A new report from Scotland’s Just Transition Commission says local communities need a greater stake and say in tree planting as the country looks to quickly expand woodland areas that absorb carbon.
“A purely market-led approach is highly unlikely to succeed in achieving this rapid rate of expansion in a fair way, particularly given our highly concentrated pattern of land ownership,” says the Commission. “To achieve an equitable sharing of costs and benefits and safeguard social cohesion, a new mode of community involvement in tree planting is needed that embeds a community wealth building approach.”
The Commission says government should make it easier for communities to hold stakes in forestry developments and ensure accurate public reporting of their environmental impact, biodiversity, the quality of public access, and the creation of sustainable local jobs maintaining the forests.
The report was launched today at South of Scotland Enterprise in Dumfries. Forestry is a significant growth area in the South of Scotland. The Climate Change Committee says the UK needs to double the rate of tree planting by 2030 and projects 39% of the trees the UK needs to plant between now and 2050 will be in Scotland. A large proportion of this woodland creation is likely to take place in Dumfries and Galloway.
The Commission is an independent expert advisory group with members drawn from business, industry, trade unions, environmental and community groups and academia. It aims to make sure the benefits and burdens of the major changes involved in Scotland’s climate neutral transition are shared as fairly as possible, and is tasked by the Scottish Government with making an annual assessment of progress towards a just transition to a low carbon economy.
In its new report the Commission says organisations representing community interests, such as community development trusts, are underfunded and under-resourced. “Action is required to enhance the capacity and resource of communities to play an active role in shaping changes associated with the climate transition for their locality, such as energy projects and tree planting,” the report says. “There is a consistent asymmetry in capacity between developers and communities which requires to be addressed strategically.”
During its visit to Dumfries and Galloway, the Commission also looked at how the housing crisis is affecting the region. Its report warns “The lack of adequate housing for people in Dumfries and Galloway, as in many other parts of Scotland, will slow progress in reducing emissions and risks stymying the positive potential impact of the economic opportunities brought by the transition in terms of investment, skills and labour required to reconfigure our land use and install and maintain new infrastructure.”
In December the Commission called on the Scottish Government to deliver a world-first by setting quantifiable targets for achieving a just transition to a low carbon economy. “The establishment of interim just transition targets up to 2045, aligned with Scotland’s carbon budgets, would constitute a genuine world first in climate and economic policy innovation,” said the Commission’s earlier report. “For the just transition, as for other complex and demanding endeavours, what gets measured gets done.”
Read the Commission’s new report here: A Just Transition for Dumfries and Galloway – Just Transition Commission
Prof. Dave Reay, co-chair of the Commission, said: “We are going to have a lot more trees in Scotland and this will be one of the most visible changes as we become climate neutral. This should be a big positive, especially for rural areas at risk of depopulation such as those we visited in Dumfries and Galloway, but we’ll need to make sure communities lead these changes, not have them imposed on their local area.”
Satwat Rehman, co-chair of the Commission, said: “Our visit to Dumfries and Galloway confirmed what we’ve heard right across the country. A just transition means tackling Scotland’s housing crisis. The people building our new economy need warm, comfortable homes to live in, whether they’re putting up wind turbines, laying transmission cables, retrofitting buildings, growing food or planting trees.”
Background – Just Transition Commission
The Just Transition Commission is an independent expert advisory group. The Commission’s remit is to:
- Scrutinise the development of just transition plans led by the Scottish Government
- Advise on the best approach to monitoring and evaluation of the just transition
- Engage with people most likely to be impacted by the transition, hearing from a wide range of representative voices.
Commissioners are drawn from industry, business, trade unions, environmental and community groups, and academia. A key role of the Commission is to build consensus on difficult challenges facing Scotland as we decarbonise.
Find out more about the Just Transition Commission on its website: Just Transition Commission
