About the Trust
The Scottish Forestry Trust trustees
Trustees are appointed for their experience, expertise and objectivity, and their ability to provide a good balance of appropriate skills on the Board according to the Trust’s constitution. The views of others within the general forestry sector are normally sought before appointments are made.
The Projects and Research Committee is a sub group of the main Board of Trustees and meets three times a year to consider applications for funding. The current membership of the committee is :-
Dr Christine Cahalan - Chair
Willie McGhee
Dr Chris Quine
Guy Watt
Dr Stephen Woodward
Biographical notes on the current trustees
The current trustees of the Scottish Forestry Trust are:
Robert Scott OBE FRICS, is the current Chairman of the Scottish Forestry Trust. Robert studied Rural Estate Management at RAC Cirencester.
Based at Baronscourt in Co Tyrone, Robert has been Agent and Factor with Abercorn Estates since 1977, where his responsibilities include the management of approximately 2,400 hectares of woodland in Scotland and Northern Ireland. From 2002 to 2004, he was Chairman of the Forestry & Timber Association. He has been a non-executive Director of Balcas Timber Ltd since 2005. he has a keen interest in continuous cover forestry, in developing the sporting and recreational potential of woodlands, and in forest industry development in Great Britain and Ireland. Robert was appointed Lord Lieutenant for Tyrone in 2009.
Email: chairman@scottishforestrytrust.org.uk
Dr Christine Cahalan is Senior Lecturer and Acting Head of the School of the Environment and Natural Resources, Bangor University. She is a current member of the Forestry Commission Advisory Committee on Forest Research, the editorial board of Forestry, the Executive Committee of the Royal Forestry Society (North Wales Division) and the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) benchmark group for Agriculture, Forestry, Food and Consumer Sciences. Christine has more than 20 years experience of university and public sector research, and has been external examiner for taught and research degrees at universities in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Christine is the Chair of the Trust's Projects and Research Committee.
Anthony Hart has been based in Perth since 1990 and is one of 22 Equity Partners of Bidwells Property Consultants - a firm of over 500 staff operating from 15 offices in the UK. Anthony has overall responsibility for the firm's business throughout Scotland. As the son of HM Senior Verderer of the Forest of Dean, Anthony has been immersed in forestry since an early age. A graduate of University College of North Wales, commercial forestry is Anthony's professional specialism. Subsequent training in Land Economy at Reading University has led him to provide advice to a wide range of clients, from financial institutions, through family trusts to private individuals.
Colin Mann graduated with a BSc. Hons. in Forestry in 1977 from Aberdeen University. In the same year, he started work with SWOAC Ltd as a Trainee Forest Manager, the forerunner of Scottish Woodlands Ltd, the firm of which he is now Managing Director. Through his career he has worked in all aspects of forest management in Scotland but between 1992 and 2005 specialised in the promotion of forestry as an investment medium in the capacity as the company’s Investment Director before taking up the post as MD at the end of that period. His work in investment marketing has encompassed a wide geographic area including, as well as the UK, long term business development in Hong Kong, mainland Europe and Canada. He has served on the Council of the Institute of Chartered Foresters for two terms and is now a member of the Scottish Forest Industry Advisory Board which was formed in spring 2008. He is also a director of Northern Energy Developments Ltd which is a young company specialising mainly in the development of small scale renewable energy projects, utilising fuels derived from forest harvesting operations. His career has allowed him to develop expertise particularly in the economic development of the UK’s commercial forest resource and the production of timber for utilisation by the country’s expanding wood processing and renewable energy industries.
Willie McGhee is a forest ecologist whose pioneering work in social and environmental forestry has influenced the direction of community and native woodland initiatives in the UK. His main interest is promoting environmentally and socially responsible forest management and he is Acting Director of the Plan Vivo Foundation, which channels climate change finance to communities and peasant farmers in developing countries. Willie is the Executive Director of Borders Forest Trust Scotland’s leading community led environmental NGO. He is a Trustee with Scottish Power’s Green Energy Trust and a Director of Tweed Forum. Recent publications include two chapters on ecosystem services in Restoring Natural Capital (Island Press, 2007).
Dr Chris Quine is Head of Ecology Division and Head of Station at the Northern Research Station (NRS) of Forest Research, the research agency of the Forestry Commission. He studied for a first degree in geography at Cambridge University, followed by a Masters in Forestry at Oxford University, and then joined the Forestry Commission in South Scotland. After five years of forest management he moved to Forest Research, and has since conducted research in silviculture (particularly windthrow) and forest ecology, obtaining a PhD in forest ecology from Edinburgh University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
Guy Watt is the current Deputy Chairman of the Scottish Forestry Trust. He is Managing Director of John Clegg Consulting Ltd which provides business, economic and rural development consultancy services. He is a forestry graduate of Aberdeen; has a B.Litt in forest economics from Oxford and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and a Member of the Institution of Economic Development. He worked in the South Pacific for two years followed by four years at the Forest Research Institute in New Zealand. He has undertaken consultancy assignments for over 20 years in the South Pacific, Asia, Africa and South & Central America. In the UK he has undertaken a wide variety of consultancy assignments over the last 20 years firstly while with EFG as a forest economist followed by 13 years with John Clegg & Co where he was responsible, as a partner, for consultancy work, before starting John Clegg Consulting Ltd in 2003. He is Vice Chair of the Central Scotland Forest Trust, a partner in Beacon Forestry and was Chairman of the Scottish Hardwood Timber Marketing Group for 5 years.
Michael Williams MBE is a farmer from East Lothian with a deep interest in farm conservation and farm woodlands. Michael is currently a Trustee of Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, Director of Southern Upland Partnership. He is also a member of Scottish Biodiversity Forum Rural and Landuse Working Group and has been a Trustee of the Scottish Forestry Trust since 2002.
Dr Stephen Woodward is reader in forestry in the Department of Plant and Soil Science, School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, specialising in tree pathology and urban forestry. He is editor-in-chief of Forest Pathology and associate editor of Phytopathological Mediterranea; currently he is leading the EU-funded COST Action FP0801 on impacts of Phytophthora species in European forest ecosystems. Since joining the staff at Aberdeen in 1989, Dr Woodward’s research has focused on root-infecting pathogens of forest trees, including leading four major EU-funded projects on Heterobasidion (Fomes); other research includes the ecology of wood inhabiting micro-organisms, modelling of forest disease dynamics, fine root pathogens in Scots pine forests and biological control of pathogens. The current emphasis is on alien invasive pathogens impacting on European forestry. In addition to work in north temperate forests, Dr Woodward has also worked on pathogenic fungi in tropical forests and on genotyping of important tropical timber species. During the course of this work, he travelled extensively in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australasia.
Gordon Callander is Managing Director of the family sawmilling firm James
Callander & Sons in Falkirk. Having completed undergraduate and post graduate degrees at Edinburgh and imperial College, Gordon joined the family business in 1986 and has been involved in all aspects of the business with a particular interest in processing. Gordon has served as President of the UK Forest Products Association; Board Member of TRADA; Convenor of the UK Softwood Sawmillers Association Health & Safety sub committee; Convenor; Convenor of the UK Forest Products Association Technical & Development sub committee; Member of the technical sub-committee, Forestry Commission Advisory Panel and Member of the Scottish Forest Industries Cluster management board.
Alan Black worked in the Scottish financial sector for 30 years, managing Private Client and Charitable monies for the Royal Bank of scotland Investment Department and Capital House Investment Management. In 1996, he joined Newton Investment Management (Private Investment). he is currently a Director of the Aged Christian Friend Society of Scotland and a member of the Scottish Community Foundation Finance Committee. Alan is married with two grown up children and his main form of relaxation is climbing Corbetts and studying for an Open University Degree.