Published-Articles

The Forest Stewardship Council is twenty years old, and like most adolescents it has had a troubled few years, perhaps lost its focus and not really delivered on its early potential.

2015 is set to be a crucial year for forest certification in the UK, not only is UKWAS undergoing review and revision, but so is the FSC Chain of Custody scheme, used by nearly 3000 companies in the UK.

For most people commercial forestry is just that, and the mental image is of serried ranks of blanket Sitka, the Flow Country, and a low value crop mainly used for making paper.

It showed that once the woodlands were established, productive conifer forestry was capable of producing a substantial surplus, while sheep farming produced a deficit.

Twitter is also a two-way communication, but it is much faster than LinkedIn and you can potentially connect with a much wider range of people.

My own paper, The Role of Productive Woodlands in Water Management, jointly produced by Confor and Forest Research and compiling existing research, demonstrated how productive woodland can reduce flood risk and protect our waterways.

I use social media a lot, and try to encourage others in the forestry sector to use it also because it’s a great way to communicate and to understand people’s concerns about sustainability.

You can search Twitter for people you know, and after a while, Twitter will also suggest you people you might be interested in!

Traditionally in the UK there has been a division of opinion that all broadleaves are good and all exotic conifers are bad – Scots Pine being the exception.