News that Scotland has more woodland now than for 700 years has been welcomed by UK sawmillers. But they say more work needs to be done to find uses for the resulting increased timber production.
A Forestry Commission report says 17.2%, or 1.3 million ha, of the country is now covered in forest. This compares with about 5% a century ago.
Hamish Macleod, president of the UK Forest Products Association and general manager at Howie Forest Products, welcomed the report’s findings as ‘good news for Scottish sawmillers’.
‘This gives us more scope for development. But what we have got to consider is that this assumes that the market is there. This is not automatically the case because we have global competitors in the UK market and we have got to have the right quality and be price competitive.’
The report says 10,000ha of trees have been planted each year in Scotland since the 1990s; 60% broadleaved, mainly birch and oak, and the remaining 40% made up of conifers. Around 50% of all new forests are sikta spruce.
