| The Foresters: The Story of Scotland’s Forests. - James Miller |
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There’s a very telling sentence at the end of James Miller’s meticulously researched book The Foresters: The Story of Scotland’s Forests which says: “In a sense, we are all foresters now.” Indeed we are and sensible people should have an informed attitude towards the place of forestry in modern Scotland.
For thousands of years Scotland was a densely-forested land. Thick, rich woodlands covered much of the landscape until deforestation and over-exploitation drastically reduced the trees by the 18th century. But all was not lost.
The vigilance of private land owners and the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1919 have helped shape the countryside as we know it today. This book has been described as a tale of loss and recovery of generations of men and women dedicated to their task.
Professional foresters will obviously appreciate this book most of all and the painstaking account of administration and ownership patterns and targets, the details of equipment, working practices and personalities may seem overly technical to general audiences, but the discerning reader will find that James Miller has an astute eye for telling anecdotes, and touches of humour.
Two of the founders of the Commission, Lord Lovat and Lord Clinton, had a race to see who could plant the first tree. The early Commission was military in its outlook and at one time staff wore uniforms. Several of the evacuated St Kildans in 1930 joined the Commission, yet most of them had never seen a tree.
A colourful and wide variety of people became part of the forestry story. They included foresters from Canada and Newfoundland, from British Honduras (now Belize), and Norway, plus German and Italian prisoners of war.
At one time the Commission put a local poacher on the pay roll: his job was to keep down the rabbits, workers on spartan rations had their diets improved by finding a salmon in gravel being moved by a digger while another group had a venison feast when a lorry killed a deer.
It has to be said that the text is light on controversy. The Commission was fully aware that much tree planting in past years often lacked scenic quality and latterly, a landscape architect was employed. Nevertheless, a picture of miles of what one critic called endless lavatory brushes lodged in the public mind. The Ramblers Association castigated what they saw as the theft of the hills and other critics warned that blanket forestry would harm tourism.
No-one is suggesting that the forest authorities should follow the pattern laid down by the fourth and fifth Dukes of Buccleuch who were reported to lay out woodland in the Border hills to match the cloud shadow, but there is little doubt that blanket forestry was and remains part of a national debate along with the right and wrongs of private, State and community ownership, access issues, farming and rural land needs.
The forest authorities have done an immense amount for public recreational access and here, too, there has been lively national debate.
The much-respected mountaineer and conservationist, the late W. H. Murray, told me he was so incensed by one hill being waymarked to the summit that he uprooted the poles, piled them up at the foot of the hill and then phoned the Commission to say what he had done.
Low ground waymarking, particularly in plantations, tends to meet with public approval.
This is a stimulating book and deserves to do well. |
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