Forestry and Land Scotland’s team in Aberdeenshire has been giving nature a hand by re-spacing trees that have, through natural regeneration, started to repopulate a recently felled site. 

The cleared site - in Gartly Forest – had begun to be re-seeded naturally from neighbouring trees, which although a welcome process, can result in germinated seeds growing too closely together…or too far apart. 

If those seedlings and young trees are left unmanaged, they would not grow to their optimum potential, so the team steps in to lend a hand.  

FLS Forester Niall Justice, said;  

“Managing our restocking by letting nature do the work means we can minimise the pressure on our nursery by reducing the demand for new trees. It also reduces ground disturbance.  

“The downside is that we have to come in and re-space the young trees. And after a two year period has lapsed we have to step in again and manually select the trees to keep and which have to be thinned out in order to end up with the crop type we want. 

“Natural regeneration of sites is something that we have done for many years but we tended to work with whatever established. Doing this work to ensure that we get the best crop more closely mimics the outcome of normal clear-felling and restocking but without the need for expensive new plants and ground disturbance. 

“We have to balance the lower environmental impact with the fact that we’re having to put in some fairly resource-intensive effort to help get things right. 

“However, we are looking to increase the adoption of this approach to our re-stock at environmentally sensitive sites.” 

Considered on a site-by-site basis, FLS’s Aberdeenshire team currently applies the technique to around 50ha of natural regeneration a year but is hoping to increase this to around 200ha – one third of the area that FLS fells annually in the north east. 

The assisting contractor and the FLS team involved follow the appropriate COVID-19 safety guidance at all times.

Notes to editors

1. Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) manages forests and land owned by Scottish Ministers in a way that supports and enables economically sustainable forestry; conserves and enhances the environment; delivers benefits for people and nature; and supports Scottish Ministers in their stewardship of Scotland's national forests and land.

2. forestryandland.gov.scot | twitter.com/ForestryLS

3. Media enquiries to Paul Munro, Media Manager, Forestry and Land Scotland Media Office 0131 370 5059 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.