The construction timber market has been identified as ‘the key area for growth’ in a new Scottish Forest Strategy document.
And the scope for using Scottish hardwoods in high-quality furniture production, flooring, joinery and craftwork as a means for creating new opportunities for small-scale businesses in rural Scotland has also been highlighted.
At last week’s launch of the document in Pitlochry, Scotland’s forestry minister Rhona Brankin revealed that the Forestry Commission’s Central Scotland Forest (CSF) and Grampian Forest Challenge Funds would be extended into 2002-2003, and that this year’s round of the CSF fund had resulted in approval of grants for 15 new woodlands totalling 580ha.
The Woodland Grant Scheme and the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme will be ‘thoroughly reviewed’ in Scotland over the next year to ensure they support priorities laid down in the Scottish Forestry Strategy and the forthcoming Agriculture Strategy.
The Timber Growers Association welcomed the review of support for private sector timber growers as an opportunity to make government departments ‘fully aware of the unprecedented low timber prices and what this means for private sector timber growers’.
However, it also expressed concern about the large number of priorities for action in the strategy document and called on the government to ‘focus its limited resources on those areas of the forestry sector that can really contribute to sustainable economic growth’.
