Scotland’s Finest Wood Awards: Recognising excellence in woodland management

International Day of Forests (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

To mark this special day, we spoke to Jean Nairn, Executive Director of Scotland’s Finest Woods, about her diverse career and the importance of recognising excellence in woodland management.

The awards programme was established 40 years ago as a way of recognising the best of woodland management and the people who care for trees.

It’s grown to include seven different categories in 2025, which demonstrates the breadth of forestry and woodland activity across Scotland. There is a competition appropriate to virtually all woodland projects, including woodland carbon projects and community woodlands.

We are unique in offering categories which celebrate and inspire throughout the whole rotation of trees and humans. Motivating young people and having them at the awards ceremony demonstrates that forestry is a great career choice with many avenues to follow.

Forestry can be an isolated job for a forest manager, so it’s good to bring people together to acknowledge their achievements and see inspiring examples of woodland creation and management across the country.

It’s important to celebrate the work of those who are trying to leave the world in a better place. We are pleased to facilitate this through our annual awards while acknowledging it’s a huge team effort by all involved. This includes the entrants, our volunteer judges, our sponsors and supporters as well as our volunteer trustees and many more in the background who help to deliver the programme.

We encourage people to enter to be recognised for their vision, hard work and effort in creating fabulous examples of woodlands and tree-related projects across Scotland. 

And, of course, if you are a winner, there’s the opportunity to attend the awards ceremony. Your project will gain some publicity too. We hope everyone enjoys being part of the forestry community and culture in Scotland.

In a previous life, I worked in and around the forest industry for almost 20 years after studying agroforestry at the University of Bangor. I was aware of the awards programme for many years and used to help colleagues in putting forward entries each year.

Like many people, I was offered a change of direction in 2020 when I began training as a forest and nature therapy guide. I am certified with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy and we have a strong ethos of being in relationship with the land.

So, when the opportunity arose to become Executive Director of Scotland’s Finest Woods, I chose to take on the role as part of my reciprocity with the trees and the land. I took over the role in the autumn of 2022 and I can’t quite believe that I’m now into the third year of presenting the awards.

I’m looking forward to seeing what amazing projects and people come out of the woods this year!

Being able to recognise our winners and present the prizes at the annual awards ceremony and receiving appreciative comments from entrants after their visit with the judges and hearing the good news about their award.

We appreciate everyone involved in making the awards happen, whatever their contribution to making them the success that they are.

We’ve tried to make the process as easy as possible.

If you have an eligible project, there is a brief entry form to complete so that the judges can shortlist inspiring entries to visit.

Shortlisted entries will be visited by the judges and winners will be invited to the awards ceremony which we anticipate will be held in November during National Tree Week. Entries for the schools and early years competitions close on 31 March and all other categories close on 31 May 2025. If you have any questions, please check the website or contact me.

Corehead Woodland in Dumfries and Galloway is a Woodland Carbon Code project which was highly commended in the Climate Champion Award category in 2021.

Judges praised the project as “an excellent example of incorporation of climate change thinking into an ambitious large-scale habitat restoration project so that it delivers long-term benefits.”