Ross Finnie launches consultation on Scottish forestry strategy

A 12-week public consultation about plans to set the direction for Scotland's woods and forests over the next five years and beyond was launched by Scottish Environment & Rural Development Minister Ross Finnie today.

The first Scottish Forestry Strategy will be five years old in November, and the Executive said when it was launched in 2000 that it would review it after five years. Reflecting on achievements during that time while launching the review consultation at a ceremony in the joint Forestry Commission Scotland and forest industries' pavilion at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, Mr Finnie said,

"I find it remarkable to consider the way in which the forestry sector has so quickly adapted to deliver an ever-wider range of benefits.

"This review comes at a very significant time for the rural land-use sector as a whole.

"A new Rural Development Regulation is in the final stages of negotiation, and I have been personally involved in stressing the value we place in Scotland on retaining the flexibility to support our forestry sector.

"We are also developing the Land Management Contract concept, and within forestry we are committed to extending the role of long-term forest plans as a practical basis for forestry support. These threads will be brought together in the 2007 Scottish Rural Development Plan."

Mr Finnie cited some of the emerging new roles for forestry that have grown in significance during the period of the current strategy, and which the new Strategy will be able to build on. These include forestry's role in ameliorating and adapting to the effects of climate change, and forestry's growing role in health promotion and education.

He encouraged all people with an interest in the future of Scotland's woods and forests to "make full use of this review opportunity. There are many opportunities for forestry in Scotland, and this strategy review can help us to make the most of them."

The consultation will be the first of two. After this first one, a draft strategy will be published and a second consultation will be held to obtain views on that before the final new strategy is published in mid-2006.

The consultation document, "Review of the Scottish Forestry Strategy", can be downloaded from the Forestry Commission's website at www.forestry.gov.uk/SFS, or free paper copies can be ordered from Sharon Robinson, National Office for Scotland, Forestry Commission, 231 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh EH12 7AT; telephone 0131 314 6486; e-mail: sharon.robinson@forestry.gsi.gov.uk