The Scottish timber industry and Scotland's timber resources

 

Scotland’s forests are the most productive in the UK.  They make a significant contribution to Scotland’s economy through jobs in the wood processing industry, forest management, wood haulage and associated industries.

Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) aims to maximise the economic potential of Scotland’s timber resources:

• We encourage continued investment in timber processing by sustaining a predictable and stable supply of good quality timber
  
  
• We promote the use of timber as a renewable energy source and a sustainable construction material
  
  
• We aim to increase the efficiency of the timber supply chain to improve sector competitiveness and minimise the social and environmental impacts of timber transport
  
  
• We have set up the Timber Development Programme (TDP) - a £1million initiative which aims to deliver 60 tasks between 2008 and 2011 through a series of partnerships between the forestry and research sectors
  
  
• We encourage continuing development of the hardwood timber sector in Scotland.

'Timber' is one of the Scottish Forestry Strategy’s seven key themes.

Forests managed by us have been certified as meeting the UK Woodland Assurance Standard (PDF 1.3Mb) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard.

Scotland’s forest industries in context

The Scottish Forest Industries Cluster has produced the booklet Scotland's Forest Industries, which contains:

• an explanation of where Scotland's forest industries sit in an international context and why they can justifiably claim to be sustainable
• an overview of the industries themselves and details about each
• a discussion of the opportunities for developing new markets
• descriptions of the forests themselves.

You can download the full Scotland's Forest Industries booklet (PDF 15Mb).  Please note: this is a large, image-rich file and will take some time to download on slower internet connections.

Some further sources of timber industry information:

• Forestry and timber statistics
• Sawmill Survey 2000 (PDF 202k)