I never planted any trees as a child. I was never given the opportunity at any of my schools. I suppose, looking back, the fault was my own for being entirely educated across a period of time when there were no jubilees at all.

The Queen’s Green Canopy is a very worthy project which has seen thousands upon thousands of schoolchildren and others take their first tentative steps into the world of woodland management. Linked to Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service, it provides an introduction to forestry across schools and local communities, is free to sign up to and will be running until the end of the next planting season in March 2023.

I applaud everyone involved. But there is a part of me that wishes we didn’t have to wait for Her Majesty to be celebrating a significant anniversary before teaching children about trees.

Imagine how different the industry might be now if forestry had been part of the curriculum since the Silver Jubilee in 1977, as key to children’s studies as the suffragette movement or long division. Not a core subject, perhaps, but something that would at least give youngsters a practical (and memorable) taste of the wooded world.

We talk often of the struggle to attract new entrants to the forestry sector and I’ve heard folk lament that young people simply don’t want to do this kind of work. They all want desk jobs, ideally working from home – or worse yet, to be paid to stream video game or for posting dance routines on TikTok (which, incidentally, Forestry Journal is now on).

That may well be true for some. Much more worrying, I think, is the fact there are a great many young people who would probably love to be working in forestry, but they have no idea the industry even exists. No-one’s ever told them.

It’s time to think about what more can be done to address that.

Other topics covered in the latest issue of Forestry Journal include:

  • Forestry & Land Scotland apprentice Rachel Orchard offers a few of her personal thoughts on the challenges facing forestry.
  • We follow a new Wood-Mizer sawmill on its complicated journey to Knoydart.
  • We report on the latest Timber Haulage Academy in Ayrshire.
  • Renfrewshire-based Fencing and biofuel specialist Alter Supplies is profiled.
  • We explore the current outlook for white-tailed eagles.

To learn more, visit www.forestryjournal.co.uk/subscriptions