Key Findings

Each case study area offers unique insights into the social benefits of forest-based activity from the context of their widely differing situations. They feature unique characteristics across a range of social and economic indicators, including high and low population densities, obvious and hidden deprivation, high and low proportions of forested land cover, and different histories and trajectories of development. Despite these and other differences, this research suggests that people in both communities increasingly put a high value on their forest spaces, seeing them as important assets in responding to the challenges of developing their own communities and delivering improvements in their lives.

Overall, the most significant phenomenon to emerge from the evidence was the almost universal enthusiasm expressed by respondents for the value of forests and woodlands in their lives. This was expressed both as a general affection for the actual forest spaces themselves, and as specific affection for the activities in which they are engaging in forests. Comments such as: "There’s something about being out in the woods that just helps you to chill out when you’re stressed" reflect not only specific mental health benefits of forest-based activities, but also the way general affection for forest spaces is expressed.

This enthusiasm was manifest in the zeal expressed by most respondents in terms of promoting further development of forest uses which deliver the social benefits they enjoy. Participants in forest-based programmes readily shared, through passionate accounts, the high value they placed on the benefits they gained. Those engaged in the management of forest-based programmes and assets were just as passionate in their advocacy of forests, as were forest rangers, development officers and others in the public sector. Many of the actors displayed a keen sense of social entrepreneurship in the ways they supported the development of forests for social benefits. This entrepreneurship can be witnessed in the growth of new partnerships and new projects, bringing new opportunities to link together forests and communities.

Across both Case Studies we saw respondents volunteering, learning new skills, enjoying new opportunities to socialize, improving their health and changing their livelihoods in response to the opportunities presented by forest-based developments in their communities. In both places we were able to observe first-hand how accessing social benefits from woodland spaces has brought new value to communities and prompted a revaluation of their forest spaces. In many different ways respondents told us that:

Forests and woodlands are special spaces for learning, both formal and informal.
Forests and woodlands are spaces of new healthful activity.
Forests and woodlands are spaces of recreation, both traditional and innovative.
Forests and woodlands are spaces which support the expression of culture.
Forests and woodlands are spaces of high amenity value, particularly in terms of community pride and identity.
Forests and woodlands are important contributors to a variety of livelihoods, including a growing sector managing the delivery of social benefits.
Forests and woodlands host activities that provide valuable routes back to employment and social inclusion.
Forests and woodlands are valuable assets for building community capacity and social capital.

The social benefits delivered by forest-based activities accrue both to individuals and to communities. Through involvement in forest-based activities individuals can improve their health, their prospects for paid employment, their social skills, and enjoy better connections with the natural world and with the communities around them. Communities can enjoy improved connection to place, local pride, increased capacity to effect change in their local environment, as well collectively enjoying better health, prosperity and vitality.

Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of forest-based schemes is that they are equally important across the range of communities in Scotland. They are assets which can host the delivery of a multiplicity of social benefits which address the multitude of needs which are faced by these communities. In both rural and urban locations this research found that although the drivers of need may differ across both situations, there is a universal demand for the special educational opportunities, the opportunities for healthful activity, recreation, cultural expression, livelihoods and community capacity building, all of which can be associated with the community development of forests and woodlands.

As an asset, forest and woodland spaces support the development of a complex range of social benefits and this complexity is a part of what makes the interaction of community and forest spaces so productive in terms of addressing a wide range of needs across a wide range of situations. In Glasgow, for example, poverty and social exclusion drive the need for spaces of inclusion and self-esteem. In the Highlands, the historic legacy of the Clearances and the changing fortunes of the rural economy also drive a need for spaces of ownership and positive identity. Forest-based activities have the potential to address both of these situations and many others.

In both of the Case Study areas we witnessed how interactions between communities and woodland spaces were changing the way local people saw the value of their woodlands. The growth of new sectors of interest – health, education – and the additional partnership funds they bring with them represent new ways of valuing forest spaces. The growing emphasis on partnership working in community development, whether for urban regeneration or rural development, has again brought new value to woodland spaces. All of this new value brings new virtue to forests, changing public perceptions of them along the way. Already, the Scottish public is getting more involved in woodlands – more projects are being developed, more initiatives are starting and more partnerships are being built which focus upon forests and woodlands in one way or another.

This research suggests that those who get involved find their enthusiasm for forests and woodland spaces grows rapidly – indeed, the strength of that enthusiasm can be seen across the breadth of evidence that was examined. With increasing activity and increasing enthusiasm on the part of all those involved, it would seem inevitable that there is a shift in how the Scottish public values forests and woodlands. The investment of new value in these spaces can give them greater positive virtue in the public eye, rendering them new virtuous forests.