Benjamin Harvey, from Scone in Perthshire, tells us about his career and how funding from Lantra Scotland helped him with training.
"I’m an operations manager for SM Forestry Ltd, and keep our teams safe and busy in their respective tasks. My work can vary massively from one day to another, from laying trees out for planters, checking sites or climbing and cutting trees.
We’re predominantly a forest establishment company, planting close to 3 million trees annually and maintaining our sites, dealing with every aspect of cutting, from scrub clearance to commercial felling and arb.
I’m originally from a farming background and a lot of the skills and patience I learned looking after sheep and cattle were transferrable into working safely and efficiently in a forest environment.
Forestry requires a lot of tickets so help in completing them is always welcome. I was delighted to be successful when I applied for the Future Foresters Fund and was able to do a course in severing uprooted or windblown trees.
If I hadn’t got the funding I would have had to save up for it, which would have taken longer.
The training was good and as the trainer was new to me, I got a different insight into techniques and new knowledge.
Since then I’ve been able to take my career forward and now have an expanded range of work available to me.
The best thing about my job is the impact I can make by helping people in our teams grow in the forestry industry, creating careers that allow for a better economic and environmental future for the country. Not many industries can say that.
There is a lack of labour in the forestry industry and I think it would be great to attract new people with these funds."