Improving rural economic development through sustainable timber production at a local level: is it time to revisit the concept of the ‘normal forest’?

Concerns that economic and employment opportunities from Scotland’s expanding forestry sector may bypass remoter rural communities have highlighted the need for a different approach to timber production and management. In this paper, we propose that remoter forests are managed to provide a relatively stable output of timber for local processing through the process of normalisation. Given the lengthy timescale to achieve this, we suggest that small parcels of timber representing approximately 10% of total annual production should be made available initially from state forests to support the development of local timber processing capacity. Managing local forests for sustainable timber production and a steady supply of locally sourced timber will help create employment within rural communities and generate significant environmental benefits.