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Quote from article in Southern Reporter: Published on Wednesday 9 March 2011 16:33

WITH forestry extraction in full swing in the south and west of the region, a senior Scottish Borders Council official has admitted that affected rural roads should “ideally” have been strengthened in advance, writes Andrew Keddie.

But strategic transportation planning manager Brian Young has stressed that the timber industry has a right to use these public routes.

He also revealed that his council had recently submitted a bid to the Scottish Government’s Strategic Timber Transport Fund (STTF) which, if successful, would see £700,000 spent on one of the worst hit roads: the eight-kilometre single track cul-de-sac linking Potburn Forest to the village of Ettrick.

The condition of that road and its inability to cope with timber traffic, set to increase fourfold over the next two decades, were highlighted at a public meeting held in Ettrick’s Boston Hall last Monday.

The meeting, hosted by Selkirkshire councillor Vicky Davidson, was called to address a range of issues surrounding the impact of forestry on the Ettrick Valley.

Fears about the loss of hill farms to forestry interests will, as reported last week, be conveyed to Scottish rural affairs minister Richard Lochhead, whose government is encouraging more tree planting to combat global warming, when he visits the region tomorrow.

The meeting heard that the Potburn road, which currently carries 5,000 timber lorryloads a year, serves several farms and holiday businesses, and was favoured by walkers and cyclists using the Southern Upland Way.

It is estimated that the harvesting of forests around Potburn will result in 400,000 lorryloads – or 20,000 a year – using the road over the next 20 years.

etc, see

http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/local-headlines/timber_traffic_has_right_to_use_public_roads_claims_official_1_1504839

Preliminary feedback to your blog – you say that stands are necessary for the inverts (and don’t forget the bracket fungus at least for other kinds of life) but not how big. 8 hectares is big when you live here!! That’s why these things are restricted in the UK and I think we need to be explicit about this. Go to other parts of the northern hemisphere (USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and points east) and that would be ridiculously small. You probably know that an Aspen tree in USA is the largest living organism in the world. Of course, it is not one tree as such but an area of trees all from suckers (= a clone) covering many square miles with an enormous biomass. In other words an entire forest made up of one connected unique genetic identity.

(entomologist)

(Borders Forest Trust adviser)