1980 FC Annual Report Appendices
Images courtesy of Alan Duncan, Nursery Manager, Newton Nursery, who provided a whole series of images that were taken in 1981 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Newton Nursery. An open day was organised and the public and school children were shown around the nursery to see how the trees for the forest plantings were produced. Some information was displayed and in the above image and those within the PDF are parts of the 1980 Forestry Commission Annual Report which had been pinned to a wall.
1. The first image in the PDF shows the table of forest land in the countries that make up Great Britain with a strong emphasis on what is termed ‘Productive Forests’. As can be seen, the Forestry Commission in Scotland had almost half million hectares of productive forest land by 1980 with a further 322 thousand hectares in private ownership. In addition to the above it can be seen that Scotland had a further 84 thousand hectares of non productive forest land now considered as a vital component in Scotland’s diverse forest and woodland structure.
2. The second table details the New Planting areas annually from 1973 to 1980 and in Scotland the total area planted shows an annual decline from over 31 thousand hectares in 1973 to 17 thousand hectares in 1979 but with a small lift in 1980 up to 21 thousand hectares.
3. The third table focuses on the amount of replanting of felled woodlands and forests (restocking) that took place from 1973 to 1980 and the figures are remarkably even and modest for the whole period at about 3 thousand hectares. This figure was to rise dramatically in later years as the post war plantations eventually matured and clear felling started to increase markedly.
4. The fourth table (labelled at Table 7) is unfortunately not broken down by country but shows the total timber harvesting volumes in Great Britain from 1973 to 1980 increasing from 3650 thousand cubic metres to a very modest 4300 thousand cubic metres. The interesting part is the rapid rise in volumes predicted in the years up to 1996 when the total annual harvesting volume was expected to rise to 7600 thousand cubic metres. This volume of course continued to increase markedly in the years following 1996.
5. The fifth table (labelled as Table 10) shows the estimated numbers of people employed in Forestry and in the Wood Processing Industries. Strangely any private contractors and timber contractors working on Forestry Commission land were classed as Private Forestry workers.
6. The final table (labelled at Table 11) gives a round up of the recreational and visitor facilities that were located within the Forestry Commission land in 1980.
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