Chaired by Rural Affairs Secretary, Mairi Gougeon, the summit comes on the back of a package of new forestry measures announced earlier this week designed to improve skills and speed up the woodland creation application process, whilst encouraging more landowners to get trees in the ground.
New figures released today show that last year, Scotland had created 8,190 hectares (ha) of new woodland out Scotland's national target of 15,000 ha. England planted 3,130 ha, Wales 1,190 ha and Northern Ireland 450 ha.
Scottish Forestry had approved 11,000 ha worth of applications, however 25% of these projects were either delayed or not taken forward by the landowners.
The main reasons for this "slippage", which is higher than in previous years, is thought to be around skills and capacity in the sector.
There continues to be very strong demand for woodland creation in Scotland, with over 17,000 hectares already approved for planting over the next three years.
A further 29,000 hectares of Forestry Grant Scheme applications and projects at planning stage are currently being worked on by applicants and Scottish Forestry.
Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said: "Scotland has the most ambitious woodland creation targets in the UK and despite the challenges of Brexit, Covid and vicious winter storms, landowners have created around 51,000 hectares of new woodland in the past five years – around 102 million trees.
-- Advertisement --
"This is a tremendous achievement and I know so many organisations and Scottish Forestry have worked flat out to make this happen.
"It is clear that although Scotland is performing way better than the rest of the UK, our planting rates are not meeting our ambitious targets. Action is needed and both the private and public sector must collectively step up and improve its output.
"We need to dramatically increase the level of woodland creation approvals and improve on the quality of applications being submitted as quite frankly the current status is not acceptable.
"We also need to work with the sector to try to increase capacity and reduce the proportion of woodland creation projects that are being delayed after approval, as this is key to increasing confidence about future planting levels. We need to get back on track and tackle the unwelcome dip and kick start a revival to move our planting figures in the right direction.
"The new measures I announced earlier this week signals a determined commitment and investment from the Scottish Government to turn this around, but government cannot do this alone.
"Scottish Forestry has increased its staffing by 20% and will now invest £1 million to give these new forestry professionals more training to help speed up the woodland creation process. I'm also pleased to see Forestry and Land Scotland continuing to provide many valuable apprenticeships to create more opportunities for our young people to join the industry. We also need the private sector to play its part in providing similar employment and skills training opportunities.
"Creating more woodlands is a national joint effort involving landowners, charities, communities and forestry managers. I want our summit to bring everyone together to agree additional actions we can all take to take our commitments on woodland creation to the next level, ensure that forestry makes its crucial contribution to tackling climate change, and provide valuable jobs and business opportunities in rural Scotland too."
Throughout the whole of the UK, Scotland is outstripping other countries and creating over 60% of all new woodland.
Woodland creation targets are set in the Scottish Government's Climate Change Plan and are rising year on year, jumping to 18,000 ha a year by 2024/5.
Within the Bute House Agreement, a target to create a minimum of 4,000 ha each year was agreed. Current figures show that 74% of the Scottish native woodland target was met, with 2,945 ha being created.
