Healthy and productive forests reduce impact of climate change

by Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA

Only healthy and productive forests have a chance to act against the changes in climate. Such are the findings of the recent congress “Forest Ecosystems in a Changing Environment” that has been held in Istanbul, Turkey.

The forests of Europe currently compensate for around 10% of the European CO2 emissions and are thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. On the other hand the changes in climate also affect the forests, either directly through the rising temperatures and extreme events such as droughts or gales, or indirect through changes in the occurrences of diseases and insects.

The already observable extreme events, such as the more frequent and more ferocious gales and especially the climate scenarios that are being predicted are a great challenge to a proper forest management, which will have to rely also in future on the results of monitoring and scientific studies.

Our forests are still being destabilized through an intake of nitrogen that is way too high. At more than two thirds of the 186 permanent observation areas critical rates were being exceeded constantly. Such observations are recorded all over central Europe.

In the short term, however, this high amount of nitrogen also appears to have some benefits. Recent data has shown that high uptake of nitrogen appear to lead to an increased growth amongst forest trees, which results in a higher uptake of carbon out of the atmosphere.

There is, however, great uncertainty as to the scale of this additional uptake of carbon. The experts fear that the environmental condition will probably deteriorate in future even faster than before. Therefore forestry related environmental observation must be continued and further developed. The continued financing of the currently existing forestry monitoring network on EU level and in individual countries must urgently be secured.

EWGS 2008-09 Budget Management Announcement

Summary

As part of the process for settling 2008/09 budgets with Defra, the Forestry Commission has agreed to defer £1.75m of expenditure on EWGS (which is funded as part of the seven-year Rural Development Programme for England) planned for 2008-09 to later years of the programme. This means we are unable to offer 2008-09 payments to a small proportion of the applications for EWGS under Prospectus 2007. We are now announcing how we intend to handle applications for 2008-09 funding.

Prospectus 2007 budget – overall position

The majority of applications received prior to 6 February will continue to be processed as normal and offered a claim year of 2008-09 as expected.

However, the required budgetary adjustment means that the available budget will not cover all the demand for new applications for the claim year 2008-09.

We will now offer some existing applications a claim year of 2009-10 rather than 2008-09.

The value of the applications that have not yet reached draft contract is approximately £2.9m. However, we estimate that around 300 applications received by 6 February and still being processed will now be offered payment in 2009-10 rather than 2008-09. These applications have an estimated value of approximately £900,000, equivalent to 3% of the total funding available for forestry grant scheme payments. Similarly, applications received between 6 and 29 February for any remaining funds advertised under Prospectus 2007 will also be offered 2009-10 funding.

Further background on RDPE and the funding of forestry grants is in Annex 1.

Our criteria for prioritising applications for funding are set out in Annex 2.

Should you require more information about your application please contact your Forestry Commission Regional Office.

What this means for individual applications

Legacy grant schemes - are unaffected: Farm Woodland Scheme (FWS) and Farm Woodland Premium Scheme (FWPS) and Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS).

EWGS applications already approved - are unaffected

Applications that have already reached draft contract (i.e. where we have made you an offer of a contract) - are unaffected and will be approved when you return the contract to us.

Applications received between 6 February 2008 and 29 February 2008 – will be dealt with as per ‘normal’ budget arrangements, but offered funding for 2009-10. i.e. if 2008-09 funds advertised in Prospectus 2007 were still notionally available, the applications will be processed and offered payment in 2009-10.

Applications that haven’t been offered a draft contract by 6 February 2008 - are governed by the following rules:

Applications that will continue to be offered contracts with 2008-09 payment
• Woodland Creation Grant applications
• All applications received before 26 November 2007 except Woodland Regeneration Grant (WRG) applications
• Woodland Management Grant (WMG) applications received before 6 February 2008
• All SSSI and red squirrel Woodland Improvement Grant (WIG) applications received by 6 February 2008
• All Forest School applications

Applications that will be offered contracts with 2009-10 payment
• Any Woodland Regeneration Grant (WRG) applications that have not had
draft contracts issued
• Woodland Planning Grant (WPG) and Woodland Assessment Grant (WAG) applications received since 26 November 2007
• WIG Biodiversity or access applications received since 26 November 2007
• WIG SSSI applications received after 6 February 2008
• WMG applications received after 6 February 2008

Rescheduling requests for approved 2007-08 contracts – where 2008-09 funding is requested 2009-10 claim year will be offered instead.

Prospectus 2008

We anticipate publishing Prospectus 2008 detailing grants offered for payment in 2009-10 during May 2008. This timetable allows for the completion of normal end of financial year processes.

Annex 1: Background to RDPE and funding of EWGS

The RDPE is a seven-year programme with a planned budget of around £179m for forestry measures delivered through EWGS and the legacy grant schemes FWPS and WGS. The RDPE forestry measures are co-funded by around £100m of exchequer funding and £79m of EU funding. In addition some forestry grants such as the WGS Annual Management Grant and EWGS Woodland Regeneration Grant are funded outside the RDPE budget by state aid delivered from FC resources.

For 2008-09 the agreed indicative budget for EWGS and the legacy grant schemes had a total value of £29m, made up of £13.1m of Exchequer funding and £10.7m EU co-financing under the RDPE plus a further £5.2m of exchequer funding from FC resources for the state aided measures. £1.75m of the Exchequer funding will be re-profiled (deferred) into a later year of the seven-year programme. Taking account of the related EU funding, which can also be deferred under EU rules, the total reduction in 08/09 budgets will be £3m. The seven year programme budget remains unchanged.

As of 6 February 2008 the total indicative 2008-09 budget of around £29m was made up of:
• 79% committed contracts
• 13% new EWGS applications received and being processed
• 8% of Prospectus 2007 headroom remaining for new EWGS applications

Annex 2: Criteria for prioritising applications for funding

In deciding which applications to continue to offer 2008-09 and which will get funding in the later year we have taken account of the following combination of factors:
• Date of receipt of application
• The importance for business continuity of enabling ‘annual’ payments to be made in 2008-09 for those people applying for Woodland Management Grant.
• The high profile associated with SSSI and red squirrel work funded via Woodland Improvement Grant
• Anyone with an unapproved application for Woodland Regeneration Grant is now unlikely to be in a position to fell and regenerate their woodland in time to claim grant in the first half of 2008-09.
• The timing of the challenge rounds for Forest School grants

© Forestry Commission, 2008

Bulldog Bypass Pruning Shears BD3152 – Product Review

Rollins Bulldog have been making quality tools for gardening and agriculture for well over 200 years by now and most of those tools are still forged at Bulldog's Clarington Forge in Wigan.

The pair of bypass pruning shears, that I have the pleasure in reviewing here, are from the Premier Range, and came to me via a press pack from the 2008 Garden Press Event that was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster at the end of January 2008, are no exception here. They are a quality tool at a very reasonable price. At around GBP 13 these quality pruners certainly are not expensive.

The blades are forget from high carbon SK-5 Japaneses steel and the handles are sold aluminium into which the blades are securely bolted. The handles have green “elastomer” grips, preventing the tool slipping out of your hands.

Locking together of the handles is achieved by an old method though with modern materials, that is to say that an ABS plastic hook acts as the lock at the bottom of the handles, locking the pruners safely and secure.

The spring is of the common “caterpillar” kind which is, unfortunately, often prone to jumping out and getting lost. This problem is overcome, as it would appear, on the BD3152 pruners in that the ends of the spring has been recessed rather deep into the handles and I should think that it is nigh on impossible for the spring to jump out on its own without help.

The BD3152 pruners appear very well made and well thought out, as are all Bulldog tools, and should give years of faithful service at a great value price. The length of service obviously depends greatly on how they are used or abused and treated or mistreated during and especially also after work. This often makes or breaks a tool.

Pros:
High carbon steel blades, forged
Bladed bolted into handles
Solid aluminium handles with rubberized grips
Safe and secure locking mechanism
Value for money price

Cons:
Still trying to find any.

The BD3152 Bypass Pruning Shears from Bulldog are equally well suited, in my opinion, for the professional gardener as well as the allotment gardener or the amateur at home.

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008

The Storm Kettle – Product Review

Originally, the Storm Kettle was handmade in Ireland - often by travellers who produced them in copper - for fishermen, itinerant workers and tourists. John Grindlay, who with his wife owns and runs the Eydon Kettle Company, modified the design and implemented modern manufacturing techniques in the early 1960’s.

John Grindlay borrowed an original copper kettle and took it to England during the winter. Tooling was manufactured and the first 10 kettles eventually produced. These were very quickly sold for £10 each in 1979, the assembly work being carried out by Mr Grindlay’s children who were then 8 years and 10 years old. Popular demand meant that production had to increase. Since 1979 the numbers sold have substantially increased each year.

Mainly these Kettles, whether sold in the UK, Germany, or elsewhere, are used by sportsmen, holiday makers, expedition organisers and outdoor enthusiasts. They have even accompanied the explorer John Blashford-Snell, while he was searching for signs of early civilisations on a trip to Central America.

Nowadays they can be found in the Solomon Isles helping remote islanders boil water to purify it, in remote parts of Southern Africa, where dried cattle dung is used by the Zulus as fuel, or in the Sahara Desert on expeditions.

I am always amazed though that they never seem to have found a take up by the still travelling Romani in the UK and elsewhere. The Storm Kettle does away with the need for a fire for just the purpose of brewing a cup of tea or coffee or even for the making of some other hot beverage.

Using a Storm Kettle means you can boil water easily, in the wettest and windiest of weather, both rapidly and safely. They are also environmentally friendly as you only need a sheet of newspaper and a handful of twigs as fuel. So the simplicity of the Kettle ensures that boiling water is always available, without the need to use gas, petrol or any other artificial fuel.

Storm Kettles come in two sizes, the Original and the Popular. The Original will boil up to 2.5 pints (approx. 1.5 litres) the Popular up to 2 pints (approx. one litre) – that should ensure more than enough hot water is available for you within minutes - at any time.

The water boils rather quickly and can be kept going by just adding further small sticks into the fire that is going in the burner beneath the kettle via the “chimney”.

One word of warning even though it is mentioned more than once in the literature and also on a sticker on the kettle itself: NEVER EVER use it with the cork in place. While the cork is very handy for carrying the kettle with water in it when heating the water the cork must be taken out of the spout.

The Storm Kettle & the cook set that nowadays is available for it is the ideal kit for forestry workers, countryside conservators, and other such like, such as Parks & Countryside Ranger, especially those working on maintenance tasks away from the main base.

While the Storm Kettle and accessories do not come cheap I can but recommend them.

The Prices for the kettles are: £43.00 for the Popular and £44.50 for the Original. Prices include V.A.T. and carriage.

Reviewed by Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008

GROWING ONE'S OWN STOOL

Christopher Cattle

A retired lecturer in furniture design, in the mid eighties I started to wonder what contribution I could make to the 'save the planet ' debate. Settling on the problem of our seemingly ever increasing demand for energy, I decided to see what one could do to reduce the amount used to make furniture. An early decision was to concentrate on the use of wood, an attractive and popular material, and biodegradable.

I was aware of the annual races for solar powered vehicles run in Australia, which attracted such elaborate and complex vehicles. Suddenly it struck me that of course tree growth is also solar powered! The energy we use to make furniture is simply that required to convert trees into the forms we use for our chairs and tables. If only the trees could be persuaded to grow into the right shapes in the first place . . . .

But people have been training and grafting trees to shape since we know not when, so no new skills are required. To grow furniture would simply involve using well known techniques for a different purpose.

To prove that it could be done however, I would have to do it myself, so I designed the simplest item of furniture I could devise, a three legged stool. I also devised a simple plywood frame or jig, on which to train the saplings as they grew. (Having practised as a designer of furniture for industrial production for the first half of my professional career, I was having to start from scratch.) In 1995 I approached the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Reading with my scheme. They rented me a suitable small plot of land and with their help, I planted and grew my first batch of stools. Five years later I harvested my first grown stool frame.

Having shown that it could be done, where was I to go from there. Should I go into business and sell them?

I decided that the outcome nearest to my original intention was rather to publicise the idea, and to enable others to grow such stools. In this way I hope to persuade people - particularly the younger generation - to change their mindset, and realise that it is possible to achieve useful and practical results simply by the intelligent use of natural processes.

Over recent years I have promoted the idea in a variety of ways. The experiment originally received wide coverage in the press both in Britain and abroad. Each year I attend several relevant public events in Britain, from exhibitions in London to environmental gatherings in Scotland. The stools were exhibited at Expo 2005 in Japan and more recently in Paris. I have been interviewed for the radio in the UK, USA and Canada.

I have a website ( www.grown-furniture.co.uk ) and anyone can buy the flat pack plywood jig and instructions. Stool growing has proved popular for young families and the kits are frequently in demand as Christmas presents for retired parents. (You can be sure they haven't got one of these!) All you need is the enthusiasm, the patience, and a local supplier of suitable 'whips' or young saplings. Nature does most of the work, and as she's been doing it for millions of years she's pretty good at it.

I recommend Sycamore as a suitable species, as it tends to grow and graft well. The whips are normally sold in bundles of twenty five, so you have a good chance to select three (or multiples of three) which are evenly matched, and slim enough to be bent and trained well. They should preferably be no thicker than a traditional wooden pencil. The kit comes with a planting guide which enables you to plant your saplings accurately, so that they fit snugly to the corners of the jig. With gentle persuasion the stems can be carefully bent to shape and secured to the jig with plant ties. If you can plant in November or December it gives the roots a chance to establish themselves before the Spring, but any time up to the end of February has proved satisfactory.

By about the third year you should be able to make the lower grafts where the stems touch. Cutting away the bark and the green cambial layer beneath it at the point of contact , you must hold them gently but firmly together for a few weeks. This can be done by binding or drilling through and inserting a rivet of some sort. If the graft bonds well, the sap will start to take the shortest route between the leaves and the roots, and each 'leg' - the lower half of which consists of one tree with the upper half of its neighbour - will start to grow as one, while the horizontal sections - joining the legs at their mid point and becoming the 'rails' - will cease to grow and remain at their existing size.
Although it will probably be about five years before the frame grows to its required size, the time you spend tending it will be minimal. I expect to spend less than five minutes on each frame every three weeks during the growing season.

Before 'harvesting' your frame, you should decide whether you prefer the 'rustic' look, by retaining the bark, or the perhaps a more elegant look by stripping it off. If you choose rustic you should harvest in the winter when the tree is dormant . If you harvest when the tree is actively growing, it is quite easy to strip off the bark. The thickness of the legs is such that any splitting as the wood dries out shouldn't be a problem, but it should be left to 'season' naturally, out of doors but under cover for about a further year. You can then give it a top of your choice and sit on it!

Delayed Fall Colors a Positive Development for Forests?

Scientists have been at a loss to account for why the traditional autumnal spectacle of disheveled trees and changing colors has gotten gradually pushed back over the last few years. Some have attributed the delayed autumnal senescence to increasing global temperatures; others have attributed it to the length of day.

David F. Karnosky, a professor at Michigan Technological University, believes rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be to blame — and, perhaps surprisingly, to thank. Karnosky explains that delaying senescence may in fact be good news for forestry industries since it prolongs the trees' growing season. The extra carbon dioxide taken up in the autumn, in addition to that taken up during the growing season, would also boost their productivity.

Karnosky and a team of international researchers analyzed two years' worth of data on autumnal senescence from forests near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and Tuscania, Italy; the forests stayed greener longer as carbon dioxide levels rose, irrespective of temperature variations. Because of the brevity of this study, however, they were not able to assess what the longterm effects on mature forests would be or whether other factors, such as higher ozone levels in the troposphere, would cancel out the extra carbon's benefits.

Past studies have demonstrated that higher levels of carbon dioxide are causing tree growth to start earlier in the spring. In the future, more longer term research projects will need to be carried out in these and other forests to determine whether this phenomenon persists and become widespread - and if it significantly affects elevated carbon dioxide levels.

Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008

Happy New Year 2008 to you all

Happy New Year 2008

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers, friends and associates, as well as our enemies, a very happy & prosperous New Year 2008.