Community Woodlands Association
Scotland’s 150 community woodland groups own or manage almost 100,000 hectares of woodland and open land, employ 200 staff, and involve 3,000 volunteers. They implement genuinely sustainable forest management practices, integrating commercial timber harvesting with firewood production for local markets and careful environmental management to support Scotland’s precious biodiversity.
Scotland’s community woodlands deliver a wide range of social benefits:
•Education and skills: pioneering forest schools and other education projects and hosting skills and employability training projects.
•Health and wellbeing: serving as venues for projects supporting individuals with mental and physical health issues, from rehabilitation projects working with recovering addicts, to outdoor activities with the mentally/physical disabled and working with young people excluded from school.
•Recreation & culture: receiving well over half a million recreational visits annually, providing specialist trails for mountain bikes and horses, managing designated environmental and archaeological sites, and hosting arts performances and installations.