Scottish Woodlands experts discuss Storm Arwen on TV
TWO Directors of Scottish Woodlands have discussed the ongoing impacts of Storm Arwen in a TV news interview.
Three years after the storm flattened an estimated 10 million trees in Scotland, David Robertson and Neil Crookston were interviewed on a wild day at The Forest of Deer, near Fetterangus, Aberdeenshire. Around half the trees at Forest of Deer came down in Storm Arwen and the public could not access the forest for a year afterwards.
Mr Robertson, Director of Investment and Business Development, said around 75% of the trees blown down across Scotland in Storm Arwen in November 2022 had now been removed, and the industry was working hard to deal with the complexities of removing the rest.
"The initial priority was clearing roads and railways and then we started to look at the forests and tidy those up," he told STV News. "It's taken a long time; about 75% of trees that blew down in Storm Arwen have been cleared to date and we're working on the rest."
Access to fallen trees, the danger of partially-fallen trees coming down, and the lack of certification were among the challenges that have slowed the clean-up effort.
"Timber certification is really important and lots of woodlands that blew down were not certified so it was [sometimes] difficult to get timber into mills," said Mr Robertson.
Mr Crookston, Director for the North region, said: "It's critical to replant the blown areas [with new trees] and we have started that - we've now replanted about 70% of the blown area."
But Mr Robertson warned that "very significant" cuts to the woodland creation budget in Scotland were not helping. He said the 40% cut for 2024-25 could impact on Scotland's "very strong ambitions" to plant 18,000 hectares of new woodland each year to support its net zero targets. This could have an impact on Scotland's strong forest and wood economy, he said, which supports 34,000 jobs and adds £1.1billion in value annually to the Scottish economy.
After the interview, Mr Robertson said: "Storm Arwen created some real challenges for the industry, with freak winds in a direction that the trees could not cope with. Going back there - on a really wild day - allowed us to discuss the successes, and ongoing challenges of the complex clear-up, and resilience of the forest industry. It also gave us a chance to discuss the need for ongoing support for woodland creation to deliver a wide range of economic and environmental benefits for Scotland."
Watch the Storm Arwen film here from 10 minutes, 35 seconds.