Reflections
"Many people in Scotland saw the need for more native woodland. But it took the foresight of Barbara Kelly, Simon Pepper, Roddy Fairley and a few others to turn the idea into a wonderful reality. To me it is the small community based projects that count most: real energy, enthusiasm and real environmental benefit. Long may the initiative bear fruit for people and the environment".
Roger Crofts
Scottish Natural Heritage
"Thanks to the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust, and our supporting funders for the woodlands on the Isle of Eigg. The future is bright, the future is green!".
Graeme Morison
Project Manager, Isle of Eigg Woodlands Project
The work of the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust has contributed to the management and expansion of Scotland's native woodlands. These woods will provide a lasting tribute to all those who have taken part in the wide range of projects supported by the Trust. It has also done much to re-engage communities throughout Scotland with our rich woodland heritage.
Message from The First Minister
Rt Hon Henry McLeish MSP
"What better way to celebrate the millennium than by planting trees throughout Scotland? This is a project about the next generation and the generation thereafter."
Rt Hon Michael Forsyth MP
Secretary of State for Scotland, planting the first tree of the Millennium Forest for Scotland, February 1996.
"The trees will grow and will look like a forest. There will be lots of animals like squirrels, hedgehogs and birds. We will call it Greendykes Forest".
Richard Milligan
Primary 4, Greendykes Primary School, Edinburgh
"The vision of Trees for Life, to reinstate a significant part of the great Caledonian Forest which once covered most of this land, has taken several steps forward due to funding from the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust. Hundreds of hectares of new planting has been achieved, which could otherwise not have taken place, and I believe that generations to come will join us in a sense of gratitude for this huge contribution to the restoration of our natural heritage".
Adam Powell
Trees for Life
"The Millennium Award received by Chris Smith and myself for the 'Glen Affric Group' allowed us to explore the potential for involving people experiencing or recovering from mental illness in active forest restoration work. The Group we worked with was very enthusiastic about the experience and is now exploring the possibility of continuing the group beyond the life of the Award. The experience convinced us that with the right support, people disabled by mental illness can still play a role in restoring Scotland's native forests".
Steven Wray
Millennium Award Participant
"With the help of Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust, in the last three years, 7,000 tons of local timber has been converted by woodschool into locally available product. This would have been pulped or burnt. This has turned around £800,000, through the amalgam of woodland and woodworkers - the natural and human resource - an idea that has worked, and seemed so obvious to all involved".
Rory MacLeod
Woodschool, Borders Forest Trust
"Our woodland has completely affected the ethos of the school. We now live both visually and emotionally in a softer greener place".
John Burns
Head Teacher, Granton Primary School, Edinburgh
"It is not given to many projects to say that in just over five years they leave the length and breadth of their country significantly better than they found it. However, the real success of the Millennium Forest does not just lie in acres of woodland planted but in the warmth and enthusiasm that they gathered for their vision of a new forestry. This, too, will be the legacy of the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust".
Sir Peter Hutchison Bt CBE FRSE
Chairman, Forestry Commission
"Through my Award, I have been privileged to wander through some of Scotland's most scenic, wild and ancient woodlands throughout the seasons of one year. In some small way I have attempted to capture a little of the beauty that I encountered. It is my hope that this digital resource will allow some of these images, and their beauty, to inspire young and old alike to venture out in these wild places for themselves".
Ken Paterson
Millennium Award Participant
Forest for a Thousand Years
A new and exciting native forest of Oak and Scots Pine now exists at Cashel on the shore of Loch Lomond. Future generations will be indebted to the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust who provided the opportunity for the Royal Scottish Forestry Society to realise its aim of planting and managing Native Woodlands in such beautiful surroundings. Visitors will enjoy the recreational, educational and aesthetic benefits of a living native forest. Managed on a sustainable basis the forest will, in the future, provide woodland products and support local employment.

On a personal note, it has been my pleasure to have contributed in a small way, to the realisation of the creation of this native woodland ‘vision’ in such unique surroundings.
Alan F. Bloomfield OBE
"I think the best way to describe what I did through my Millennium Award is to talk about the joy and fun experienced by the people that came along to take part in the activities and learn about the production of trees at the nursery. The young trees look pretty just now in their organised and neat rows in the nursery bed, proudly showing their autumn colours on their tiny leaves, but the real reward will come in five to ten years time when they will have become established in the community and hillsides".
Ruairish MacKinnon
Millennium Award Participant
"The children have ownership of the trees and bulbs they have planted and feel that they have made a difference to their playground and to the community. They have created a green oasis in an inner city area".
Pat Bowers
Deputy Head Teacher, Greendykes Primary School, Edinburgh
"We at Currie are extremely grateful tot he Edinburgh Urban Forest Project. We had long held a dream that we may one day link our patches of trees to form a wildlife corridor stretching across and reaching out to other tree areas in Currie. A massive planting programme was the only solution and the project fulfilled a need and a dream. Now the entire perimeter of the school is planted with native Scottish trees and our corridor is a reality. Thank you."
Roley Walton
Retired Teacher, Currier High School, Edinburgh
A Canadian from Vancouver, referring to the 10km Wildcat Trail which links the 45 hectares of mixed woodland managed by Newtonmore Community Woodland Trust said, "that was one of the most breath-taking walks I've ever done". She had viewed the Cairngorms and Monadhliath in September colours and walked the banks of the Spey, Calder and Allt Laraidh. Without the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust, neither the Trail nor the tree-planting could have been completed. Generations of residents and visitors will be the beneficiaries".
James Davidson
Newtonmore Community Woodland
"Realising the vision of the Millennium Forest hasn't all been plain sailing, but it is worth noting with pleasure that many aspects of those early dreams really have been fulfilled - the sheer scale of physical change on the ground; the level of involvement by ordinary people who have found an opportunity to 'give something back to the environment'; the happy support and collaboration of people who were not previously known for harmonious view on matters to do with forestry; the spread of projects throughout the land; the growth in competence of many local project managers; the column-miles of press coverage, and the sense that, as also set out in the original mission, real progress has been made in re-establishing the relationship between people and their local woodlands - a resource whose priceless value to people's happiness and well-being, sense of place, and economic welfare has been overlooked for too long. And as many smiling faces testify, it has been fun."
Simon Pepper
Vice-Convenor, Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust