Forestry and Land Scotland - draft corporate strategic plan 2026-2030: consultation

5. What is FLS for? Our activity for 2026 - 2030

“We are for people, for nature, for the climate and for the economy.”

We are for people…

Our core activity means we are the largest provider of outdoor recreation opportunities in Scotland, helping to boost the health and wellbeing of its people and underpinning the tourism economy with a focus in rural areas. We also work with communities to ensure best use of the national forests and land to support thriving rural communities:

• We welcome around 10 million visits per year and continue to support open access across our network of 3,000 km of trails and 10,000 km of forest roads.
• We encourage safe access for everyone, helping to improve the physical, emotional and mental health and well-being of residents, communities and visitors.
• We engage with communities, neighbours and stakeholders as we develop our plans for the land.
• As we enable more opportunities for renewable energy generation, we are including an increasing element of community ownership.
• We encourage use of forests and land by communities for activities and events.
• We support and enable communities to manage land, deliver projects and take on appropriate local assets supported by our Community Asset Transfer Scheme and we currently have agreements, leases, Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) for 109 community projects.
• We require community benefits to be provided as part of our contracts – traineeships, apprenticeships and local employment opportunities – and every regulated tender strategy considers how we might encourage ‘Supported Businesses’ to bid.
• We promote thriving rural communities by creating opportunities for new entrants to agriculture as part of an integrated approach to land management

To achieve more for people:

• To allow us to do more for people, we will seek to grow income from visitor services and through sponsorship, funding and proportionate charging.
• If funded to do so, we will offer a promoted network of trails across Scotland, including accessible experiences to support the rural economy and community wellbeing.
• We will seek partners to work with us to conduct spatial planning for key visitor destinations to guide recreational investments
• If external funding is available, we will look to continue the enhanced ranger service that to engage proactively with visitors minimising impacts on communities.
• Through the planning system we are promoting viable sites for rural housing.

We are open to explore ways to achieve better outcomes for people including:

• Improving the visitor experience at priority sites, to welcome people, reflect local character, and offer meaningful experiences for all.
• Exploring innovative ways of working with communities to manage existing forests and land to deliver social, economic and environmental outcomes,
• Looking to source funding to develop our apprenticeship and training model.
• Exploring opportunities for outdoor learning and health improvement by working in partnership with others.

We are for nature.

Our core activity enables us to manage more than a third of the estate primarily for nature. We protect threatened and endangered species and habitats across the whole estate, increasing the store and value of Scotland’s natural capital:

• We ensure that landscape-scale nature conservation principles are part of our land management planning (including scale, uniqueness, connectedness and diversity)
• We monitor and record key environmental assets – such as species, habitats, water supplies and catchments – so that we can best look after them.
• We rigorously assess all our operations to ensure we avoid or mitigate impacts on the environment – recognising the estate is home to over 1,000 recorded species, 172 of which are protected species.
• We protect the 45,542 ha of designated sites on our land (Sites of Special Scientific Interest), maintaining at least 94% of them in favourable condition and working to influence neighbours whose action impacts on the condition of the remainder.
• We undertake conservation management, condition monitoring and archaeological recording at our significant historic assets; and develop and promote best-practice historic environment conservation management.
• We manage wild deer to protect habitats and young trees from browsing, achieving a third of the total cull to bring numbers down to sustainable levels per SG strategy.

To achieve more for nature:

• We will look to continue the restoration of Scotland’s rainforest in priority rainforest areas through deer management, invasive species clearance and removing conifers from ancient woodland sites, funded by the SG’s contribution to Scotland’s Rainforest Project
• We will seek to support and enable partnership working with those restoring nature at a landscape scale, contributing to SG’s Nature 30 initiative as resources allow.

We are open to explore ways to achieve better outcomes for nature including:

• Exploring how we could identify new areas in which to prioritise landscape-scale nature restoration, working with neighbours and partners to make a meaningful difference to Scotland’s biodiversity.
• Investigating how we can make best use of emerging nature markets and funding mechanisms, including carbon credits, to help do more for nature and biodiversity without additional cost to the taxpayer.

We are for the climate.

Our core activity enables us to capture carbon in trees and soils, produce sustainable timber products that reduce Scotland’s carbon footprint and promote renewable energy. And by managing the estate to address the threats from a changing climate, we help Scotland to adapt:

• Our sustainably managed forests and wood products sequester around 2 Mt of carbon each year, equivalent to around 5% of Scotland’s total net emissions.
• We host the generation of 1.3 GW of renewable energy (onshore wind and hydro) already enough to power over 1 million homes with potential to provide for 1 million more.
• We integrate climate change action in our land management planning processes – looking to the long term and adapting what we do to changing circumstances, including the increasing threat from pests and diseases.
• We are developing an organisational Climate Adaptation Strategy and high-level action plan to help us prepare for the future.
• We are seeking to maximise the utilisation of our fleet and buildings, including sharing with others and disposing of surplus property – and we are reducing carbon emissions by an electric vehicle rollout and removing fossil fuel building heating systems by 2030.

To achieve more for the climate:

• We will continue to restore degraded peat to help it store carbon, improve biodiversity and water quality and reduce fire risk and flooding funded by the Scottish Government Peatland Action Fund.
• We will contribute to the Scottish Government funded woodland creation targets by creating new woodland of a variety of types.
• We will seek to continue our work to reduce the threat of landslips to the transport network, such as we have done at the Rest and Be Thankful, where we are funded to do so.

We are open to explore ways to achieve better outcomes for the climate:

• We will develop carbon budget targets and emission reduction targets so that we understand the scale of work needed to meet our net zero goals by 2045.

We are for the economy.

Our core activity enables us to continue to support the green economy through jobs and investment. Our sustainable forest management activity underpins Scotland’s £1.1 billion forestry sector and we facilitate the productive use of public land and investment from others:

• Work on our national forests and land contributes directly to supporting 11,000 jobs in the forestry sector.
• Annually we spend £120M on goods, services and works across Scotland. More than half of our contract spend is with small and medium sized enterprises (and that is not including the many subcontractors who work for our contractors).
• We bring to market some 40% of Scotland’s timber supply, for use in construction, packaging and biofuel – and our timber is certified to international standards of sustainability via the UK Woodland Assurance Scheme
• After harvesting we replant our forests – keeping up with the rate of removal and progressively addressing the backlog. Our Plant and Seed Supply team grow and source around 24 million trees per year, with around 19 million of these coming from our new world class tree nursery at Newton near Elgin.
• As a by-product of culling deer to protect trees and habitats, we supply enough venison to market each year to make 4 million steaks
• We operate mineral leases, providing important minerals for industry such as barytes and silica sand.

To achieve more for the economy:

• We will look to facilitate and mitigate the impact of national infrastructure for energy, communications and transport, working in partnership with developers.
• We will look to make best use of public land by facilitating agreements with third parties that result in social, economic and environmental benefits.
• We will consider opportunities for community wealth building, taking a place-based approach to economic growth and enabling more people to improve their health, wellbeing and life chances.

We will explore ways to achieve better outcomes for the economy:

• We will consider how artificial intelligence and other new technologies can improve our business processes.