Articles

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A changing climate puts all our trees under stress, particularly after the very hot weather last year. Those unusual conditions saw an inevitable spread of Oak processionary moth (OPM) into the nurseries of Belgium and Germany in late 2018. CONFOR

The David Attenborough documentary was part of a new series for Netflix and the episode which featured forests also mentioned the importance of ‘farming trees’ to reduce the harvesting pressure on natural forests and the need to use more timber in construction. CONFOR

A new report from Guy Watt (John Clegg & Co Consulting), commissioned by Confor, has identified some significant challenges in the availability of timber to meet the growing demand from timber processors across Scotland, England and Wales. CONFOR

• Maintain ecosystem integrity • Protect and enhance high conservation values• Developed through effective stakeholder involvement processes• Contribute to economic growth and employmentNGP

• Global demand for forest products will double by 2050 • UK 2nd biggest importer in the world• UK has only 13% forest cover• Over £60 Million per year invested in Scottish wood processing capacityCONFOR

Figures from the Forestry Commission show timber prices have risen by almost 30% in a year and are nearly double the level of a decade ago.FARMERS WEEKLY

One of the perceptions around certification is that demand is driven by consumers pressuring retailers and demanding ethical supply chains. However this isn’t always apparent on the High Street; If you visit two well-known stores – Marks & Spencer and Asda – you will see almost no evidence of certification labels and very little information about where or how they’ve sourced their wooden furniture or paper products. CONFOR

Successive governments have made popular pledges to plant large numbers of new trees. But do these trees ever actually get planted and, where they do, does it ever achieve anything useful?BBC News

Forestry is a long-term business and the sins of past policy and practice are very much visited on us today. Those creations of the 1970s and 1980s are what people see in our landscapes now, but the way we plant and manage forests is very different today.THE SCOTSMAN