Forestry and Land Scotland helped to promote responsible forestry, as highlighted in the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC), ‘Forest Week’ campaign that took place between September 21 to 27.

FSC is an international, non-governmental organisation that operates the world’s most respected and widespread forest certification system accrediting responsible forest management.

The global demands for timber can lead to unsustainable forestry practices in some of the worlds most important old growth forests. Our efforts to produce home-grown timber help us meet some of our domestic demand, reducing our reliance on imports. Certification can help customers ensure they only buy wood products from sustainably managed sources. FLS has held FSC accreditation for 25 years. FLS chief executive, Kevin Quinlan, said: “The demand world-wide for timer is huge and is forecast to get two to four times greater over the next 25 years.

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“Sustainably growing and harvesting our own timber here in Scotland reduces the impact that the UK’s demand for timber has on forests in other countries, where sustainable forestry is not always practised, where old-growth forests are harvested or where illegal felling is reported.

“Helping to protect those forests also helps to protect their biodiversity.

“The FSC mark on timber and timber derived products attests to the fact that they have originated from sustainably managed forests. FLS has proudly held FSC accreditation for 25 years. Buying FSC marked products is the small step that will help to protect forests around the world.”

Sustainable forest management involves looking after and using forests in a way that both produces timber and maintains or enhances their overall resilience, biodiversity, productivity, and social amenity.

Some aspects of FLS’ management that meet these criteria include: planting more trees every year than it harvests; work to conserve habitats and the species that depend on them – such as red squirrels, Scottish Wildcats, Capercaillie and pine marten; and changing forest structures by planting a wider range and age class of trees to improve their resilience against climate change. Currently, the UK imports around 80% of its entire annual timber requirement. Millions of tonnes of timber products are transported by ship (with an emissions cost) into the UK.

This includes sawn wood (mostly from Scandinavia), wood pellets (mostly from USA and Canada), pulp and paper (around a fifth of it from Brazil) and plywood (almost half of which comes from China, and a fifth from Brazil).

Scotland’s sustainably managed productive forests are playing their part in reducing emissions and conserving forests and biodiversity around the world.