Rock Croft Safe® Eyes – Product Review

Un-Fog-Able protective eye wear that will not fog, scratch or smear.

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Most, if not indeed all, ordinary safety goggles and -“glasses” have one major drawback, when you discount that the lenses scratch very easily indeed, and that is the fogging up in a variety of conditions, leading to loss of vision.

Safe® Eyes mesh safety goggles by Rock Croft, on the other hand, eliminate both of these problems. No fogging and they also are not affected by scratching. On both counts this is due to the fact that the “lenses” are not lenses but are made of a blackened stainless steel mesh. They will also not smear.

While seeing through the mesh takes a little getting used to, much in the same way when using a mesh visor on a chainsaw helmet, one soon does not even really notice the mesh pattern anymore.

The Safe® Eyes goggles are, basically, your mesh visor in goggle/safety glasses format, with the “lenses” being very strong and resistant to many a thing.

While the Safe® Eyes mesh goggles do not protect the whole face, or at least most of it, in the way does your helmet visor does, they do prevent stufgf getting into your eyes. The face heals; your eyes won't.

Often sawdust and bigger particles with much greater velocity, and thus even more dangerous bit than mere sawdust, still can and will get into your eyes despite wearing a helmet with visor – I speak from experience – and it is for that reason that forestry workers in Germany, for instance, now must wear eye protection under the visor.

Safe® Eyes on their own, in fact, would suffice in my opinion and experience, and it makes it thus possible to leave the visor away.

There are a couple of different style of this kind of eye protection, that is to say Safe® Eyes, available and one version, so I was told, I currently on trial with the (US) military.

This would definitely be a product that I am happy enough to endorse and promote.

For more information check out the website at: http://www.meshsafetygoggles.co.uk/ and http://www.safe-eyes.co.uk/

© 2011

Habitat Piles – A Health Hazard in the Woods

by Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA, EcoFor

I know that habitat piles, themselves, sound like a disease but it is not, though they can be a pain in the posterior of the professional forester and the aboriculturalist concerned with healthy trees.

The idea of the habitat piles, leaving forest debris in the woods, came from misguided environmentalists and the practice was forced upon woodland managers, foresters and those responsible for woodlands in parks by said misguided people. They claimed and still claim that such piles are good for the environment and wildlife. The fact, however, is that neither is the case.

Habitat piles are not only not all that beneficial to the environment and wildlife, they are in fact a threat to the woods and to the global climate.

In the first instance, the threat to the woods, they are, as said, a hazard to tree health, as they harbor all kinds of dangerous pathogens and also dangerous fungi that attack standing living trees.

In the second case the fact that the wood in those so-called habitat piles decays and by doing so releases two greenhouse gases of which one if CO2 and the other methane. The latter is reckoned to be many times more dangerous to the climate than is even CO2 and this is where the piles again are not beneficial at all.

Therefore the habit of habitat piles – pardon the slight pun – should be ceased forthwith, the the Forestry Commission also appears to agree with this and appears to, in fact, call for the very cessation of this practice. This cannot come soon enough and a great majority of the not too old piles should be removed as well before they do any more damage.

© 2009
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Forests back in fashion as weapon to combat climate change

by Michael Smith, RFA

The Earth's forests, which are perhaps one of the greatest, if not indeed the greatest, natural defenses against climate change, got somewhat of a boost recently with Britain's Prime Minister and a host of environmental lawyers throwing their support behind plans to protect them and eventually include the forestry sector in carbon markets.

Now who would have thought that the experts suddenly realize what we who have had dealings and have been working in forestry and related sectors for most of our lives have known all the time and those that set up managed forestry have known for centuries, namely that forests are good for the Earth.

A review commissioned by Gordon Brown and led by advisor Johan Eliasch has concluded that deforestation in countries heavily covered by rainforest could be halved in the next 12 years and the world's forestry sector could be carbon neutral – effectively sustainable in the long term – by 2030.

The review looks at the financial mechanisms needed to make this happen and comes down heavily in favour of wealthy industrialized nations offering funding to support forestry in poorer nations and somehow incorporating the carbon sink effect of existing forests into global carbon trading.

In a nutshell, the report says that countries that protect their forests should be rewarded for doing so by the international community.

The specific mechanisms recommended for doing this are slightly more complex.

Mr Eliasch said: “Saving forests is critical for tackling climate change. Without action on deforestation, avoiding the worst impacts of climate change will be next to impossible, and could lead to additional climate change damages of $1 trillion a year by 2100.

“Including the forest sector in a new global deal could reduce the costs of tackling climate change by up to 50% and therefore achieve deeper cuts in emissions, as well as reducing poverty in some of the world's poorest areas and protecting biodiversity.

“Deforestation will continue as long as cutting down and burning trees is more economic than preserving them. Access to finance from carbon markets and other funding initiatives will be essential for supporting forest nations to meet this challenge.”

I wonder whether readers remember that a while ago the papers and the media were full of suggestions that forests actually are bad for the environment. Don't ask me what those experts had been drinking but... Forests are more than carbon neutral; they are carbon sinks, and we need more of them and not just old forests. New planted and commercially managed forests and woodlands have been proven to be as useful as primal forests.

The review has been broadly welcomed in political circles, but environmental NGOs have given it a frostier reception.

Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Tom Picken said: “Allowing rich countries and businesses to 'offset' their carbon dioxide emissions by buying up huge tracts of forest is riddled with problems and will do little to tackle climate change.

“The industrialised world must rapidly cut its dependency on fossil fuels if we are to prevent catastrophic climate change from taking hold. The Eliasch plan will simply create a smokescreen allowing us to carry on polluting - it's the climate change equivalent of sub-prime mortgages.

“Forests and forest communities urgently require protection. Financial packages are needed - but we must also address the underlying causes of deforestation, such as biofuels, excessive meat consumption and industrial logging.”

We can but agree with the statements by the Friends of the Earth, though I also know that often FoE have a problem with commercial forestry per se and would like to see forests and woodlands remain unmanaged. This is not something that works and is not good for the forests and woodlands either, especially not with those, say, in Europe who have always been managed for the last millennia and if they would be no longer managed they would soon completely fall apart, literally. This is something that I have spoken about as regards to the coppice woodlands in the South of England, for instance.

The carbon offset idea, in my opinion, is a total stupidity anyway and we must get away from this notion that we can pay our way out of polluting the planet by paying, say, Brazil or such, to conserve their forests. I am sorry, but this notion is ludicrous. The developed world cannot be allowed to continue polluting just because they can buy carbon credits from the Third World. This is just not sustainable.

© M Smith (Veshengro), December 2008
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Heat with wood for the common good and the good of the forest

by Michael Smith, RFA

High gas and heating oil prices are renewing the interest on firewood from local forests

The German NGO Wald in Not regards the use of wood as renewable energy source as an important contributor to the care and conservation of our local woodlands and forests.

Wood is “stored solar energy”. It is produced in our woodlands and forests by means of energy from the sun, carbon dioxide, water and the nutrients that are soluble in water and are carried in it.

Heating with wood means therefore heating with the cycle of nature. The carbon dioxide that is being released by the process of burning the wood is by means of the energy of the sun absorbed by the growing trees and returned into the growing wood. This wood is then once again available as new raw material. The CO2 that is being released by burning the wood would also be released if this wood would be allowed to rot and decay in the woods.

The wood used for firewood is that wood that has no other commercial value, in other words wood that is not suitable for building lumber or as timber for the making of furniture, for example. If it would not be burned for heat it would rot away in the woods. Firewood is also created as a byproduct, so to speak, in the production of high value timber in forests and hence is available in sufficient volume in properly manages forests and woodlands.

Wood as a fuel is extremely environmentally friendly:

1. because its production is simple and uses little energy
2. the transport distances for wood are generally short
3. the storage of firewood does not endanger the environment

The use of wood for fuel, as firewood, from local forests and woodlands ensures the necessary care and conservation of the woodlands and forest through the forestry companies and the state or private forest estates, as it improves their economic situation.

The care and thinning of the forests and woodlands is an urgent and necessary preventitive measure against the changes in the environment and the climate. In order to counter those we must reconstruct and convert our woodlands and forests into stable mixed woodlands with a broad spectrum of trees that are right for the soil and area.

Modern wood heating system that are properly installed, managed and maintained retain in comparison with other energy systems a firm position and also fulfil the regulations for clean air.

In conjunction with solar-thermal installation for the production of hot water – solar collectors – modern wood burning furnaces constitutes the ideal combination for use of renewable energy sources to provide a good insulated so-called low energy home with heat.

© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Old Growth Forests and Ancient Woodlands

by Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA

An old growth forest, ancient or primary forest or ancient woodland, is a woodland of great age that exhibits unique biological features. Depending on tree species and forest type, the age can be from 150 to 500 years.

Old growth forests typically contain a mixture of large live and dead trees or "snags", while unharvested fallen tree logs in various states of decay litter the forest floor.

Foresters and botanists use certain criteria to determine old growth forests. Sufficient age and minimal disturbance is necessary to be classified as old growth. The characteristics of old-growth forest include the presence of older trees, minimal signs of human disturbance, mixed-age stands, canopy openings due to tree falls, pit-and-mound topography, downed and decaying wood, standing snags, multi-layered canopies, intact soils, a healthy fungal ecosystem, and presence of indicator species.

Second growth forest are forests regenerated after harvests or severe disruptions like fire, storms or insects is often referred to as a second-growth forest or regeneration until a long enough period has passed that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. Depending on the forest, to become old growth again may take anywhere from a century to several millennia.

Old growths forests are extremely important as old growth forests are often rich communities of great biodiversity harboring wide varieties of plants and animals. These species must live under stable conditions free from severe disturbance. Some of these creatures are rare.

The age of the oldest trees in an ancient forest indicates that destructive events over a long period were of moderate intensity and did not kill all the vegetation. Some suggest that old growth forests are carbon "sinks" that lock up carbon and help prevent global warming.

As said earlier, the characteristics of old-growth forest include the presence of older trees, minimal signs of human disturbance and therefore in Britain and much of Europe there are no real “ancient woodlands” and this despite the fact that many misguided and ill-informed environmentalists claim that there are. The great majority of all those forests and woodlands have been touched by human hands and many until not so long ago. All the woodlands often referred to as thus are in fact old coppice woodlands that have been worked up until the 1950's and cannot every return by itself to Nature.

Only at the border between Poland and Belarus there is a more or less primeval forest containing the last herds of European bison. Further in the East then, behind the Urals, there it is possible to find real ancient forests and woodlands. All other European woods and forests have, however, at one time or the other, often well into the not so distant future, been worked by man for human benefit.

The previously mentioned coppice woodlands of Southern England, for instance, if left to “return to Nature”, as is being demanded by those environmentalists that have no knowledge of forestry, will simply fall apart. Without man's intervention the thousand to fifteen hundred year old coppice stools will simple break apart and that will be the end then of those woods.

For this very reason, e.g. the fact that unless those coppice woodlands will break apart – literally – if not worked in the next couple of years again by woodsmen and underwoodsmen. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the use of those woodlands as productive woodlands would be re-initiated. Now would be a good time to start. The coppice stools will otherwise, if not coppiced again in the next couple of years, literally break apart and that will be the end of the trees and of the woodlands.

While it is often thought that ONLY old growth forests are carbon "sinks" that lock up carbon and help prevent global warming but in a way all forests, ancient and more modern, contribute towards the prevention of climate change. The term “global warming” is rather misleading nowadays as the warming, in fact, stopped about seven years ago and plateaued out and has remained at the same level ever since. Climate will, nevertheless, still change until the temperatures will fall again, as they have always been doing in this cyclic changes the Earth seems to be going through every 1000 or so years.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008