How trees and livestock can be made to co-exist

There should be no need for a battle between the forestry sector and hill farmers as there is more than enough land in Scotland to allow both businesses to work alongside each other.

That was the claim made yesterday by Colin Kennedy, a director of Scottish Woodlands, on a visit to Barwhillanty estate near Castle Douglas belonging to the Yerburgh family, where commercial woodlands operate alongside cattle and sheep enterprises.

Kennedy claimed there was a lot of land in Scotland doing nothing with "slipper farmers" taking their single farm payments, "I believe every acre of land in Scotland should be productive in some way or another," he said, adding that, if this was the case, then there would be no need for the conflict currently existing between the need for additional forestry land and keeping upland and hill units viable and sustainable.

Earlier, Stuart Goodall, the chief executive of the forestry lobby organisation Confor, questioned the Scottish Government's ambition of almost doubling this country's afforested acreage in by 2025.

"That is an optimistic target," he said. "We believe that we need to see some 9,000 additional hectares of commercial forestry planted annually for each of the next ten years to ensure that our modern sawmills are kept to capacity. That is nowhere near the figures the government are talking about."

Goodall said he was concerned over the loss of acreage of commercial forestry in the past decade, with everything from misplaced beliefs that the planting of broad-leaved species would give a bigger carbon capture through to large areas being taken out to help create windfarms.

He predicted that in ten years there would be a shortage of commercial timber in this country and this would put at risk an industry currently worth 1 billion annually to the Scottish economy and with 20,000 directly employed jobs. This shortage was despite recent increases in the value of timber which he described as "going through the roof".

Looking at projected production figures stretching into the future, he stated "we need an injection of planting now."

The most recent plantations on Barwhillanty estate have been planted with the aid of a new woodland creation grant through the Scottish Rural Development Programme. While this has been a financial boost, Kennedy pointed out that it took the best part of a year to jump through the various hurdles such as landscape and bird reviews prior to planting a single tree.

Even if there is currently a major uplift in the final price - and even the value of thinning plantations now produces a return - commercial forestry is a long term business.

However, he said it was quite possible after 30 years to sell 9,000 of wood per hectare - which might turn the heads of a few hill livestock farmers.