Managing our Woods
Old management systems for the future of our woods
A call for the return to the old methods of woodland management for the good of the woods and the Planet
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
RFA, RFS, EcoFor
This book has been a real labor of love and a long time coming but it is finally finished and available via this website under “Books”.
Having worked in all aspects of of woodland management and forestry since childhood woods and forests and their proper management are my passion and the old management systems, especially that of coppicing.
Often people who have been influenced by those with little to no understanding of woodlands and forests believe that the cutting down of a tree is bad for the environment and a disaster, even if replanting is carried out, though that is not the case. Trees, like everything, have but a limited lifespan, some shorter than others, and their healthy life, before they become active CO2 producers and also useless for our use, ends between 30 to 130 years, in the temperate climates. Coppicing extends the lifespan of the tree, in the form of the root stock, however, for up to thousand years and more, while timber is harvested in a rotation cycle.
To learn more read this book (I would say that wouldn't I, as, after all, I wrote it).
While coppicing does not work with coniferous trees that the British Forestry Commission and others have planted as woods and forests in the last century or so it does with most broadleaved trees and that is what our woods were ones made up of mostly and that is also what they must be returned to once again.
The author has worked in all aspects of woodland management and forestry since childhood and writes from the heart as much as from the head.
Price: £9.95 PDF (sent per email attachment)
© 2014
