Published on February 24, 2017 - linkedin.com - Stuart Goodall
Chief Executive at Confederation of Forest Industries
When the term “commercial forestry” is used by people outside of the sector, it’s often done so pejoratively. In the mind of the person using those words, it’s shorthand for the nasty forests that they believe comprise all managed forestry.
In their mind’s eye, commercial forests are somehow anti-wildlife, anti-people, even anti-our sensibilities – they just shouldn’t be there. And all ‘commercial’ forests are pretty much the same – there's no recognition of changing practice, of modern forestry management.
In extreme cases, the term ‘commercial’ can be used by those who feel that trees are somehow sacred, that if a tree or a forest is planted then it must only be native and never cut down.
When I encounter people who use the term negatively it does provide an opportunity to explain what modern forestry is really all about. And when people say that they don’t want any more of these mature plantations we see across many parts of the UK, I reply “Great, that’s not what we plant these days”.
It’s tempting to get caught up in a debate about just how ‘evil’ these plantations of the 20th Century really are, as the evidence shows they aren’t anywhere near as wicked as they’re often portrayed – “Biodiversity in Planted Forests” contains a wealth of research on how they contain a surprising level of biodiversity.
In a short conversation, however, I stick with the simple fact that modern forests leave their 20th C ancestors standing when it comes to integrating environmental and social interests and concerns.
My view is that we need to draw a virtual line in people’s minds between the 20th C forests that people castigate and those we establish now which are designed for the 21st C, designed for people and for wildlife. I also occasionally note that much of the tree planting isn’t about converting land to forestry, it’s about returning land to forestry.
Those points are (relatively) easy to make face-to-face and with time. However, it’s far harder to communicate to society as a whole. It takes time to explain that modern forest design, based on detailed standards for sustainable forest management, is light-years ahead of practice in other land-use sectors or industries.
And as a sector, we aren’t helped by the fact that forests operate on very long cycles – we’re still harvesting and restructuring 20th C plantations, and it will be decades before the difference in modern design will be visible in these and in the new forests.
In the meantime, critics like the recent rather bizarre attack on tree planting by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCoS) and Scottish Gamekeepers Association will continue to use the term commercial forestry to attack the validity of planting new forests.
When faced with outrage from their own members the MCoS sought to clarify the focus of their attack on forestry, by saying that “65% of Mountaineering Scotland members who responded felt there was a need to reduce the impact of commercial forestry”.  Apart from this being an ‘8 out of 10 cat owners who expressed a preference’ statistic, it doesn’t explain what reducing the impact means and whether respondents were given the choice between 20th C or 21st C commercial forestry – I very much doubt they were.  
So, what can we do?
Some years ago the then head of the Forestry Commission in Scotland explained that the FC now used the term ‘productive’ in place of commercial. Commercial had negative connotations, whereas productive was a new term – it hadn’t been instilled with negative meaning. For many years, I’ve used the word and encouraged its use in all Confor’s communication material. However, lacking the marketing muscle of Mars who have even got me to say Snickers rather than Marathon (yes, I’m that old) it’s difficult to stop others using the term commercial. Perhaps that’s because they want to convey a negative impression – “we don’t want these commercial forests” they say.
Even though it’s difficult we have to keep making the effort, and a key part of the process is to push the story of modern, productive forestry into the media. It will still take many more repeated mentions of modern forestry practice and productive forests, but at least there is an increasing acceptance in the political and media communities that practices have changed - and these groups are key.
We also have to ensure that, as part of the narrative, the benefits of productive forestry are known - to keep at bay the view that every tree must be ‘sacred’ or else be damned.
It’s my hope that long before I retire, those who use the term commercial (wittingly or unwittingly) to paint a distorted picture of forestry will be in a clear minority, perhaps similar to that of climate change deniers. While I certainly wouldn’t bracket these two sets of people together, it’s worth noting that a failure to appreciate the clear carbon benefits of productive forestry will undermine efforts to meet our climate change targets.
On the Confor website we feature the forestry and wood story through a number of films and an animation. Please do make use of these, and contact us if you’d like to link to any of the materials or receive them on a memory stick. It will be a productive use of your time….