The Future of Scotland’s Forests
With our forests covering more than 1.4 million hectares (according to statistics from Scotland’s Environment), it is no wonder that the nature and greenery they bring have become iconic to Scotland. When you see Scotland being advertised for holidays, it usually always features lots of forests, nature, wildlife, and just general outdoor life in the countryside. Of course, we still have our big cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, but our forests are a big part of our country – and we need to look after them.
Only around one per cent of our native pinewoods are left in Scotland due to deforestation, and while a forestry strategy report from the Scottish Government shows that in the last 100 years our forest and woodland cover has increased from five per cent to 18.5 per cent, it is still a lot below the EU average of 38 per cent.
There is a lot of work to be done to get back on track and help protect the future of our forests.
Marylou Anderson, a woodland crofter, said: “We have encouraged huge numbers of deer populations for shooting across the whole of Scotland … but particularly in the Highlands and Islands.”
Anderson believes that this particular sporting industry is partially responsible for damaging our forests, as well as climate change and deforestation.
“It’s unhealthy. There’s not a rich and healthy enough habitat for all those deer to live to their full potential,” said Anderson, “a sustainable deer management practice across Scotland would really help our biodiversity.”
“Sheep and deer management, deforestation and climate change are big factors in the loss of biodiversity in our Scottish forests,” said Anderson.
Anderson believes that the Atlantic rainforest we have on the west coast of Scotland is an important key to combating climate change. This Scottish rainforest is also known as the Celtic rainforest or Atlantic woodland, and it is made from our own native woodlands from the west coast.
Source: Steven Kamenar on Unsplash
However, a report by Nature Scot estimated only around 30,000 hectares of this rainforest remains - that is as little as two per cent of our woodland cover. The remaining trees are showing close to no signs of regeneration, with one of the damaging factors being climate change.
“Regenerating them is an important task to combat climate change in Scotland,” said Anderson.
A forest that we do seem to have an abundance of is Sitka spruce forests. Native to the Pacific north-west coast of the United States, it is so popular in Scotland due to its versatility. It can be used to craft multiple things, from paper to musical instruments. The tree can grow fast even with poor soil or ground quality, which deems it perfect to grow in Scotland’s climate.
Unfortunately, as good as these forests may seem in theory, Anderson said: “[They] are not a sustainable choice for us going forward … for many reasons.”
As these trees are not native to Scotland, they are driving out our natural (and some endangered) wildlife. Furthermore, as they are planted just to be felled and used for timbre, the forests are all planted and cut down at the same time.
This method is called ‘monoculture,’ (or ‘monocrop’) where large areas of land host a single crop which is harvested all at once. Due to this example with Sitka spruce, using them as a monoculture is damaging to the nature wildlife and greenery of our forests.
Gabriella Seymour, part-time lecturer for Woodland and Rural Skills at Ayrshire College said: “We have to find a way to benefit from more natural woodland – continual cover forestry is a good start… we need to go back to a more natural system.”
A lot of our peatlands in Scotland have also been affected by Sitka spruce. Peatlands, when they are not degraded, can store carbon which helps stop as much being released into our atmosphere, effectively helping to stop climate change. However, to be able to produce more Sitka spruce, some of our peatlands have been drained, ploughed, and used as land for the spruce.
“They [Sitka spruce] have contributed to peatland degradation,” said Anderson. Degraded peatlands are harmful to the environment, as once degraded they start to release the carbon they once stored back into the atmosphere.
“We shouldn’t be planting trees on peat – we should be protecting and restoring what peatland we have,” said Seymour.
What is even worse, is that while peatlands can store carbon, our Scottish peatlands storing a whopping 1.7 billion tonnes (according to a report by Nature Scot), Sitka spruce trees are – at best – neutral when it comes to storing carbon.
Thankfully, due to the damage that was being done, there is now a policy where you must check if the ground you are about to plant on is an area of deep peat, and if it is you can help to restore it.
Due to these concerns and the ever-present threat of global warming, the Scottish Government has a white paper about forestry management.
Anderson has her concerns about the lack of diverse management practice, worried about the future of our forests as they face climate change.
“With increased temperatures and freaky weather, that’s really going to have an impact on these types of forests with increased pests and diseases,” said Anderson.
She warns that if we keep up with planting more of these Sitka spruce monocrops, we are doing no favours for ourselves.
“What we have to do is diversify our tree species, and really wake up to [the fact that] monocrops of Sitka spruce are not sustainable,” Anderson said.
She believes that there are practices and ideas across Europe that we could use to help make our forests more environmentally friendly, Anderson said: “I understand a lot of the limits to changing our silviculture practices are also because of resources that have been cut.”
“It’s not just one model that’s going to tackle climate change and how we adapt to that, I think there’s many different organisations and stakeholders that will need to be involved and working together to address all the different needs – and that’s going to take a bit of management,” Anderson said
Seymour, as well as being a lecturer part-time, is also a horse logger. She explains that horse logging is the pre-industrial revolution way of extracting timbre, and it is becoming popular once more as people are starting to realise how much damage machines are doing to the land when extracting timbre.
“It’s nice to keep a tradition alive,” said Seymour, in regard to one of the benefits of horse logging.
While machines work on a commercial level, horse logging makes it easier to take out specific trees, such as diseased trees or continual cover trees.
“There’s no trace left, there’s no damaged caused,” said Seymour.
Seymour has also voiced her concern on climate change and how it’ll shape the future of our forests.
“We are very lucky in the UK that we are in a place that we won’t be that affected by climate change – that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take responsibility for it,” said Seymour.
She explains that while we have our own woodlands that we should be making use of, we are instead importing our timbre from our countries that do use monocropping, and that is “offsetting the problem”.
“We should always keep a global perspective in mind and do what we can,” said Seymour.