Planting on deep peat, incongruent geometric shapes, drains heading straight down the hill. It is a long time since the forestry industry undertook such practices yet a veil of ‘unacceptability’ still pervades public perception.

Ask many of the people who called for those changes, all that time ago, what they think of UK forestry in the 21st century and they’ll probably focus on the actual tree species being planted, specifically the continued use of non-natives, especially Sitka spruce. Why is Sitka still used so extensively in the UK?

Sitka spruce grows the fastest in our climate, on otherwise unproductive land, produces desirable timber and is most resistant to disease. The next best alternatives are significantly less desirable and are also non-native. These benefits do not seem to be obvious to people outside of the forest industry where you could suggest that Sitka is viewed like oil – a valuable commodity with useful properties, but ultimately something we need to move away from because of external impacts.

The forestry professional’s view is very different. Sitka is as vital as the potato in the diet of timber uses. Timber is the low carbon, bio-degradable material of the future, but currently mostly overlooked in favour of cheaper options such as disposable plastics, high carbon footprint concrete or heavily-polluting-to-produce steel.

Like the potato, Sitka is a non-native species imported from the Americas because of its desirable properties. They are both staple crops. Like the potato, we grow it in a monoculture to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, unlike the potato, it creates angst amongst the public from conception to harvest.

Food is clearly an emotive subject, but the crops that produce it less so. Nobody mourns a potato, but as we know from Sycamore Gap we can absolutely mourn a tree. Trees have lifespans longer than our own and have an enduring sense of permanency. The area of Sitka spruce in the UK is multiples of the area of potatoes, but less than half that of wheat (also imported, though longer ago than sycamore). Trees also provide important wellbeing benefits for us and our wider ecosystems. Sometimes it feels like the assumption is choosing between natives or nonnatives when we actually need more of each.

As a sector, we need to work together to change public attitude to Sitka spruce. It is, after all, the industry’s commercial crop and the workhorse of our timber industry. Spruce is as fundamental as potatoes – and arguably more versatile in the scope of what it delivers – but the latter is considerably more respected by the public. We must balance the vital need to use home-grown timber to meet UK demand for construction timber, landscaping materials and the vast array of wood-related products with public acceptability. We must also strive to reduce the UK’s heavy reliance on timber imports.

We have an outstanding manufacturing base for timber from seed to finished product, right here in the UK. It is one of our few remaining industries and one which we should be truly proud of. And the bonus is it could not be greener!

Given the urgent need to grow more UK timber – and meet climate mitigation obligations – we must address how the timber industry can make Sitka spruce more palatable.