Regulation of felling and restocking: consultation

Closed 14 Oct 2018

Opened 20 Aug 2018

Results updated 23 Apr 2019

The Scottish Government carried out a public consultation between 20 August and 14 October 2018 on proposals for the regulation of felling and restocking. Independent analysts, "The Lines Between" were commissioned to produce a report for publication reflecting their analysis of the responses to this consultation. 

This report is now available here.

You can also view the Regulation of Felling and Restocking SEA Post Adoption Statement here

Links:

Published responses

View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.

Overview

This consultation seeks views on the proposals for regulating felling and restocking in Scotland from 1 April 2019.

Forestry contributes almost £1 billion per year to the Scottish economy and supports more than 25,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Forests and woodland cover 18% of the land area of Scotland (approximately 1.4 million hectares). This represents 45% of the UK’s forests.

Why your views matter

The Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (‘the 2018 Act’) is part of a continuing commitment to forestry by the Scottish Government. One of its objectives is to modernise the legislative framework for regulating forestry, reflecting the modern policy environment and introducing a regulatory regime that is more flexible, agile and better able to adapt to changes. The 2018 Act itself supports this approach by leaving much of the detail of the regulatory regime to secondary legislation, in this case Regulations, making it easier to adapt to changing circumstances than the current regime.

This consultation is part of the Scottish Government’s long running programme of engagement on the operation of the regulatory regime set out in the 2018 Act.

Download the consultation paper.

Interests

  • Business, Industry and Innovation
  • Environment and Climate Change
  • Farming and Rural