Forestry milestone set to be marked
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FORESTERS in the north of Scotland are preparing to celebrate the centenary of the body set up to restore the nation’s timber reserves in the aftermath of World War I.
The Forestry Commission, set up in 1919, has close ties with the Highlands – its first chairman was the 16th Lord Lovat whose ancestral home was Beaufort Castle near Beauly.
Members of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS) will be among those marking the milestone year for the commission which came into being with the introduction of the Forestry Act in September 1919.
The first trees the Commission planted included some at Monaughty Forest near Elgin in December 1919.
“Too few people realise what a vital part of the Scottish economy, in all its forms, forestry now is,” said RSFS’s north region chairman Mr Pimm, of North Kessock. “The Forestry Commission itself, private forestry companies, contractors, sawmills, Norbord, haulage companies, urban trees and the Cairngorm National Park all together form a significant tree-based industry.”
During the past year, activities organised by the RSFS’s north region included the annual meeting for the entire society at the Culloden House Hotel. Study visits to RSPB Abernethy and Lochluichart Estate by Garve also took place. Next year, there will be visits to the Invergordon woodpellet plant, Balcas, the Corrour Estate at Laggan and Novar Estate, Evanton.
