Improve forest resilience

Climate change is already making itself felt in Scotland, and scientific projections suggest that the speed and impacts of change will increase. 

These impacts will challenge our established forestry practices, so it's vital that the forestry sector acts now to start developing more resilient forests. 

We have developed a Routemap to Resilience for Scotland's Forests and Woodlands with a cross-sector Steering Group. The Steering Group includes representatives from bodies such as:

• Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor)
• Scottish Environment LINK
• Forest Research
• NatureScot
• Forestry and Land Scotland
• independent forest management experts
• various industry groups

A Routemap to Resilience for Scotland's Forests and Woodlands

The Routemap:

• provides direction on securing the future of Scotland’s forests from the effects of climate change and creating resilient forests
• defines resilience, identifies key threats, and highlights why we need to build resilience
• sets out three priority outcomes along with key actions to help the nation’s woodlands resist, adapt to, respond to, and recover from, climate related threats

A key initial action in the Routemap to Resilience was to create a shortlist of Future Productive Species for Scotland.

This has been led by Scottish Forestry and the cross-sector Adaptation and Resilience Steering Group.

A report giving the detail of the assessment process to derive the list and the final list can be found here:

Future Productive Species for Scotland

Purpose of the list

The list:

• will help enable the sector to broaden and diversify the number of productive species
• can be used as a tool to help address climate change risks, and enhance the delivery of ecosystem services provided by forests and woodlands

It will give direction and focus resource on future species selection for seed collectors and nurseries, foresters, and processors to:

• increase their availability and use
• support silvicultural diversification

The list will allow joined-up investment for tree improvement programmes for:

• resistance
• ecosystem health
• productivity
• carbon sequestration

It will also support delivery of the Routemap actions such as:

• enabling ‘smart silviculture’ using:
  • remote sensing
  • artificial intelligence
  • machine learning
• giving focus to understanding the economics, processing, and high value products of a more diverse palette of species

Further information on the follow up actions can be found in the Routemap to Resilience.

A Routemap to Resilience for Scotland's Forests and Woodlands

Questions and answers guide

Our questions and answers document highlights some key points from the Routemap to Resilience and the Future Productive Species for Scotland report, describing:

• why we need the list
• how to use it

Q and A - Future productive species for Scotland

A resilient forest is one that can resist, adapt, respond to and recover from disturbances such as:

• climate change
• attacks by pests and diseases

This will let them:

• stay healthy
• sustainably deliver the multiple benefits and services that we depend on, into the future 

Resilience guidance has been updated

The UK Forestry Standard, which outlines the governments approach to Sustainable Forest Management, has recently been strengthened in relation to resilience measures.

UK Forestry Standard (5th edition)

This includes requirements to plan and manage forests to:

• enhance their resilience
• mitigate the risks posed to their sustainability by the effects of climate change or attack by pests and diseases

All forest planners and managers are expected to follow these requirements. 

The Routemap sets direction and seeks to unblock major issues and barriers, to enable the practical delivery of this requirement.

Building resilience is about managing risk. This means reducing the harm from - and exploiting the potential benefits of - climate change.

The years ahead will bring changing:

• environmental and economic conditions
• market preferences

There are, nevertheless, various strategies we can use to:

• improve woodland condition
• manage risks
• build the resilience of forests and forestry businesses

For example, using well-understood practices such as:

• restructuring to bring in a diversity of ages, structures and species
• reducing browsing pressure
• removing non-native invasive species 

To help boost your woodland's resilience to climate change, we teamed up with other UK nations. Together, we commissioned Forest Research’s Climate Change Hub.

Climate Change Hub (Forest Research website)

This is structured around the UKFS Practice Guide: Adapting forest and woodland management to the changing climate. 

Adapting forest and woodland management to the changing climate (Forest Research website)

The hub uses a range of informative resources including:

• videos
• fact sheets
• handy case studies

The resource can help you set out considerations to make your woodland more resilient for the future, including climate change:

• risks
• adaptation measures
• practices