Industrial forestry corporations and asset management organisations further concentrate ownership and management of Scotland’s forests.
There needs to be consistency of approaches across the industrial forestry sector to ensure high quality forest management, meaningful community engagement and a commitment to Community Wealth Building principles that are proportionate to the scale of projects.
Local communities and smaller timber producers are being squeezed out of an increasingly centralised and extractive forestry sector, which is stifling opportunities for community-owned forests.
There needs to be further opportunities for community ownership of forests through the regulation of forest sales to reduce concentration of ownership and lower land prices. Targeted public support could also encourage further active woodland management; a greater diversity of timber produced and increase local timber processing.
When communities' own forests they do so for multiple reasons, to produce timber, boost biodiversity, create spaces for community learning and cohesion, to develop woodland crofts and eco-tourism. All of these activities are productive use of forests which deliver multiple economic, social, environmental and wellbeing benefits for a local area.
Local economies and local people need to be at the heart of Scotland’s forestry industry with further support given to local sawmills, smaller-scale, diverse productive woodlands and community-based forestry. Further scrutiny and oversight of landownership is vital to ensure that benefits are unlocked for nature, communities and local economies across Scotland.