In an exciting step, 38 Degrees have launched a new action to enable everyone to have their say about the future of England’s forests. What do forests mean to you?     In just 24 hours since its launch, over 17,000 comments have been received.  Read more and join theContinue Reading

Forest of Dean plantation

Planting more of the same ‘native woodlands’ that now litter the English countryside with little more ambition in their creation and management than a membership publicity drive or community engagement excercise, will be regretted long after the PR-masters behind them have past. In their own way, these are as regrettable as the dark satanic rows of conifers that were planted sixty years ago.
If we continue to plant green fuzz across our food-producing fields, with little concern either for the impending need to be more self-sufficient in food production, or for the need to reduce our enormous reliance on timber imports, Britain’s environmental credibility will be increasingly undermined.Continue Reading

The Ramblers, Britain’s walking charity, were the first NGO to respond to the launch of Our Forests today.  In a welcome step Justin Cooke, Ramblers Senior Policy Officer, said: “The more people are involved with the Panel, including scrutinizing and evaluating its work, the more its recommendations will reflect theContinue Reading

Securing healthy, sustainably managed forests in the light of climate change and its severe consequences is one of the biggest challenges we have to solve in Europe and globally. This is the headline from the Forest Europe Ministerial Conference that opened today, hosted by Norway. The fact that Europe’s forestsContinue Reading

I wrote this post more than five years ago, and its been one of my most popular ever since. Naturally more excellent trees books have been published in the intervening years and the list is worth updating. I’ve since written my own books so it would remiss of me not toContinue Reading

There is a very good relationship between a tree’s stem diameter and its crown diameter. This can be used in many different ways by foresters, arboriculturists and landscape planners to plan and model tree growth and …Continue Reading

Despite the sustainable nature of modern forestry in much of the developed world, while deforestation continues in the less-developed world, perhaps forestry will continue to have a poor reputation in the public conscience.Continue Reading

I’m a forester.  That’s a simple description of my profession without much room for misunderstanding – or so you’d think.  Therein lies an etymological dilemma for me and my fellow tree professionals. As a forester I practice forestry, which is the management of forests.  In the public mind the termContinue Reading

There are now 18 million blogs hosted like mine by WordPress.com.  Globally about  750,000 page views a day are now made by iPad visitors.  I’ve made the most of some great new features provided by WordPress that exploit the functionality of the iPad.  Let me know if you have viewedContinue Reading

In the Netherlands forestry is undetaken by the Forestry and Wildlife Service Staatsbosbeheer: managing 250,000 hectares of land for sixteen million Dutch people. It provides some interesting comparisons to the UK where forestry governance is in the spotlight.Continue Reading

On Thursday, to coincide with the Government’s abandonment of plans to sell or lease England’s publicly owned forests, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) announced an essay writing competition in The Independent newspaper. The title of the essay is “The future of England’s forests”  and FFI are keen to hear theContinue Reading