You can’t please all the people all the time, but, as the new director-general of the Forestry Commission, Tim Rollinson has to try his level best.
Mr Rollinson took over this venerable pillar-of-the-establishment post – and his appointment had to be sanctioned by the Queen! – after predecessor David Bills decided to head back to his native Australia at the end of last year.
The new director-general is clearly relishing his job and keeping up a breathlessly hectic schedule. For his TTJ interview we managed to snatch an hour from his packed timetable on a whistle-stop trip from his Edinburgh base to London. As soon as we finished, he folded his laptop gathered his notes and went straight onto a podium at Imperial College to address the Institute of Foresters.
But while relishing his new role, Mr Rollinson is under no illusions about the scale of the challenges it involves. Now 50, he’s worked for the Forestry Commission since 1976, holding a variety of posts including “Chief Conservator for England” – the sort of esoteric title, he said, giving us a whiff of modernising tendencies, that he wouldn’t mind the Commission consigning to history.
His 28 years at the organisation have given him a clear insight into the balancing act the FC has to perform. While operating as far as possible as a commercial timber producer, it also has to be unimpeachably environmentally sound and since its forests belong to the nation, to actively promote public access .
“Today the FC is in the forefront of the development of multiple-use forestry,” said Mr Rollinson. “We’re still the country’s largest producer of wood, but we’re also the biggest provider of countryside recreation and guardians of a huge wildlife resource.
“With the range of interests involved in our forests, we have to be constantly responding to what individual groups want – and what they want is constantly changing!”
Complexity of devolution
Devolution has added another tier of complexity to the FC’s work. “We’ve kept a central support services operation and a research agency to support forestry innovation and development,” said Mr Rollinson. “But we now have separate national offices for England, Scotland and Wales. These are each accountable to their individual authorities which are already evolving different policies and will undoubtedly move further in their own directions.”
The FC also has to undertake a greater range of roles and keep a broader spread of interest groups happy than ever as a much leaner and meaner organisation.
“We are now managing much bigger projects with about half the workforce we used to have,” said Mr Rollinson. “And the process will continue – we have a constant drive on efficiency.”
But the fact that the FC has to balance so many factors and stakeholder demands does not mean that it is watering down plans for the exploitation of its wood resource. Despite all the other calls on its time and energy, Mr Rollinson is clearly intent that the organisation pushes forward with a core ambition to help British forestry and the broader timber industry develop and, critically, make more money.
“I think the sector is still under exploiting its natural edge in the market,” he said. “With the political drive on sustainable development, we have a great opportunity to promote the potential of wood.”
Some in the private sector take the view that the Commission, as a public body operating in a commercial market place, has actually contributed to the poor profitability of forestry and the British-grown softwood sector as a whole. But that’s a perception that Mr Rollinson, like David Bills before him, strongly refutes.
“The criticism is that we’ve continued to sell wood when the price is low, effectively depressing the market further,” he said. “But it’s our role to commit to the industry through the cycle to help keep the chain going, from the harvester contractor to the processor. And any effect we’ve had on the global price situation is marginal.”
Part of the trouble between the FC and its private counterparts, Mr Rollinson feels, has been down to communication.
“Our relations haven’t been as close as they might,” he said. “But I want to work in partnership with the private sector, along with bodies such as TRADA and the BRE, to develop new markets and products, like wood fuels and engineered wood products. We need to exploit our advantages together and it’s not a prerequisite the that we agree on absolutely everything to start the process.”
Wood. for good
Further evidence of the Commission’s aim to develop the wider timber market is its support for the wood. for good campaign.
“Wood. for good is a rallying point for those who want to promote timber and provides a central, clear message that is meaningful to the public,” said Mr Rollinson. “What we need now is for more companies to join in and link their own campaigns with wood. for good so we’re not talking at cross purposes and diluting the message.”
But with the Nordic backers of wood. for good aiming to change the split in financing the campaign with the UK industry from the current 75/50 ratio to 50/50, is the Forestry Commission about to make up any shortfall in funding? It’s a question to which Mr Rollinson gives a qualified “no”.
“We won’t simply be signing more cheques. But what we are doing is encouraging other sponsors to join us and we do expect to achieve the target of 50% of funding from the UK.”
Another key group Mr Rollinson wants to hitch even more firmly behind the timber bandwagon are the politicians.
“Part of my job is to engage with government and politicians and encourage them to support research and development work with timber as a manufacturing and construction material.”
Timber’s political connections have been strengthened, he added, with the launch of the forestry and timber industries’ ‘Naturally Wood’ sustainability strategy earlier this year, in which the FC was closely involved. This will emphasise to politicians and the market how the sectors can contribute to the UK’s sustainable development .
“It won’t claim wood is better in all applications than steel, plastic and concrete,” he said. “The aim is to highlight where it is the best solution and how it can be used in a sustainable way.”
Crucial weapon
The crucial weapon in marketing timber products as a sustainable manufacturing and construction solution, believes Mr Rollinson, is certification. And to really exploit its benefits, he believes that “convergence” is needed between the various certification schemes. “The message we want out in the market is that if the scheme is half way decent, regardless of which one it is, it backs up wood’s sustainability argument.”
As a route around the hostility and suspicion between certification schemes, or more accurately, some of their supporters, Mr Rollinson holds up the example of the steering group for the PEFC– and FSC-approved UK Woodland Assurance Scheme which he chairs. “This brings together environmentalists, industry and representatives of social groups and government. It’s a forum where we can all sit down and talk rationally, rather than throw bricks at one another.”
With the UK’s softwood harvest set to rise substantially in the next few years, the pressure will be even greater for the timber and forestry industries to act in concert to develop their markets.
“It had been predicted that our upturn in softwood supply would coincide with a global softwood shortage, but that now seems unfounded,” said Mr Rollinson. “In the next few years we are also going to see industrial plantation woodlands coming on stream in New Zealand, Chile and Asia so we’ve got to handle our increase against a background of continuing low global timber prices and very competitive conditions.”
The way forward, he added, will be to develop even more new timber technologies and end uses and an even stronger, clearer marketing and environmental message.
Mr Rollinson clearly sees the FC director-general as having a central role in helping UK timber rise to these challenges and exploit its opportunities – while, of course, he simultaneously manages the country’s biggest nature reserve and outdoor leisure complex.
