Research
Scotland’s Climate Ready Forest Network
Research Status:current
The Climate Ready Forest Network is a partnership between FC Scotland, Forest Research, ClimateXChange and private sector collaborators, which aims to support the forest sector in Scotland become more resilient to climate change.
The Climate Ready Forest Network supports the sector to adapt by:
Our first demonstration site is at Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, which hosted the launch event in October 2013. A summary of the Climate Ready Forestry Workshop is available online, as are presentations from the event
If you would like to share your experiences about adaptation, or are a forest manager or landowner and would like to partner with us to develop case studies of adaptation please get in touch.
Queen Elizabeth Forest Park is the first site in the Climate Ready Forest network and hosted the launch event workshop in October 2013, presentations from the workshop are available online.
In October 2015 the site hosted a climate ready forestry learning exchange.
Queen Elizabeth Forest Park is located near Aberfoyle at the boundary of the Scottish highlands and lowlands, and lies within the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.
The park covers 67,000 hectares and includes areas of native woodland, productive forest, water courses and areas of open space.
The park is managed by Forestry Commission Scotland to deliver multiple objectives, including recreation, biodiversity and timber production – whilst maintaining the character of landscape.
The park receives over 1 million visitors each year, incorporates a large complex habitat network, and supports the local and national timber industry.
Queen Elizabeth Forest Park is also the site of Scotland’s Research Forest which provides additional support for this partnership.
Forest managers at QEFP are committed to managing their forests to be resilient to climate change and have already begun making changes to the forest and how it is managed. You can learn more about these changes in these videos.
The adaptation process is ongoing. Making the right changes at the right time requires careful planning with local and national experts and consideration of the whole supply chain: from seed, to stand, to saw.
Through the Climate Ready Forest Network we are working to identify and implement solutions for the threats that climate change will have on Queen Elizabeth Forest Park. We will be documenting these changes and the adaptation process, so that the lessons learned will support the forest sector in Scotland adapt.
We explored these issues at the launch workshop, and will be sharing our experiences here throughout the process.