Initiative to look at establishing new woodlands in park

A fellowship initiative is to look at establishing new woodland in Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park.

It will examine opportunities and constraints over the expansion of woodland in the area.

Currently the uptake of incentives to plant trees by land managers has been limited.

The fellowship will run until April 2021 and will contribute to the recently launched Trees and Woodlands Strategy which highlights the value of trees and woodlands in the national park.

While there is above-average woodland coverage (31 per cent) in the national park, the strategy also sets out a target of 2000 additional hectares of planted or naturally regenerated woodland within the park by 2023, with a focus on native woodland. This will contribute to achieving the national native woodland creation target of 3,000 to 5,000 hectares per year.

Rob McMorran, from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), will hear from land managers within the National Park to find out about the decisions they make, what the constraints are for woodland creation and make recommendations on what can be done to overcome them.

He said:“The fellowship is an important opportunity to provide objective insights on the barriers of new woodland creation in the park from the land manager perspective.

“Woodland creation has an increasingly important role in relation to climate change mitigation and enhancing biodiversity.

“If woodland expansion is to continue, it is important to understand how this can occur in ways which complement existing land uses and offer diversification opportunities for land managers, to ensure it is seen as a viable and attractive opportunity.”

Director of conservation and visitor operations at Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Simon Jones added:“Developing new native woodland in the national park will provide great benefits for biodiversity and in the efforts to tackle the global climate emergency.

“It’s therefore absolutely vital that we work with and support land managers to develop woodland creation proposals that help deliver on these key targets.

“This fellowship will provide valuable insight into existing barriers and how we can work together to overcome them.”

The fellowship is funded by the Scottish Government as part of a partnership between the Scottish Environment, Food Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) – of which SRUC is a member – and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park.