Climate Change Bill and Forestry lease proposal

The SUP Board has been discussing the draft Climate Change Bill and specifically the clause to allow Forestry Commission Scotland to lease up to 25% of the national forest estate to the private sector.

There are a wide range of views on the matter, from those who think that the private sector would be more likely to make the forests profitable and bring greater benefits to rural communities through to those who see this is the first step towards the demise of the Forestry Commission and the loss of forests as places for recreation. Clearly there would be a need to ensure that minimum standards were met so that there was no loss of valuable habitats, species, archaeology or landscape. The short-term benefit would be a boost to cash available for climate change measures (£200 million is the figure suggested) but this would be at the expense of 75 years of profit foregone – and it is not clear whether this is really good value.

We suggested to the Scottish Government that they might want to broaden the debate on the subject ahead of the deadline for comments (27th January) and that we would assist by arranging local meetings, but they declined this offer.

Jim Hume MSP arranged a meeting at the Scottish Parliament on the 14th January which Pip Tabor attended. A wide range of organisations shared their concerns at this meeting, ranging from the possible impacts on access, conservation, archaeology, SRDP funds, water quality, native woodland, deer control, forestry jobs and local sawmill timber supplies, rural communities and climate change. There was some concern expressed that this matter was not really a climate change issue and that it might be better dealt with in separate legislation. There was however support for the idea of allowing Forestry Commission to develop joint initiatives with local communities as it was thought this would help realise more renewable energy projects.

The SUP response to the consultation will be on the website shortly.