Getting started in forestry can be difficult for anyone – especially for young operators. But Treewise Forestry is bucking that trend and proving quite the success story.
TREEWISE Forestry is a forestry contracting business based in Moray, Scotland, and operated by Sam Moore. Sam comes from a forestry family, with his father Malcolm, his mother Alice and his brothers also working in the industry.
“My father was an instructor for most of his working life, and met my mother when she was sent on a chainsaw and climbing course by the botanical gardens she was working for at the time. Richard, my older half brother, had worked with dad on and off since he was 16 up until dad retired. My brother Ben has a sawmilling business and Tom has recently joined up with me. The company name Dad used to trade with was Treewise. I thought it would be nice to revive that name and carry it on, so I named my business Treewise Forestry.”
Treewise was a small sawmill and tree surgery business. It also offered instructing courses. It employed a few people, including Richard and Sam’s father Malcolm, who would run the sawmill and the team, which would work between the sawmill and tree surgery jobs. The sawmill mostly produced fencing products, but there was also a Woodmizer mobile sawmill.
“Growing up, I spent any days I could at the sawmill, playing in the sawdust with toys when I was a toddler and moving on to shovelling sawdust into a small wheelbarrow or just generally helping out. When I was old and strong enough, I was taught how to use a chainsaw, getting a small Stihl 241 of my own when I was about 15. I was made to do all my chainsaw assessments with another assessor who I did not know, as opposed to having dad pass me, so that there was no question of favouritism.”
From this hands-on experience you might be forgiven for thinking that Sam would have gone right into the family business, joining Malcolm and Richard, but his dad had other ideas. Instead, he persuaded Sam of the value of pursuing some form of further education to allow him to gain qualifications that he would have in the future should he need them to fall back on. Something that an older Sam now sees the merit in.
“I went to the Scottish School of Forestry, near Inverness, and started studying a degree in Sustainable Forest Management. Having the degree is valuable as it carries weight, but I do not think I really learnt very much that I did not already know and I was not really focused on studying; I learned so much more by actually being out working in the industry. During the first two years of the degree, I would spend any free days working for Richard, who had taken over dad’s tree surgery business when he retired.”
The third year of the degree course found Sam working on a local estate that he had chosen, but sadly after some initial tree work he found himself cleaning gutters, which he saw no value in doing. On leaving the placement he made contact and started working for a local contractor who was setting up and worked for him right through to the fourth year of the course when the contact learning at the college was down to two days per week.
“During this time, I became good friends with the contractor and we both learnt a lot by starting from scratch. He bought a Harvadig, a digger-based harvester, and eventually an old purpose-built forwarder. He operated the harvester while I did all the hand cutting, then he would extract the cut timber on the days I was in college. Coming to the end of my degree, Euroforest had advertised that they were looking for a graduate to join them as a trainee harvesting manager. The contractor I was working for encouraged me to apply, even though I wanted a more practical role, as it was a fantastic opportunity. I applied and ended up getting the job.”
Sam started at Euroforest on completing his degree in 2017, and worked there until November 2019. He was employed as a harvesting and marketing manager for Lochaber, in north-west Scotland, under the firm’s trainee programme. The aim was to train him up to a point where he could manage the purchasing of standing timber, arrange contractors to work the site, manage the site as it was being worked and market the timber.
“At first, I would go out with the regional manager who had been looking after the area since the previous manager had left. I would also go out with the managers from the east and north on the days I was not in my own area. The time spent with the different area managers was so valuable in learning how everything works, including what goes on behind the scenes, and I gained an extremely valuable understanding of the timber market.”
For Sam, this was a great learning curve, allowing him to find out a lot about commercial timber harvesting, not something that he had much experience of. He enjoyed the management side of things, but missed being out in the woods and actually doing the work. For him, it was perhaps a role that he would look to return to when he was older.
What it did do, though, was open his eyes to the fact the industry has issues attracting younger people to it.
“I saw that there was a huge lack of chainsaw and machine operators, especially young ones. I also felt that the commercial timber harvesting game was a competitive one, but there was not really anyone doing the smaller-scale jobs, along with jobs with difficult access.
“I was keen to fill that gap and I felt that with the mix of having the practical background and understanding, along with the newly gained knowledge of the timber markets and their workings, I would have a good chance of making it work.”
After leaving Euroforest, Sam spent the money he had saved on a pickup and started his business on January 1, 2020. He already had all his chainsaw tickets along with certificates for tractor, forwarder and skidder. He also had experience of working with machines with his father’s business. His experience with both Euroforest and the family business has allowed him to make contacts within the industry, which has been helpful as he has set out on his own.
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“In the first six months, a lot of the work came from the contractor I had worked with since my placement year at college. He had undertaken a large clearfell, which required a lot of hand cutting. I then purchased the tractor and forwarder from dad and started to take on a few more of my own jobs. I had made a few contacts while at Euroforest, so I made a few calls. Bowlts was among the first management companies to give me a chance, along with Cawdor Forestry and a couple of local tree surgery businesses, who subcontracted me in either just as labour or with the tractor and forwarder.”
Sam has continued to get enough work from these management companies to keep him busy. They have given him, as a new business, the chance to quote for jobs and have supported him getting started. He believes that estates and forest management companies understand the need to do this, so that businesses like his are there to provide the services in the future. There is also a need to preserve the skills and knowledge and ensure that it is passed on to the younger generation
“The management companies have supported me by giving me the chance to price jobs in the first place, but also accepting my prices even when knowing that the established companies could probably do the job on a cheaper rate. They seem to understand that to survive and grow, I need to make money. That’s where I feel that targeting the smaller-volume jobs, or jobs with difficult access that aren’t of any interest to the big sawmills or harvesting companies, works in our favour.
“We can charge a premium for using low-impact machinery, using highly-qualified labour, and doing a lot of the work by hand to a high standard. This improves the stands of timber that have been undermanaged. The estates we work for do not look at these smaller blocks of woodland as a way of creating revenue, so they tend not to be touched and remain undermanaged. With the high chip and firewood prices nowadays, there is value in these previously undermanaged stands. We can manage these woodlands, and provide a fair return for the landowner.”
Now in his third year of operating, Sam was honest enough to admit that setting up his own business was a move outside his comfort zone, especially buying his first piece of new kit on finance. Sam had wanted to avoid taking out loans but soon realised that with the high cost of machinery, trying to buy outright was really not an option. His first purchase using finance was an 11-tonne Botex forwarder and having made the decision to go down this route Sam has continued.
“I have since bought an eight-tonne Harvadig with an AFM 400s stroke head, and a small purpose-built forwarder. Taking that leap to use finance has made this much easier, and has improved cash flow enormously. The purchase of the Harvadig was primarily to cut down on labour costs; the machine can do the work of three or four cutters and costs less per day. The machinery has improved output but I now also have to spend time fixing the machines.”
The other challenge for Sam has been finding operators to work alongside him. Family, including Ben and Tom and friends, have been a mainstay to date. Tom, Sam’s youngest brother, has now joined the business full time having gained operator experience with another contractor. Tom also has the benefit of having the same family forester experience as Sam gained in and around their father’s business. Importantly, they both have a similar thought process and get on.
Investment in machinery has helped Sam to scale up the business and get involved in working on bigger jobs. It has also been a steep learning curve for Sam, and now Tom, in learning how to operate and maintain them.
Speaking of the firm’s Harvadig, Sam added: “This machine has undoubtedly improved output, but it’s really only a small step in the big picture. It is a nice halfway point to where we want to be. The stroke head is slow compared to the more common roller heads you see on harvesters. It has been good in the pine that we have been felling recently because it has been nice and straight, but it will struggle in anything that has twists in it. It is also not as accurate as the more expensive roller heads, so if you want accurately cut sawlogs then you are better off cutting them by hand.”
They also have a Valtra 6550 with 11-tonne Botex forwarder and eight-tonne three-point-linkage winch.
“This has been the most reliable set of machines to date. The Botex forwarder is good and strong, but a bit slow in crane speed compared to a purpose built. It is really handy to be able to drive the tractor and forwarder to smaller jobs and not have to pay for low loaders.”
There is also a Valmet 820 forwarder.
“This is an older machine, almost the same age as me. It is well built and relatively simple, making it easier to fix. As it is no longer made, finding parts can be difficult. It’s smaller and lighter than most other purpose-built forwarders, so has very low ground pressure, but is still very capable and Tom can extract a decent volume of timber in a day.”
Finally, the machinery portfolio is completed with a tractor-mounted chipper.
“We tend to hire in a tracked chipper for jobs with difficult access, but the big chipper is great for estate work and larger chipping jobs. Again, it is an older machine but very reliable.”
This kit allows Treewise Forestry to offer low-impact cutting and extraction services. On the saw side, Sam uses a mixture.
“I have a Stihl 500i which is what I use most of the time. It is an awesome machine. It is very thirsty, but I do not care. I have a Stihl 261 as a small saw and a Stihl 661 for the big stuff. I have usually had a mix of Stihl and Husqvarna as I think they do the same job and they all do it well. However, I have found that the Husqvarna do not seem to last, the Stihls have simply kept going and outlived them. Both Ben and I have our climbing tickets, but Ben has always enjoyed it more than I have, so he does the climbing and has the kit that he likes. We do not do a lot, so we do not have any of the fancy gizmos.”
Treewise Forestry derives most of its work from forest or estate management companies.
The jobs carried out range from tree work on individual trees to thinning or clearfells up to about 500 tonnes. In the early days, it was more estate tree surgery rather than commercial forestry, removing dead and dangerous trees next to roads. Having made the move to more mechanical methods they did more thinning and clearfell work. Now, Sam’s company is working on a more commercial basis, out on a site but also doing smaller jobs in between.
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“Business is going well. We have been kept busy with our existing clients and have a couple of jobs lined up for new clients. I could do with a few more pairs of hands. I think we have the same problem as everyone else; it is hard to get good operators who can be trusted to do a good job to a high standard safely, without having to be monitored. It would be easy to expand fast, running a few sites at a time and employing a load of operators, but then inevitably the standard of work will go down, and we would lose that trust. I could put cheaper labour on sites and charge less but then the essence of what we are about would be lost.”
Sam’s view is that maybe taking on someone younger and training him or her up could be the way forward. On the machinery front, the plans for the future are to remain largely the same. He wants to continue offering that niche service to estates, covering anything from a single tree to whole woodlands. Sam would like to carry on with low-impact jobs, but to look to improve and upgrade the machinery. The purchase of a slightly bigger tracked harvester with a roller head is planned, and potentially an older purpose-built harvester that he can afford to not work all the time.
“I want to maintain the variation that we have in our working week, so keeping the machines small scale and affordable is essential. I would love to go down the road of new purpose-built machines, but if we did that with newer machines and big contracts, we would lose that variation and we would not be able to keep providing the service that we currently do without hiring good operators. I certainly think that in the future, when Tom and I are too old and not interested in the physical aspects of the industry, we will move fully into purpose-built machines and have an easier life!”
Sam, and now Tom, are examples of young people setting up and operating successfully in the forestry sector. It has taken hard work and effort to get Treewise Forestry to where it is today.
Sam understands why many others of his age range find it difficult to get started, with the cost of machinery and the catch-22 situation of needing jobs to get the money for the machines but not being able to do the jobs without the machines. He has no regrets though about setting up for himself.
“I started from the bottom, and I have probably grown quite quickly in the three years of business, but I am impatient and want to upgrade faster. It is hard, because you have to play the long game. I have been lucky with the companies that I have worked with. I feel that the bigger management companies need to see and recognise when someone new is trying to get into the industry and give them a chance. Be willing to pay a little extra!
"Supporting new outfits will pay off for them in the end. If they continue using established contractors, no new outfits will emerge and one day those established contractors will be no more.”
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