Scotland Creates 16 New Woodlands
11/16/99
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Title: SCOTLAND Creates 16 New Woodlands
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 16, 1999
GLASGOW, Scotland, November 16, 1999 (ENS) - The Central Scotland
Forest project has received a o1.5 million boost from a special
challenge fund that will see 16 new woodlands created over the next
year in West Lothian, Falkirk, and Lanarkshire.
Challenge Funds are used by the government to encourage woodland
planting, management, or improvement in parts of Great Britain where
these activities have been identified as priority needs for
environmental, economic, and social reasons.
Nearly 677 hectares (1,700 acres) of new woodlands have been funded
in this, the second round of the Forestry Commission's Central
Scotland Forest Expansion Challenge.
Applicants bid for grants by competitive tender, and successful
applicants are selected on the basis of how well they meet the fund
objectives.
"The judging panel received 35 bids in total and after careful
consideration recommended that 16 of these proposals should receive
funding for woodland creation schemes ranging in size from 10
hectares (24.7 acres) to 100 hectares (247 acres)," said Scottish
Forestry Minister John Home Robertson. "Each of these proposals
carries considerable public benefits in terms of recreational
opportunities and landscape enhancement, as well as providing a
future flow of renewable timber production -- and hence jobs -- to
this part of Scotland."
The Challenge Fund was launched in 1998 by the Forestry Commission as
part of its contribution towards creating the Central Scotland
Forest, located between Edinburgh and Glasgow. It aims to help
farmers and landowners in the area to establish well-designed,
productive woodlands that also provide recreation and conservation
benefits, as well as helping to diversify rural land uses.
The challenge element -- the amount by which the grants exceed normal
Woodland Grant Scheme payments -- averaged about o970 a hectare.
The Central Scotland Forest is a ministerial initiative being
implemented by a partnership led by the Central Scotland Countryside
Trust. It aims to double the woodland cover in the area from the
17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) recorded in 1988, to 34,000 hectares
(84,000 acres) by 2015.