Forestry services company Tilhill has called for forestry leaders to band together to change public attitudes to spruce trees and commercial forestry.
The company called for change at the launch of the UK Forest Market Report 2023 yesterday (Wednesday, November 22).
The report showed that 13,000ha of tress were planted this year – a drop of 7% and making up 43% of the national target of 30,000ha.
Head of forestry investment at Tilhill, Xander Mahony, said industry needs to work together to change negative public perceptions about Sitka spruce, which he described as “the workhorse of the timber industry”.
Mahony said there is a similarity with this issue and previous farming campaigns centred on where milk comes from. He said there is a “similar disconnect” with the public.
“People want things made out of wood, wood looks nice, we have our buildings made out of CLT (cross-laminated timber) but they don’t connect that to growing good Sitka in plantations and so breaking through that communication barrier and making that connection is really important,” he said.
“It is something we need to figure out because we sit here feeling like we’re doing something good for the world and getting punished for it and that’s not a pleasant position to be in.
“We need to band together and work out how to change that.”
Mahoney said it is because there is a deficit of trees in the UK, and that “we are planting relatively little compared to what we already have”.
“It’s as though we are fighting over the scraps with people looking at conifer plantations which are quite big in size and asking why they’re not native woodland.
“The fact is we want both and if we were planting more trees and had an abundance of trees than perhaps the productive components wouldn’t seem so out of place.”
UK forestry
The UK Forest Market Report 2023 found that commercial forestry values fell for the first time in almost a decade with a 10%-20% drop in the past year.
“Compared to the rampaging run of forestry as an asset class over the last 17 years, the lagging effect of economic turmoil from the mini budget, the war in Ukraine, and rising interest rates have softened market activity across the board in both afforestation and commercial/amenity woodlands,” the report read.
2023 saw £212 million of commercial forestry listings on the open market, up 9%, with two properties accounting for 70% of the total value listed for sale and Scotland had a 91% market share. However, the number of listings fell by 39% to 35 properties.
“This continues the £200m observed market size trend into a fourth year. The headline number however, is boosted by two huge assets (Griffin in Perthshire and Glen Shira in Argyll) and flatters a market that was otherwise unusually small,” Mahony said.
