Western Isles tree planting is worthwhile, but does not ‘dwarf national efforts’

I wanted to make a correction and provide some better context for the article written by your environment correspondent (“Community turbines bring 100,000 new trees to Western Isles”, Scotsman, 4 October).

Within the Western Isles, where woodland cover is very low, 100,000 new trees is a significant contribution, but at just over 60 hectares at normal planting rates, the actual area is very small. For comparison, in 2018-19, Forestry Commission figures show just over 11,000 hectares – or approximately 22 million trees – were planted in the rest of Scotland. It is likely that 90-100 million trees will be planted over the four-year period of the Western Isles project, which would then make up 0.1 per cent of the total.

Your article says that the Western Isles efforts are “dwarfing national efforts by the UK government”. There are significantly fewer trees planted in England than in Scotland, largely because we have by far the greater area of land suitable for tree planting, and a much higher proportion of such land south of the Border is in the more sensitive national parks which, in England, are more focused on the cultural landscape. Large scale afforestation is not considered to be so appropriate there. No matter, at approximately 2,000 hectares annually or four million trees (16 million on the same timeline as Western Isles), the trees planted elsewhere in UK are not dwarfed by this one scheme as your article suggests.

There has been a tendency in Scotland in recent years to express tree planting in terms of trees planted and not area planted, simply because the number of trees makes efforts seem like a lot more, with everyhectarecarrying1,600-2,500 trees. There is also a tendency by the Scottish Government to end every press release with the words “and this is much greater than England”. This is simply a reflection of the nature of government we have here, where any evidence of superiority has to be emphasised. Applying this to tree plantingispettybeyondwords.

We should judge our own efforts on our own targets, and if the Western Isles efforts are appropriate to their circumstances, then we should celebrate that as well, but we need to be big enough not to use our successes to belittle others. For accuracy, it should also be noted that the funding used to install the community wind turbines in the Western isles will come via UK government initiatives and the UK energy users as a whole, not just those in Scotland. If this is a success, then it is a success for everyone. If we want to celebrate our environmental successes, we do need to be more aware of how they have actually came about, and allocate credit accordingly.

VICTOR CLEMENTS Mamie’s Cottage, Aberfeldy,

Perthshire