Budget Day 2024: what Holyrood should do for woods and trees
Policy and Advocacy Manager ‑ Scotland
If Scotland is to meet its climate goals and restore nature to a thriving condition, we need more native trees and woods, and we need them in good condition.
Trees do, of course, grow themselves. It's called natural regeneration and it happens when conditions are optimal. But because of intense grazing pressures and other threats rooted in human land use decisions, trees often can't get a foothold themselves and woodland creation needs a helping hand. That means surveys, deer control, planting, supporting tree nurseries, fencing, protective tubes and more. That all costs money.
As a country, we recognise that protecting, restoring and expanding our precious native woodland costs money, and that's why we have a Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS). It might not be perfect, but the FGS is the 'bread and butter' funding source for native woods and trees in Scotland. It pays for woodland creation and for sustainable woodland management.
The FGS works, too. For several years, the FGS budget rose steadily. Over the same period, the amount of new woodland steadily increased. Not as much as the Climate Change Committee says we need it to - we need to double our woodland creation rate for that1 - but things were moving in the right direction.
In December 2023, the Scottish Government announced a surprise cut to the FGS budget for the 2024-25 financial year. It was reduced by a massive 41%, amounting to a £32 million cut. They blamed the UK Government - citing a 10% cut to Scotland's capital budget2 - but clearly the Scottish Government deprioritised woodland grants too, which is why the FGS cut was 41% and not 10%.
Both the commercial forestry sector and the native woodland environmental NGOs condemned that decision, warning it would lead to a massive dent in confidence and supply chains, and ultimately, to the rate of woodland creation falling drastically. This is what happened, and in his Programme for Government statement in September 2024, first minister John Swinney tacitly conceded this point by reducing the woodland creation target, in year, from 18,000ha to just 10,000ha. The new target is all that the reduced budget would allow.
These unprecedented cuts to funding and targets have had a chilling effect across the supply chain, which has a lead-in time of at least three years to respond to policy and funding change. For example, nurseries that supply the saplings, which are crucial to tackling climate change and the nature crises, are now composting and destroying millions of saplings that were planted in response to previous funding conditions.
Another result is a dent in confidence overall, leading to less investment in jobs and infrastructure. Forestry is a slow-moving ship and this confidence can take years to return. So it is clear – when woodland grant funding is up, woodland creation goes up. When woodland grant funding is down, woodland creation goes down.
On 30 October, the new UK chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her first budget, which gave rise to an additional £610 million in capital budget allocation for Scotland3.
On 4 December, the Scottish Government will set out its 2025-26 budget. Given that increase in the available capital funding, Scottish ministers have a chance to raise Scotland’s ambitions on climate and nature action and restore the FGS budget it cut last year – a call being made by diverse groups like Woodland Trust Scotland, Confor, and Scottish Land & Estates. At the same time, it should restore and greatly increase the separate Nature Restoration Fund budget that it raided in-year to pay for other priorities.
In making these decisions, the Scottish Government could restore credibility to its claim that Scotland is a world leader in climate and nature action. Tackling the nature and climate crises requires action, not rhetoric, and we hope the Scottish Government is ready to act.
1Climate Change Committee (2024). Scotland’s 2030 climate goals are no longer credible.
2Kevin Keane (2024). Climate change experts have 'serious concerns' at tree planting cut. BBC.
3Scottish Government (2024). A Budget to fix the foundations and deliver change for Scotland.