This piece is an extract from this week's Forestry Latest News newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Friday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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SPEAK to anyone involved in forestry, and they'll inevitably tell you about the P problem. Not the pea problem, or even pee problem, but they are, of course, referring to the public problem and the danger they wantonly (it seems) put themselves in when woodlands are concerned. 

Every hand cutter and operator has a story to tell of Joe Bloggs appearing where they shouldn't be, risking their own safety and that of the contractor involved. 

This was once again thrust front and centre this week when Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) issued an alert about a "significant increase" in reports of people wandering onto live forestry sites, believing carefully placed stop signs to be more of an invitation than a command. 

READ MORE: Fears someone 'could be killed' amid increase in public wandering onto forestry sites

Such is the prevalence of the problem in Scotland right now, officials went so far as to suggest someone could be "hurt or even killed" by falling branches or machinery unless the public begins to heed the warning. 

Stuart Chalmers, FLS visitor services manager, put it bluntly when he said: “Many of the big safety risks are not obvious and those visitors who ignore our safety signage are taking a serious risk that could result in life changing injuries or worse.

“Harvesting machines work incredibly fast and they are very noisy. Operators will not hear – and might not see anyone approaching." 

Unsurprisingly, forestry's operators have had plenty to say about this growing problem – at least in Scotland – and little of it has bee positive about members of the public. 

Comments included: 

"Apparently the public have zero ability to keep themselves safe." 

"Not only that. Stacked round timber causes a problem. I seen kids scrambling over them." 

"The public seem entitled to ignore all signage anywhere in the rural environment." 

"Maybe they should erect security fencing. Pay double to the contractor of the current rates and treat it like any other trade period!"

"Surely its nature's way of removing the ignorant?" 

Forestry Journal: Forestry takes great care to be as safe as it possibly can be Forestry takes great care to be as safe as it possibly can be (Image: FJ)

"They don't ignore the signs... normally pull them out and throw in a ditch them blame us."

(And these are the ones we felt okay to print)

However, another caught our eye that is something many won't have considered. 

"Looking at it from a different angle, there’s loads of signs where I live which should have been removed when the forestry work was completed over a year ago.

"People will ignore signs when they’ve been conditioned to think they’re just old signs so it’s okay." 

Something worth thinking about.