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Statistics released by The Scottish Forest Alliance, the woodland creation project uniting BP, Forestry Commission Scotland, the Woodland Trust Scotland, and RSPB Scotland, show that the equivalent of 1,059 new native trees have been planted every day for the past nine years and an area of new native woodland - one-and-a-half times the size of Inverness - has been created.
BP’s support for the SFA project (£10 million over 10 years) represents Scotland’s biggest ever corporate commitment to the environment. The SFA project itself is one of one of the largest tree planting and native woodland creation and regeneration programmes in recent years. Almost 3.5 million trees have been planted or allowed to naturally regenerate over the last nine years of the SFA project – 1,059 trees every single day of the project so far. A total of 2,469 ha has been planted with new native trees so far and a further 828 ha have been allowed or assisted to naturally regenerate with wild native trees. Together, these areas of new woodland cover some 3,297 hectares - an area more than one-and-a-half times the size of the city of Inverness. A further 1,170 hectares have been prepared ready for natural regeneration – an area equivalent to an additional 1,560 football pitches. Almost 59 kilometres of new paths have been created and maintained and the total length of the paths and tracks within the sites covered by the SFA project is now over 145 kilometres. Over the full ten-year length of the SFA project, it is estimated that it will create 52,737 days of employed work – the equivalent of 24 full-time jobs for 10 years. The fourteen SFA project sites receive an average of 445,248 visitors each year – an average of 1,220 visitors every day of the year. This represents more visitors each year than visit major paid attractions such as Stirling Castle and free attractions such as the Scottish Parliament Visitor Centre. In 2008, over 4,390 full days of volunteer time were donated to the SFA project, while the fourteen project sites received 6,114 educational visits. It is projected that, over the full ten-year length of the project, almost eight-and-a-half thousand hectares of new tree cover will be created, an area much larger in size than the surface area of Loch Lomond – the UK’s largest body of freshwater. Fourteen sites throughout Scotland are currently benefiting from SFA investment: from Galloway in the south west and Falkirk in east central Scotland, through sites at Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond and Loch Ness, in the Ochil and Trossach hills, through Strathspey, to Huntly in the north Visit www.scottishforestalliance.org.uk |
