by Michael Smith, RFA, EcoFor
Image Barometer Forest & Wood 2008 (a German thing) shows positive influence of the nationwide information campaign as regards to sustainable forestry and wood usage.
The reputation of the German forestry and timber industry has inreased considerably during 2008. This is the conclusion to which the “Image Barometer Forest & Wood”, a topical nationwide poll of the IFAK Instituts für Markt- und Sozialforschung, has come.
Of all those questioned 42% stated that they were aware of the sustainability of the forest industry, a definite 12% increase over the previous year.
74% of all those questioned see the sustainable use of woods and forests something in which Germany leads other countries. Whether this is so or not is another question, for sure. Then again, forestry as we know it today, basically originated in Germany.
Another noticeable finding is that more than two-thirds – namely 70% - are convinced that the concerns, needs and interest of environmental protection and that of nature protection are compatible and reconcilable with the commercial management of woods and forests.
Aside from the fact that that is the way that the German people see it thus it is also the fact that this is the truth. Commercial forestry, in fact, is a protector of the forests and woods as and ecological entity.
Those results, so said Dirk Alfter, the chairman of the Holzabsatzfond, that those results are a clear confirmation that the education campaign as regards to sustainable forestry and usage of wood is bearing fruit and that has given the public fact-based information regarding commercial forestry and lumber usage.
The link between forests and protection of the climate is something that the great majority of all those questioned were aware of; 98% of all questioned are convinced – rightly so – that the forests have a positive influence as regards to the prevention of climate change. Furthermore about 61% of all of those questioned were aware that the use of wood in favor of other materials is beneficial as regards to the protection of the climate, such as in the building of homes. More than 59% said that they would be happy to buy wood in preference of other materials in order to do their bit for the environment.
It is a shame that in many countries of Europe, while the majority of the people are getting the message, those that claim to be environmentalists often have a strange attitude towards forestry and the timber industry, often go so far as to say that all commercial forestry and wood usage has to stop and all woodlands and forests have to be returned to their natural state.
In Britain this issue surfaces again and again when it comes to the “old” woodlands than have not been managed for some time, such as some old coppice woods.
Those supposed knowledgeable green people then go on record to say that those wood are “ancient” woods – ancient as in never having been worked before – and should be left to Nature and for her to do with as it would.
The problem is that in Britain there are no such things as primeval woods. All woodlands have been worked at some time in the past and those coppice woods need to be worked now or we will – in fact – lose them, as those coppice stools will simple start to break apart and that will be the end of that wood.
The additional fact is that wood rotting on the forest floor, as will be the case with those trees as and when they break apart, will immediately release CO2 into the air and while this will only be the CO2 that the trees have fixed during their lifespan it could still be held in that same wood if those trees would be worked and used for something beneficial.
The same is also true for all debris left on the forest floor, as is now common – for the wildlife – and all those so-called habitat piles, many of which are a higgledy-piggledy trown about almost. The story of leaving habitat piles is becoming an excuse for bad forestry practice and lazy woodland management.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Bahco Bypass Loppers PG-20-E - Product Review
I must admit that I have had this pair of loppers in question for review now for the best part of a year but it does take a while, I believe, with tools to test them properly. That I have now done.
Bypass loppers of compact design to prune in difficult-to-reach places, available in two sizes. Oval steel tube handles with comfortable plastic grip and shock absorbing plastic buffers for added comfort in use. The smaller cutting head is ideal for pruning ornamental shrubs and rose bushes. Unlike for the professional range of loppers there are no spare parts available for this one.
The PG-20-E bypass loppers which I have had for review is the smaller of the two sizes and has a cutting capacity of a maximum of 30mm. This is, in my view, all academic though and depends on the hardness of the wood. I would not like to try it or any for that matter on dead prunus branches of that diameter, for instance. I have done dead branches of up to about 20mm with those loppers and I found it hard going. Not that the loppers would have broken, maybe. I just found it physically hard and would, in such cases, rather resort to a saw.
Those bypass loppers could be, and I do that at times, for they are very light and handy to carry, referred to as “secateurs on steroids”.
The specifications, so to speak are for the PG-20-E that of a cutting diameter 30 max, with a length of 440mm and a weight 665 grams. As I have said, they are very light.
Now if someone could design a carrying holster for it, of some sort, this would be an ideal too for any Countryside Ranger and such like to take out on a patrol, especially a foot patrol, in order to remove branches and such that may encroach on a footpath, a bridleway, or such.
This is, as all of Bahco's tools, a professional tool at a reasonable price and anyone in their right mind, especially a professional, I should think, would rather invest in quality tools than to buy cheap and find them broken in a few hours or days of use.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Bringing forests and woodlands “back into production”
by Michael Smith
For far too long have woodlands and forests, especially many of the smaller, privately owned ones, been doing nothing and have not been bringing in the money that they, really, should be able to.
Too many small woods have been also left to their own devices, so to speak, simply because no money could be made, often for lack of understanding as to the marketing of woodland and forest products by their owners.
The problem with leaving woods and forest to their own devices, especially woods and forests in our developed countries is that they are not natural forests or ancient forests and woodlands. They have, more often than not, been planted to be used and often there are or have been coppice woodlands. Coppice that is not being worked for anything loner than but a decade or two is in danger of collapsing and disintegrating; meaning that there will, suddenly be nothing but fallen trees and root stocks that are broken apart. Our woods need to be worked and worked for profit as well, if possible. That does not mean that they have to be exploited.
This bring me to a little subject by way of digression: we will be on track again in a second... however, it is often claimed that is we use less paper we will have less trees and forests cut down. The fact is if we did not have the paper industry and the need for wood pulp many woods and forests that we have today in Europe, for instance, would not exist and many areas would not b e having trees at all.
I know that there are many amongst the environmental activists that think they know better and who claim that if woods and forests would be left to their own devices and if we did not use paper from trees our forests and woodlands would be better but this is not the case. In fact it is a lie and most of them know that too. Why they continue to perpetuate such falsehoods I cannot say but they do do that.
If it would not bee for some of the forest product industries we would have less woods and forests, of that we can be sure, and much more of the land that is currently in wood would be either used for this or that crop – today more than likely for bio-fuel crops – or even be built upon.
Wood is also a bio fuel; in fact the most natural of all bio-fuels. Wood has been used to keep us warm, cook our food, heat the metal in our forges, and so on and so on, for centuries, nay millenniums even, well before coal and oil, and it can save us yet again.
The burning of wood, for instance, releases only the amount of carbon dioxide that the tree has absorbed and converted during its lifetime and probably less even. With the right clean burning technology and all that wood can be more efficient today than coal and oil and wood could even be gasified and vehicles run on it. Then again vehicles be best run on the fuel that old Tin Lizzy Ford designed then to run on in the first place, namely methane gas. Yes, gas from sewerage, for instance. Same as the first electrical power plant was run on as well. But, alas, I once again digressed.
Wood has so many uses that it is amazing that so many woodland owners have no idea what resources they have and how to actually make them pay and enable them to increase their forests' productivity by ploughing back resources into it that came from the woods in the first place. Owning and managing a woodland or forest is a two-way affair and not just a one-way affair of taking only and not giving back and any good woodland owner is a husbandman, a steward of the land and will always plant anew and always replenish the trees.
Coppicing has been a system that has been in use in the British Isles – and other places where suitable trees are about and abound – for the managing of woodlands and forests and it is a system that keeps a woodland nigh on indefinitely productive.
Unfortunately much of the skills of proper coppicing is getting lost and in addition to that too many of the misguided environmentalists have been ranting and raving against the rotation coppice operations.
Proper professional woodland and forest management continuously improves those environments and ecosystems in a way that benefits everyone and everything, and it is such a shame that commercial forestry has such a bad image amongst the environmental lobby.
Without commercial forestry and commercially managed woodlands our planet would be far less green, regardless of what some, who, I am afraid to say, have no real knowledge of the subject b but think that they happen to know everything just because they have read this or that book, think and say, often way to vociferously.
While woodlands and forest might still exist in their ancient form had the hand of man not touched them, in most places of the world woods and forests have been worked my man for many thousand years if more more and here is virtually no forest that has not been worked.
The truth is that the management of woods and forests – and the word forests, by the way, means different things to different countries - is what has, in most cases, preserved woods and forests rather than the opposite, as is, so often, being claimed by the misguided ones in the environmental movement.
Without commercial forestry and woodland management for profit there would be none of those woods and forest in the prime condition that they are in presently. Commercial forestry, at least the true kind of commercial forestry not only extracts timer from the woods and forest; nay it also replants and that in a large scale.
Any professional forester knows that he does not work for the immediate gain and for the present or even a year or ten hence; he knows that he works for the future generations. Most foresters will never see the tree they they plant now or the ten year or so old trees they care for now to grow to maturity. This is for others in the future.
Without that kind of woodland and forest management, however, most woods and forests that there are today would not, as I said already, exist.
Urban forestry too can play a great role and here too the woods and forest could and indeed should be manageable for income. Whether or not then the income is wholly or partly used to replenish is another question but the income can be used to do so. Any forester in his or her right mind would also do just that.
Woods and forests are are source that can and must be managed for sustainable use in that the timber must be cut as when when ready – why else would such woods be managed otherwise. At the same time any such managed woods and forests, whether privately owned or publicly owned, in whichever way, need to have replanting schemes in operation at all times and also, as and where possible, should be expanded.
We need more woods and forests and that not only in the United Kingdom though the British Isles definitely need more woodlands. They are one of the less wooded countries in Europe.
Trees are the lungs of the planet and – while some have claimed otherwise – are what can keep the CO2 balanced to some degree.
So let's plant more trees and properly manage them, for the benefit of the planet as well as for income and, dare I mention it, profit. But then, some will say, he would say that seeing that he comes from the commercial forestry sector.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
<>
For far too long have woodlands and forests, especially many of the smaller, privately owned ones, been doing nothing and have not been bringing in the money that they, really, should be able to.
Too many small woods have been also left to their own devices, so to speak, simply because no money could be made, often for lack of understanding as to the marketing of woodland and forest products by their owners.
The problem with leaving woods and forest to their own devices, especially woods and forests in our developed countries is that they are not natural forests or ancient forests and woodlands. They have, more often than not, been planted to be used and often there are or have been coppice woodlands. Coppice that is not being worked for anything loner than but a decade or two is in danger of collapsing and disintegrating; meaning that there will, suddenly be nothing but fallen trees and root stocks that are broken apart. Our woods need to be worked and worked for profit as well, if possible. That does not mean that they have to be exploited.
This bring me to a little subject by way of digression: we will be on track again in a second... however, it is often claimed that is we use less paper we will have less trees and forests cut down. The fact is if we did not have the paper industry and the need for wood pulp many woods and forests that we have today in Europe, for instance, would not exist and many areas would not b e having trees at all.
I know that there are many amongst the environmental activists that think they know better and who claim that if woods and forests would be left to their own devices and if we did not use paper from trees our forests and woodlands would be better but this is not the case. In fact it is a lie and most of them know that too. Why they continue to perpetuate such falsehoods I cannot say but they do do that.
If it would not bee for some of the forest product industries we would have less woods and forests, of that we can be sure, and much more of the land that is currently in wood would be either used for this or that crop – today more than likely for bio-fuel crops – or even be built upon.
Wood is also a bio fuel; in fact the most natural of all bio-fuels. Wood has been used to keep us warm, cook our food, heat the metal in our forges, and so on and so on, for centuries, nay millenniums even, well before coal and oil, and it can save us yet again.
The burning of wood, for instance, releases only the amount of carbon dioxide that the tree has absorbed and converted during its lifetime and probably less even. With the right clean burning technology and all that wood can be more efficient today than coal and oil and wood could even be gasified and vehicles run on it. Then again vehicles be best run on the fuel that old Tin Lizzy Ford designed then to run on in the first place, namely methane gas. Yes, gas from sewerage, for instance. Same as the first electrical power plant was run on as well. But, alas, I once again digressed.
Wood has so many uses that it is amazing that so many woodland owners have no idea what resources they have and how to actually make them pay and enable them to increase their forests' productivity by ploughing back resources into it that came from the woods in the first place. Owning and managing a woodland or forest is a two-way affair and not just a one-way affair of taking only and not giving back and any good woodland owner is a husbandman, a steward of the land and will always plant anew and always replenish the trees.
Coppicing has been a system that has been in use in the British Isles – and other places where suitable trees are about and abound – for the managing of woodlands and forests and it is a system that keeps a woodland nigh on indefinitely productive.
Unfortunately much of the skills of proper coppicing is getting lost and in addition to that too many of the misguided environmentalists have been ranting and raving against the rotation coppice operations.
Proper professional woodland and forest management continuously improves those environments and ecosystems in a way that benefits everyone and everything, and it is such a shame that commercial forestry has such a bad image amongst the environmental lobby.
Without commercial forestry and commercially managed woodlands our planet would be far less green, regardless of what some, who, I am afraid to say, have no real knowledge of the subject b but think that they happen to know everything just because they have read this or that book, think and say, often way to vociferously.
While woodlands and forest might still exist in their ancient form had the hand of man not touched them, in most places of the world woods and forests have been worked my man for many thousand years if more more and here is virtually no forest that has not been worked.
The truth is that the management of woods and forests – and the word forests, by the way, means different things to different countries - is what has, in most cases, preserved woods and forests rather than the opposite, as is, so often, being claimed by the misguided ones in the environmental movement.
Without commercial forestry and woodland management for profit there would be none of those woods and forest in the prime condition that they are in presently. Commercial forestry, at least the true kind of commercial forestry not only extracts timer from the woods and forest; nay it also replants and that in a large scale.
Any professional forester knows that he does not work for the immediate gain and for the present or even a year or ten hence; he knows that he works for the future generations. Most foresters will never see the tree they they plant now or the ten year or so old trees they care for now to grow to maturity. This is for others in the future.
Without that kind of woodland and forest management, however, most woods and forests that there are today would not, as I said already, exist.
Urban forestry too can play a great role and here too the woods and forest could and indeed should be manageable for income. Whether or not then the income is wholly or partly used to replenish is another question but the income can be used to do so. Any forester in his or her right mind would also do just that.
Woods and forests are are source that can and must be managed for sustainable use in that the timber must be cut as when when ready – why else would such woods be managed otherwise. At the same time any such managed woods and forests, whether privately owned or publicly owned, in whichever way, need to have replanting schemes in operation at all times and also, as and where possible, should be expanded.
We need more woods and forests and that not only in the United Kingdom though the British Isles definitely need more woodlands. They are one of the less wooded countries in Europe.
Trees are the lungs of the planet and – while some have claimed otherwise – are what can keep the CO2 balanced to some degree.
So let's plant more trees and properly manage them, for the benefit of the planet as well as for income and, dare I mention it, profit. But then, some will say, he would say that seeing that he comes from the commercial forestry sector.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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