish Forestry has achieved on the key themes identified at the summit? 
PL: “I don’t think it is what Scottish Forestry has achieved but what has the industry as a whole achieved. We are a part of it but the achievements are down to working with many other individuals and organisations too.

“If we are talking about achievements though, the sector produced some remarkable results in woodland creation. 

“In the year following the summit over 15,000 hectares of woodland was created in 2024/25, the highest under the current forestry grant scheme, launched in 2015, and indeed in 34 years. Within that, an impressive 7,700 ha was native woodland, which was the most in 20 years. 
“That’s a staggering achievement by any means and I am pleased that we played an important role in making this happen.” 

FJ: Going through each of the common themes raised, what progress or tangible changes have been made since the summit? 

The need for a more streamlined woodland-creation process, guidance on further information to support applications and criteria for applications being returned for further work
PL: “In the year following the summit I feel we really pulled out all the stops in helping to achieve our record planting levels, prioritising the woodland-creation process and supporting resources and training within our Conservancies.  

“Confor fed back to us that our increased focus on dealing with applications, coupled with extending the claim year, were major contributors in us all achieving such a positive result. 
“Our staff have also been working very hard behind the scenes on a number of projects which aim to improve the woodland-creation process – and we’re doing this in collaboration with the sector. 

“In 2025 Scottish Forestry will introduce a number of technical improvements through our case management system, to improve transparency and monitoring of application processing times. 

“The revised Woodland Creation application process will be set out in new guidance that will also detail an improved approach to community engagement.”

Clearer and fewer policy priorities and improved vision for future forests
PL: “The Forestry Strategy for Scotland is still the main driver for the future vision of forestry and we regularly monitor its implementation. Once we publish the woodland-creation route map it will also provide further information on how various policies, legislation and improvement activities are coming together.” 

Using a wider range of woodland and silvicultural models to create resilient forests
PL: “There is a great deal of work going on in this area which has involved a wide range of stakeholders. Many have been involved in workshops or webinars on the subject. 

“We established an Adaptation and Resilience Steering Group, which is looking at three priorities – Planning, Species Choice and Knowledge Exchange. Each priority area has an outcome and a set of actions to deliver each of the outcomes over the next 10 years. 
“Our team has used these three priorities to create an action plan which we plan to publish in 2025.” 

Better policy integration between forestry and farming
PL: “We are working very closely with our agricultural colleagues in Scottish Government and with the sector, mainly through the award-winning Integrating Trees Network. Through the Network we have hosted 40 events where farmers, crofters and other land managers have shared their experiences to help promote growing more trees. 

“We also run a very practical Trees on Farm group which provides a forum for collective discussion around better integration of trees in farms. This group is really working hard to address polarisation of views in forestry and farming. 

“It was great to see that the NFUS was also represented at the summit.”

More joint working and public/private training across the sector and better communication across all parts of the industry
PL: “Collaboration was a key theme throughout the summit, and rightly so. 

“Training our existing and future foresters is key and we have supported the sector with funding on a number of skills and training activities. This has included offering grants for technical training via the Skillseeder hub and funding for the ICF’s Emerging Leaders course for example. 

“We’ve also funded and worked with Confor on other initiatives such as forestry taster sessions for armed forces veterans and giving support to their Technical Training Hub which focuses on forest machine operators. 

Paul Lowe, CEO of Scottish Forestry, speaking during 2023's summit Paul Lowe, CEO of Scottish Forestry, speaking during 2023's summit (Image: ALAN PEEBLES PHOTOGRAPHY)

“A key piece of work we helped fund is Confor’s new community engagement guidance and the training that is being delivered so that agents developing new woodland-creation projects have the skillset to work with communities to deliver successful projects. “

Managing deer numbers to lower levels, targeted intervention and political leadership to use powers that exist to support landscape-scale control
PL: “There was pretty much widespread agreement that managing deer is a hot priority for establishing woodlands. The new UKFS was published in late 2023 and came into effect in October of this year, with Scottish Forestry taking a leading role in this work for the four nations of the UK. The new standard includes a greater emphasis on managing deer. The guidance is clear that where there are deer present, deer-management measures should be incorporated as part of a management plan. The aim is that landowners work with neighbours and local deer-management groups to ensure that deer impacts do not prevent regeneration and development of resilient forests.

“To help facilitate this, Scottish Forestry has launched a deer-management plan template to help assess deer impact and plan for appropriate deer management. This can be used for long-term forest management plans and woodland-creation applications. It is now available on the Forestry Grant Scheme and Scottish Forestry websites.” 

FJ: Did the budget reduction days after the summit have an effect on achieving the above? 
PL: “I won’t pretend that the budget announcement wasn’t difficult for the team in Scottish Forestry and the wider sector. 

“I think we all appreciate that Government funding is being stretched to unprecedented levels and all the indications are is that this will continue to be the case. But that doesn’t make it any easier when you get that sort of news. It became more important for us to act as a leader and to try and signal how we could navigate this really difficult announcement together as a sector. 

“As an organisation we had to adapt quickly and prioritise our work to help the sector as best we can. Supporting Woodland creation is very much the priority and our staff have worked tirelessly to make the most of the funding now available. 

“We’ve had to adjust budgets within the FGS and some areas of work had to take priority over others. It has been a bumpy ride at times but I hope we will achieve a better outcome than we might otherwise have done. 

“We shouldn’t forget that directly before the summit we introduced the biggest fundamental set of changes to the FGS since it was created in 2015. We improved grant rates by around 20 per cent in many key areas as part of a plan of action to boost woodland creation. All this work has paid dividends. 

“We are set for another challenging few years but by working in partnership we can make the most of the resources available and keep delivering forestry’s many benefits.”