West Stormont Woodland Group is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) formed with the specific aim of bringing Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership.

This excitingly achievable goal is being pursued under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 Part 5 through the auspices of the Community Asset Transfer Scheme (CATS) operated by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS).

The woods, Taymount Wood at 155ha, and Five Mile Wood at 134ha, are currently in public ownership and managed for the Scottish Government by FLS.

“Community Wellbeing and Resilience through Eco-forestry for the Planet and Forest Diversification for People.”

Focus for 2025

This year is all about moving on with our applications for funding and developing the strategic ideas for how the project will go forward.

Community Ownership - Our Phased Approach

In 2022, WSWG submitted a CATS Proposal for both woods with an ambitious programme of improvements and facilities for community benefit, including the Taymount Hub Flagship Project and the Five Mile Wood Woodland Observatory educational Flagship Project.

As part of the CATS process, during 2023, WSWG agreed a Phased Approach to acquiring the woods and a reduced community benefit programme.

Our revised Wildwood Project – Taymount Wood was approved by FLS on 31 October 2023. FLS will hold onto Five Mile Wood for up to 5 years from the date of purchase of Taymount Wood during which time WSWG will have the option to acquire Five Mile Wood too. Our Flagship Projects are therefore on hold at present but very much waiting in the wings as the WSWG Project would be much strengthened by their reintroduction.

Our Aims and Ambitions

West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today.

Our 25 Year Mission

“To achieve significant progress towards a thriving community living in a sustainable, healthy and enjoyable landscape in eastern Strathtay centred on the two rapidly naturalising Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood. Substantially enhanced landscape ecology, improved and integrated access provision and a boosted local wellbeing economy.” West Stormont Woodland Group, WSWG, is seeking transformational change to address our climate and ecological emergencies, allowing the community to be the best it can be through careful management and long-term ownership of the woodlands for Nature Recovery. Many other communities have been successful in similar projects. With your help and involvement, we can also succeed.

Ecoforestry for the Planet

Most of our woods in Scotland exist for timber production. That means relatively few are allowed to age beyond 50-60 years. It is wonderful that we are planting new woodlands in Scotland to increase our woodland cover from 19 to 21% by 2032, but these will be young woods for decades to come and many will be scheduled for felling after 50 years. The greatest ecological and biodiversity value of trees happens after they are 80 years old. We need to gain old ecosystem – old growth and deadwood – by letting some suitable timber-purposed woods like Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood grow old for nature instead, all over Scotland.

WSWG wants to naturalise Taymount Wood and then Five Mile Wood. We aim to do this through a positive management approach – “Ecoforestry” – an even more ecological style of management than the current Low Impact Silvicultural System (LISS) operated by Forestry and Land Scotland, which will purposefully allow each woodland to grow to maturity and achieve its full ecological potential. We will remove blocks of non-native species like sitka spruce across the woodland to replace them with mixed native species of great biodiversity value – our 6 Nature Recovery Zones, one of which will be a commercial Food Forest. We will leave 20% for sustainable timber production under LISS and manage the rest to enrich and diversify what is there just now, which is mainly Scots pine and birch. And we will develop a range of income streams from the Living Forest to replace the timber income we are foregoing for nature.

It is a nature-based solution whereby existing woodlands are protected as intact ecosystems to foster continuous growth for maximal carbon storage and ecological and structural complexity. It is a powerful and immediate strategy that can address the global crises in climate and biodiversity.

We see action for the dual and interlinked Ecological and Climate Emergencies as one of the biggest community benefits of all.

Here you can find our Woodland Management Plan for Nature Recovery in Taymount Wood in Documents.

Forest Diversification for People

We are also seeking to manage the woodlands for community wellbeing under the following five headings:

If we can do what we have already being doing for community benefit without owning the woods, imagine how much more we could do for People and Planet when we own the woods.

For more detail on our Community Benefit plans, see our Revised Proposal and Business Plan pp 15-25