Voluntary incentive schemes for farm forestry: uptake, policy effectiveness and employment impacts

Comparing Path Dependence and Spatial Targeting of Land Use in Implementing Climate Change Responses

“…Land owners in Scotland who favor new woodland have objectives broadly similar to those for existing woodland, most notably conservation and landscape amenity, but also provision of sporting opportunities, or shelter [49,62,63]. This is consistent with general findings elsewhere that the majority of landowners do not interpret the benefits from forests in a narrow economic development context [64].…”

“…A range of socio-economic factors can explain this pattern. Firstly, a significant proportion of the land is occupied by tenant farmers who traditionally have had only limited rights to create or use woodland [49], many of whom have shorter term tenancy agreements [50] which also acts against an interest in tree planting. Agricultural land in Scotland also receives subsidy payments through the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and even though recent amendments have been made to woodland grants so that CAP payments are not necessarily lost, land managers are well aware that CAP programs can change, particularly in response to other drivers such as world food prices [51].…”

Tackling wicked environmental problems: The discourse and its influence on praxis in Scotland

“…Woodland planting has been 518 considered an essential strategy to mitigate GHG emissions due to its capacity to sequester 519 CO2 from the atmosphere. However, in Scotland, this strategy is difficult to implement due 520 to conflicting food and climate change policy goals (Feliciano et al, 2013, Munoz-Rojas 521 Morenes et al, 2015), low acceptability of woodland planting schemes among Scottish 522 farmers (Crabtree et al, 2001;WEAG, 2012) and volatile stakeholder perceptions about the 523 consequences of climate change (Barnes & Toma, 2012;Feliciano et al, 2014). Therefore, 524 the strategy to mitigate the climate change problem is itself a wicked problem and because 525 of that it engenders slow progress in addressing the main problem.…”

Towards a research agenda for woodland expansion in Scotland

“…This assumption is broadly valid: grant payments have been instrumental in encouraging woodland expansion to date (Crabtree et al, 2001;CJC Consulting, 2002). Poor economic returns are also often cited as the most important barrier to woodland creation (Lloyd et al, 1995;Osmond and Upton, 2012).…”

“…Despite an emphasis on financial incentives, a number of authors find that economic returns are rarely stated as an objective of small-scale woodland creation (Crabtree et al, 1994(Crabtree et al, , 1998(Crabtree et al, , 2001Watkins et al, 1996;Bell, 1999;Cunningham, 2009). Rather, biodiversity conservation, landscape improvement, shelter, and sport are primary motivations for planting.…”