I NEVER planted any trees as a child. I was never given the opportunity at any of my schools. I suppose, looking back, the fault was my own for being entirely educated across a period of time when there were no jubilees at all.

The Queen’s Green Canopy is a very worthy project which has seen thousands upon thousands of schoolchildren and others take their first tentative steps into the world of woodland management. I applaud everyone involved. But there is a part of me that wishes we didn’t have to wait for Her Majesty to be celebrating a significant anniversary before teaching children about trees.

READ MORE: Ben Lomond Memorial Landscape: Plans to remove 1350,000 tonnes of timber from Loch Lomond hillside

Imagine how different the industry might be now if forestry had been part of the curriculum since the Silver Jubilee in 1977, as key to children’s studies as the suffragette movement or long division. Not a core subject, perhaps, but something that would at least give youngsters a practical (and memorable) taste of the wooded world.

We talk often of the struggle to attract new entrants to the forestry sector (you’ll find more on the subject in this issue) and I’ve heard folk lament that young people simply don’t want to do this kind of work. They all want desk jobs, ideally working from home – or worse yet, to be paid to stream video games on Twitch or to post dance routines on TikTok (which, incidentally, Forestry Journal is now on).

@forestryjournal Oooft 😍 #rottne #forestry #forestrylife #forestrymachines #forestryequipment ♬ Big Time - Skrxlla

That may well be true for some. Much more worrying, I think, is the fact there are a great many young people who would probably love to be working in forestry, but they have no idea the industry even exists. No-one’s ever told them.

It’s time to think about what more can be done to address that.