Douglas MacMillan > Quotes

“Large-scale reforestation of the Scottish hills and uplands through natural regeneration offers a tantalising prospect in terms of recovering our lost biodiversity, balancing our carbon budget and, I would argue, an opportunity to reinvigorate the economy of remoter rural areas. All that stands in the way are medieval laws designed centuries ago to prevent poaching and exclude people, and a forestry sector that follows, blindly, the corporate industrial forestry model.”
― Douglas Macmillan, Reforesting Scotland 66, Autumn/Winter 2022

“During the 20th century, the Forestry Commission (FC) bought land and planted it with commercial forestry crops on a massive scale. In most cases the land was bought from cash-strapped private land-owners who were required, prior to afforestation, to terminate or otherwise end farm tenancies. What is less well known about this period of forestry expansion is that following purchase the FC embarked on an active programme of property ruination, involving the abandonment and deliberate destruction of hundreds of vacated residential properties, mainly farmsteads. The ruins of these farmsteads are still visible in many forests currently managed by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and act as a poignant symbol of Scotland's clearance legacy.”
― Douglas MacMillan, Reforesting Scotland 71, Spring/Summer 2025