Scottish Forestry

Mike Kerr, Head of Geographic Information Systems at Scottish Forestry, gave a talk to West Fife Rotary on the role of mapping and technology in managing Scotland's woodlands.

Mike explained that Scottish Forestry was formerly known as the Forestry Commission, an organisation established in 1919 to rebuild the UK's depleted timber stocks after the First World War. For its first 40 years the Commission focused on large-scale planting, including extensive conifer blocks across areas such as Galloway and Perthshire. From the 1970s to the 1990s, priorities shifted towards conservation, biodiversity and recreation, and since 2000 climate change has become the central driver of forestry policy, with planting now aimed largely at helping Scotland meet its net-zero targets. In 2019, forestry was devolved to the Scottish Government, splitting the old Commission into Scottish Forestry (policy and regulation, Mike's employer) and Forestry and Land Scotland (land management).

He traced his own career from a geography degree at Aberdeen and a Masters in GIS at Edinburgh, through early work at the map publisher Bartholomew in Edinburgh and later Collins in Cheltenham, where he worked on atlases and road maps during the transition from hand-drawn to digital cartography. He moved to Dunfermline in 2003 to join the Forestry Commission in Edinburgh.

Above: Mike Kerr with President Mark Todd

Much of the talk focused on how Scottish Forestry uses mapping data. His team maps woodland types, such as conifer, broadleaf and mixed planting, making this information available to staff and the public. This data supports "habitat networks," which link areas of native woodland to allow species to migrate as the climate changes, and helps target grant funding towards land that will strengthen these networks or avoid displacing good agricultural land. Field inspections, once carried out with paper maps, are now done using tablets that upload data and photographs directly to head office.

Mike described a major LiDAR survey currently mapping the whole of Scotland from a fixed-wing aircraft, generating detailed data on tree height, timber volume and ground topography, with applications including flood risk analysis. He also outlined work on tree health, particularly the detection of diseases such as Phytophthora ramorum in larch trees. Traditionally this relied on helicopter surveys, which are costly and carbon-intensive; Scottish Forestry is now working with Glasgow-based satellite company AAC Clyde Space to monitor tree stress and disease from orbit. 

Finally, he described emerging use of artificial intelligence to analyse aerial photography, enabling automated counting of trees, detection of thinning, and identification of newly planted saplings to support grant inspections.

During the talk, Rotary members raised questions. One asked about grants for private planting; Mike confirmed that because forestry is a long-term investment with no return for 30–40 years, grants are used to incentivise establishment. Another question referenced BBC Countryfile coverage of farmers in England objecting to trees being planted on good agricultural land. Mike agreed there was a clear boundary between agriculture and forestry, noting that part of his team's role is identifying land suitable for planting that does not compete with good farmland.

President Mark proposed the club's formal vote of thanks to Mike for such an interesting talk.