Nov 02, 2012. Confor welcomes the establishment of the Scottish Timber Market Impacts Group and that they will take forward Confor's request for an assessment of timber supply for the next 50 years that can be used to help define a strategy to deliver the greatest amount of available timber going into the second half of the century.

Scottish Timber Market Impacts Group plans for industry future

Nov 02, 2012. /Lesprom Network/.Confor welcomes the establishment of the Scottish Timber Market Impacts Group and that they will take forward Confor's request for an assessment of timber supply for the next 50 years that can be used to help define a strategy to deliver the greatest amount of available timber going into the second half of the century, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network. Forestry Commission Scotland hosted a meeting of all the major players in the timber industry in Scotland at the inaugural meeting of a new timber markets group. The group has been established to consider how to tackle two major issues which will impact on our timber markets; pests and diseases and a potential increase in softwood availability over the next 25 years. The meeting - at the Commission's Edinburgh HQ - focussed on the potential short and long term impacts of increased volumes of timber coming onto the market as a result of Dothistroma needle blight and Phytophthora ramorum, as well as the additional work required to get a more detailed understanding of the recently published 25 year softwood availability forecast for Scotland Hamish MacLeod, chair of FCS' National Committee and Director of Public Affairs at BSW, who also chairs this group, said: "The new 25-year forecast of potential softwood availability highlighted that we have more timber than we previously thought. However we need to carry out further analysis to understand what realistically could come to market. We also want to produce a forecast over a 50 year time period as this longer term forecast will be crucial for continued future investment in the industry. "The industry is already beginning to see the impact of pests and diseases on our forest resource with significant volumes of Dothistroma timber now hitting the markets. Both the public and private sectors will have to work together to ensure that we manage the potential impact of larger volumes of material from diseased forests coming onto the market as well as considering what this means for future crops." The group will report to FCS' National Committee in 2013 with an analysis of the situation and recommendations going forward.