SWL Director talks trees with King Charles
A Scottish Woodlands Director joined King Charles at an event at his Scottish residence in Aberdeenshire to celebrate a scheme to plant trees on farms in the North-east of Scotland.
Eddie Addis, Director (North) for Scottish Woodlands Ltd, joined some of the funders and farmers involved in the Sma Wids (Small Woods) at a reception at Birkhall, on the Balmoral Estate, Royal Deeside.
More than 8,000 trees on 19 sites have been supplied by Scottish Woodlands to support the scheme, which aims to boost biodiversity in the agricultural landscape by helping landowners to create valuable, small new woodlands on underutilised areas of land.
Mr Addis said: "The King was very well-informed about the Sma Wids programme and about many associated issues. He was especially interested in the provenance and biosecurity of the trees used in the project, and about Scottish Woodlands' employee ownership structure."
Scottish Woodlands is 80% owned by its employees, with the remaining 20% owned by James Jones & Sons Ltd, which has a sawmill at Aboyne, just a few miles from Birkhall. King Charles visited the mill in October 2023, and praised the “marvellous” workers for processing timber from Balmoral.
Mr Addis said he had spoken to a number of farmers involved in the project who saw the value in planting trees on their land, with the potential to provide a future crop and produce woodfuel for biomass burners on their farms.
"Most of the Sma Wids farms are in the Buchan area, which is largely what you might term traditional farmland, with a mixture of arable, cattle and sheep, but very few trees," he said.
"This project has got more farmers thinking about trees, and their value. The numbers planted so far are encouraging, though relatively low - but there are some farmers involved whose interest has been piqued, and hopefully will look to undertake more planting."
The reception also saw the launch of the publication Trees on Farms, by The Royal Countryside Fund, a charity founded by the King.