Employment and private-sector afforestation in Scotland

Abstract

One of the main land-use changes in rural Britain in recent decades has been the afforestation of open land, most of which was previously used for hill-sheep farming. The aim of this paper is to consider the implications of afforestation for rural employment. It is concluded that afforestation involves neither the loss nor gain of jobs at the local level in a large majority of afforestation schemes. Afforestation, however, results in a net increase in labour input per unit area, at least in the short term. Labour intensities average between 0.5 and 0.72 man years per year per 100 ha during the first five years after afforestation, while the theoretical displacement of agricultural labour input on the afforested areas is 0.14 man years per 100 ha. The intensity of post-afforestation input was found to vary with type of management and with geographical location, and a weak inverse correlation existed with size of area planted. No evidence of a significant relationship with site characteristics such as agricultural land capability was discovered. Most of the post-afforestation labour was supplied by mobile squads; resident estate workers provided the labour input in only 5% of the sample cases. The significance of afforestation-related employment in terms of labour inputs and origins of workers is considered, and it is concluded that such employment, when measured in terms of absolute numbers involved, is of limited importance.