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Wood pastures and society – changing times and changing desires
By Kveldssanger
Man has always had a direct link to the landscape, though that link, whilst it is always there, may not be in the form that it once was. Keeping with the wood pasture theme, which I am really enjoying learning about through books and journal articles, I thought we’d look at how the manner in which we approach the ecosystem has changed over the centuries (quite briefly). Of course, what is written below doesn’t stop just at wood pasture – it has cross-over to other ecosystems, where the reasons f- 7 comments
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Autumn: Are We Ready?
Sunday 28th October marks the official end of British Summertime, although we are already experiencing a drop in temperatures compared to July and August. The Forestry Commission recently announced that the result of dry soils left by the long, hot summer coupled with late summer rain, we are in an early autumn period.
This year’s APF event saw the Forestry Commission celebrating 100 years of the Forestry Act, providing advice and support to the sector and commenting on latest activity. With forestry workers 6 times more likely to be killed at work than a construction worker, knowledge sharing and education remains a critical part of the work required for future development. With the HSE citing growing concerns on the level of competence and high expectations of newly trained/qualified operators, this has never been more important.
In this industry, with the nature of the job including working at height and the risk of falling objects, working with chainsaws and other equipment, careless oversights could quickly turn into serious incidents. The role of technology has increased, as has the need for tree maintenance. Workers can feel instantly reassured by this, possibly too reassured. A reliance on technology could result in arborists and forestry workers becoming less alert to potential issues.
We all know that PPE serves as an essential part of helping to protect those in the forestry industry at work, however, a safety conscious attitude and frame of mind at work is equally as important. It is not enough for workers to rely on PPE, believing that they are 100% safe when they have their PPE is prepped and ready to go. Health and safety needs to be a forefront of the entire workforce’s mind, helping to reduce the amount of carelessness and distraction at work. Put simply, even with PPE and advanced technology employers and site operation managers need to reiterate to workers that this does not render them unexposed to potential incidents. Accidents can still happen and it is critical that workers have a good understanding of this.
1,2,3 – PPE
The purchase of PPE is only the first step in the equipment’s journey. It must be regularly maintained and replaced, whilst continually ensuring it is most suitable for the job being completed at the time.
Successful management of health and safety and the role of PPE requires co-ordination of activities and communication of information, and must start from the top down. Leading by example will not only resonate and encourage workers on the ground to follow suit, it will go a long way in fundamentally improving health and safety performance across the industry for both newly trained and more casual users.
PPE is not a guarantee of safety, and the role of the individual remains crucial. Stay aware and alert. Appreciate the equipment with the knowledge that you also play a significant role in ensuring you do not get hurt at work.
For more information on HAIX’s range of forestry boots visit www.haix.co.uk, or to find your nearest dealer contact Workware www.workware.co.uk
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Climber needed New Forest HAMPSHIRE...
Climber required new forest area, tickets and licence a must. Different levels of experience welcome.
Call Nick 07709 858435 👍
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Stihl Motomix - Fuelling Enhanced Performance
Although selecting the model of tool required is often seen as the key decision, choosing the right fuel can be equally as important as this can have a significant impact on the performance of your machine.
MotoMix is STIHL’s patented fuel formula that has been created especially for STIHL 2-stroke engine power tools. But what exactly is the difference between MotoMix and regular fuel, and what difference does it make to your tools?
Whether you’re using a chainsaw or hedge trimmer, you want to know that you’ll be getting the very best out of it. STIHL’s MotoMix is pre-mixed at a 50:1 ratio of specially formulated quality fuel and HP Ultra oil to deliver higher performance, better start-up behaviour and improved acceleration each time you run the machine.
When it comes to maintenance, the most important difference between MotoMix and regular fuel is the additional protection it provides for your tool. MotoMix uses HP Ultra oil, which is STIHL’s highest quality 2-stroke engine oil, meaning it can take on tough jobs with ease. As well we keeping the engine cleaner, it consequently gives your engine a much longer service life.
STIHL’s MotoMix also has a host of other benefits. To save time getting up and running, MotoMix eliminates the hassle of having to measure up your fuel and oil to mix together as this is already done for you with exactly the right proportions.
It is also a much cleaner option to run, which is especially beneficial if you are running tools for long periods. MotoMix is free from ethanol and has almost no olefins and aromatic compounds compared to traditional fuel, making it better for the environment. No matter which tool you are using it with, MotoMix is guaranteed to stand the test of time. Once opened, the fuel will not go stale – and as long as it is stored in a dry and dark place below 20ºc, MotoMix can last up to five years, making the patented formula an incredibly economical option for professionals.
For more information, please visit www.stihl.co.uk
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Nyssa Sylvatica - Black Gum, Tupelo - at the Barcham Trees nursery in Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK we have some 10-12cm girth trees in 55 litre pots ready for planting from 1st September 2019.
You can view, tag and reserve trees now and during the Summer for Autumn/Winter planting.
Introduced from America in 1750 this is widely regarded as the most attractive of all the native trees from the States.
Pyramidal when young it can resemble Quercus palustris in shape and habit and certainly rivals it for autumn colour when its foliage turns magnificent reds oranges and yellows.
The dark glossy green leaves are narrowly oval and can reach 15cm in length.
They do not tolerate lime soils so please bear this in mind if you choose one.
Mature height: 12-17m
Mature spread: 6-10m
Further product information at the link below:-
https://www.barchampro.co.uk/store/products/nyssa-sylvatica
Enquiries to [email protected]
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The Burning
The Burning
Are you aware that the new data protection rules have now come into play? These have profound implications for all businesses but it seems people have either hugely over reacted or not reacted at all!
So have you burnt your client’s details in order to comply or have you taken the view that you have a existing relationship where ‘communication is part of that relationship’? We keep getting asked what people should do. So here is our advice:
• Look at https://ico.org.uk/…/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-…/
• Listening to https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcshq
• Make sure you can justify why you hold personal data – for staff/ subbies/ customers and prospects
• Don’t over react. Don’t destroy the data you hold without looking at the rules
So what are you doing to comply? Please don’t say nothing as we all hold data in some form.
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A step back in time
During the Carboniferous Period some 345-280m years ago, the continent of Pangaea began to drift northwards from its southern hemisphere origins, and also began to pivot 30 degrees to the west. Giant insects developed, amphibians evolved further and reptiles became more land-based. Plants were reproducing in an alternating manner of asexual and sexual methods across different generations (spores and seed respectively). Equisetum plants (includes Horsetails) became huge, forming Calamites in damp, swampy areas, and forming Cordaites (that had pollen sacs and ovules at branch tips - later forming the first conifers, such as ginkgos, during the Permian Period 280-225m years ago) in drier areas. Clubmosses grew to 30-45m in height. All of this development was fueled by the equatorial climate induced by the drift northwards of Pangaea, particularly at the northern-most end of the super-continent.
Coal measures were thus formed very readily from such large plants in what now constitutes Northern Europe (given this segment of Pangaea was first to travel over the equator), once the sea began to engulf the swamps of massive clubmosses, semi-composting them and later compacting them down with silt and clay to form lignite, and eventually forming coal under continued compression events. It took 20m of rotted 'forest' biomass to produce a 1m-thick coal measure, so given many European coal measures are hundreds of metres thick, the length of time required to create such coal measures would have been hugely significant. This also adds significance to our eagerness to burn such stored coal, releasing carbon that has been locked away for hundreds of millions of years in mere decades.
The southern area of Pangaea (Africa, Australia) contained smaller plants and thus smaller coal measures, only beginning to lay down larger coal measures (that never amounted to the extent of the earlier coal measures, as the steamy swamps that produced the huge clubmosses and subsequent coal measures no longer existed due to climate change) much later once the southern segment of Pangaea did reach the equator (during the Cretaceous and Tertiary Periods) when plants had evolved to develop roots and reproduce sexually via seed. Evolutionary-speaking, the development of reproduction via seed was critical to the survival of plants long-term, as germination could be delayed until conditions were desirable.
Building on the above a little, though nonetheless as a tangent, Europe has so few tree species as tree populations could not retreat southwards as the ice sheets encroached into their territory, given the east-west running mountain ranges that are the Alps and Pyrenees, and the area that is now the Mediterranean Sea. Because of these blockading landscapes, tree diversity is rather low within Europe, when compared to the Americas and Asia.
The UK's plant diversity is even more impoverished as when the ice sheets last retreated 12,000 years ago, the subsequent rising of sea levels bridged the gap to mainland Europe. Thus, only species that had colonised during the 6,000 years after the ice caps began to retreat are found today - any others that may have potentially once again reached these shores (I suspect sweet chestnut, plane, holm oak, etc, though definitely Norway maple and larch) were barred from doing given the mass of water in the way.
Source: Davis, M. (2015) A Dendrologist's Handbook. UK: The Dendrologist.
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A day in the working life of........
Snap shot of a random typical day as a Trees Management Officer, at the City of London’s Open Space of Hampstead Heath
June 2017
05:10 hrs
Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head……….
well, turned the alarm off before the wife elbows me in the ribs!
It’s early and I’m faced with a coffee fuelled drive in to work from deepest darkest sub-urban Suffolk.
In to work for 06:50, unlock the park and office, make a brew, fire up the computer to check the weekends e-mails (already checked on the duty work phone to be honest, but I don’t let the better half know I’m keeping an eye on work at the weekend)
The office is a porta-cabin in the Arb yard at a Victorian park in North West London. I’ve been employed here variously since the hazy summer of 1985, at first as a horticultural apprentice, then as a climbing Arb before becoming team supervisor then the job morphing in to a TMO.
I run an in-house Arb team of four, we inspect our tree population using Arbortrack within a risk sequencing system.
We sometimes cut our trees, we sometimes airspade our trees, we sometimes talk to the locals about our/their trees.
Anything tree related, from safety to ecology, is basically our remit.
The Heath has approximately 20,000 trees and sprawls out across parts of the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden & Haringey but the trees have no conservation area or tree preservation orders.
07:30 hrs
This particular morning I’m off to Queens Park (one of our satellite parks) over in the north east of the London Borough of Brent to check for the presence of Oak Processionary Caterpillars.
There are only a couple of dozen oaks here out of the local 580 tree population, and the critters have been sniffing them out for the last couple of years.
During a walk over inspection I pick up on a few new potential Massaria affected London plane branches in the park, so note them for climb inspection and potential removal by the team possibly this week or later in the month.
09:30 hrs
Catch a breakfast in the park café, chatting to the (fleet, constabulary and park) manager about vehicle & equipment (mewp) disposal.
10:00 hrs
Drive back over to Hampstead.
There’s a phone call report of a large branch failure on an Ash near to property on the other side of the heath. Turn up, check on the tree failure (Inonotus hispidus decay at an old pruning wound) Clear the branch failure and note that the tree should go on to our priority tree works list for reduction, as its lost another branch in the past probably also due to I. hispidus.
11:30 hrs
Meet up with my boss in Highgate to sign off the team’s end of year performance/development reviews……….blinkin paper work !
12:00 hrs
Back to the yard.
I order in some climbing & rigging equipment & vehicle parts for the team Land Rover.
Send a few e-mails off.
Sample of emails include……
Brent Tree Officer (about OPM)
My boss (about a work experience enquiry from France)
In house Ecologist (asking me for a fungi ident)
My boss (about some training issues)
A student (about why dressing parts of one of our trees in tin foil for an photography project, is not the type of thing we would ideally condone) Boss again (about team members sickness trigger level meeting)
Grab a coffee
13:30 hrs
Catch up with team out on site where they are clearing & lifting a few trees where the horticultural team are building a new stumpery.
14:45 hrs
Back to the office.
Putting together a list of veteran trees to work on over the next 18 months as part of an Ecology, Conservation & Trees team annual work plan.
16:00 hrs
Up to the head office on the Archway Road to catch up with the admin team (about receipts & purchase card issues......blinkin admin)
then the boss to have the bi-monthly 121 meeting, talking budgets, work plans and stuff.
17:30 hrs – 20:00 hrs
Finish the day up by having a look at a few unread threads at the UKTC, LTOA & Arbtalk forums
Chatting on line to an American Arb about Subterranean Root Girdles !
Edit some photographic images for my archives.
tree day done..........now where's me beer !
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Firewood? What is a load?
We have been splitting logs lately, the timber has been lying in the yard for a couple of years and now we want to get it converted into logs to finish seasoning indoors so we have been busy with the firewood processor. Looking at the pile of logs and thinking about selling it all next winter has led me to consider the best way to market and sell our produce. Since Trading Standards and the Weights and Measures Act 1985 have little to say regarding firewood we are a bit in the dark when it comes to quantities, packaging and pricing. With most goods the law is quite clear and very strict with serious penalties for suppliers who sell goods in quantities or measures outside those prescribed in the Act. Firewood however is a bit of a mystery, I suspect that it falls under the category of solid fuel, but its hard to confirm if thats the case. However it is viewed officially it would appear that the market is wholly unregulated.
Logs are sold in a variety of ways, here are a few of the most common:
By weight; usually by the “ton” however this is almost never confirmed by any kind of weigh bridge ticket something which is likely to be illegal as far as the weights and measures act goes as one thing they are strict on is selling by weight. There is however a fundamental problem for the consumer with buying timber by the ton, this is simply that the wetter the wood the more it weighs. So there is an obvious incentive for the supplier to sell unseasoned wet wood as this will significantly ‘up’ his margin, if he bothers to weigh it at all that is! Supermarkets have been dicing with the same issue for years when it comes to meat, hanging the meat performs the same function as seasoning logs, it dries out a little and whilst the flavour may improve, and possibly the price per kilo, the lost moisture is lost profit since they bought the meat by weight in the first place. They have got around this problem by injecting the meat with “stuff” to bulk up its weight, and apparently this is ok with trading standards! This has gone on for years of course, in times gone by bakers used to be infamous for adulterating their flour with fillers such as bone meal, chalk, sawdust and even gypsum! Thankfully at the end of the 19th century laws were brought in to standardise what could be called flour, maybe its time they took a look at bacon! (all that white stuff that comes out as it fries is the supermarkets added filler).
So back to logs, selling by weight simply encourages the supplier to sell wet wood, and wet wood is not good for burning, not only does it produce little heat but because it burns at a lower temperature the combustion is incomplete, so gaseous tar and soot condense in your flue potentially leading to chimney fires. It would perhaps be ok to buy logs by weight at a known moisture content as happens in the wood chip for biomass industry, but that rarely happens.
By far the best way to buy firewood is by volume, this way you get what you pay for, they may still be wet, but 100 logs are still 100 logs wet or dry, so now the incentive is with the supplier to sell a quality product, assuming he wants to keep your business that is. So the next problem to arise is quantifying that volume, a cubic meter is a relatively common unit and should be the ideal but thats not always the case, which leads us to what is perhaps the most common way of selling logs…..
The load. So what is a load of logs? Well, anything you want it to be really, and this is where the industry really needs some guidance from the government. The load could be a bulk bag, but these vary in size from 2 cubic meters down to less than 0.5, or it could be a vehicle of some sort, trailer, pickup, 4×4 or even a car boot. From the consumers perspective how are they to compare one ‘load’ with another, does the back of one suppliers transit van compare favourably with another’s trailer? Who knows? The upshot is the poor consumer is left in the dark. With weights and measures regulations so strict on other industries, including coal and smokeless fuel, why is it that logs are still in the dark ages when it comes to consumer protection?
The answer may lie in the fact that during the industrial revolution we abandoned wood as a fuel, only to re-discover it in the last 10 years or so, and when the laws on weights and measures were made firewood just wasn’t on the radar. But these days it is most definitely back as a serious contender in the fuel market, sales of wood burning stoves have soared thanks to the carbon neutral credentials of burning wood over fossil fuels. (don’t get me started on the carbon credentials of imported eastern european logs though!)
Its time for HM Government to wake up to the burgeoning market in firewood and apply a little common sense to the way in which our logs are sold. We could do with a standardised moisture content for firewood, so that customers can expect to be able to get a certain calorific value from their wood, at least if its advertised as ‘ready to burn’ anyway. Then theres the weight / volume issue, logs really should be sold by volume, and all prices should be advertised by the cubic meter, irrespective of the size of vessel used to deliver them. This way the consumer can confidently compare prices from one supplier to the next. We have found that selling by the cubic meter we loose out to other suppliers selling by the bulk bag, our £60 per m3 has less appeal than a £50 bulk bag even though that bag may only contain 0.6 cube, making it considerably dearer, what do we do, sell unseasoned wood in order to cut our prices further, or try and skimp on the amount we sell?. Sadly the lack of regulation is currently driving quality down as firewood producers engage in a race to the bottom to stay in the game.
So if you agree with the views expressed above please share this article on Facebook with your local trading standards office, yes they all appear to have FB accounts! You could also share it with your MP. You never know we may end up with a fairer firewood market in the not to distant future.
For some further reading here’s a helpful PDF from the Forestry Commission.
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Man has always had a direct link to the landscape, though that link, whilst it is always there, may not be in the form that it once was. Keeping with the wood pasture theme, which I am really enjoying learning about through books and journal articles, I thought we’d look at how the manner in which we approach the ecosystem has changed over the centuries (quite briefly). Of course, what is written below doesn’t stop just at wood pasture – it has cross-over to other ecosystems, where the reasons for interaction with the landscape have altered through space and, more pertinently, time.
Historically, wood pastures were managed for economic purposes. The grazing of animals on grasslands containing trees (and the feeding of the livestock with cuttings from pollarded trees, and a tree’s fruit crop), such as cattle and pigs, was for the direct benefit of communities, who relied upon the produce of the livestock (milk, meat, and so on) in order to make a living, and to generally therefore survive. Of course, the wood pastures needed to be conserved, so that they did not disappear, due to over-grazing. In this sense, they were actively conserved (by replanting dying and dead trees, and limiting grazing intensity), though largely because, without actively conserving them, the livelihood of many tens of thousands of people would be challenged. A by-product of this conservation of wood pastures, for the benefits created from grazing livestock, was that the sites were very rich in biodiversity – birds, fungi, insects, and plants, for example. The complex mosaic of niches within the wood pasture, ranging from open and disturbed soils through to the (perhaps sizeable) groves surrounded by the mantle and fringe vegetation, meant that a large number of organisms could viably frequent the site. However, for all of the biodiversity present as a result of the careful management and conservation of wood pastures throughout history, biodiversity was not the reason for management – until recently.
The shift, in Europe, probably begun when wood pasture became disliked (for hope of a better word), during the 19th-20th century (varies depending upon the country). Foresters wanted to maximise output from the trees (coppice – sometimes with standards), and farmers wanted to maximise agricultural output. Therefore, the two practices, initially married, were divorced from one another (somtimes farmers were forced to stop grazing their livestock in wood pasture!). Wood pastures were thus either cleared of trees entirely, or alowed to regenerate into forest. With this came a decline in the richness of biodiversity and, eventually, this loss of biodiversity caused a rather evident of panic amongst conservationists. Ironically, therefore, the rationale behind creating and maintaining wood pasture became largely ecologically-driven, in place of economically-driven (though, particularly in Spain and Romania, wood pastures remain, are these are generally economically viable). Regardless of reason however, the status of wood pastures essentially went full-circle.
A fantastic wood pasture in Estonia. Source: Ideas for Sustainability.
Of course, this new found love for wood pastures does not necessarily mean that they can ever exist in the manner in which they did before. First and foremost, wood pastures are extensively grazed, and thus, for operations to be self-supporting financially, they must cover large expanses of land (unless the wood pasture is maintained for subsistence purposes, or grants are provided as a means of financial support). As farmers in Europe are generally in ‘the game’ for profit (they must make a living), managing livestock in wood pastures is probably not going to be all too popular, as it’d probably signal a marked drop in profits and / or a marked increase in labour input (at least, initially). Scope does exist to harvest edible mycorrhizal mushrooms from the wood pasture, such as truffles, though this is a specialised pursuit that is far from the current farming status quo of Europe.
Furthermore, European culture has changed. Gone are the days of communities being self-sufficient, and instead many Europeans now work a job (that they may even hate) and buy their food from the supermarket (or even order it online). Therefore, is there even the desire to re-introduce wood pastures, for anything other than ecological reasons, or to supply the market with a niche animal product (such as Iberian ham from the black Iberian pig, in the holm oak dehesas of Spain). With this change in culture there has also been a change in learning priorities, and unfortunately many today seem to be fixated with knowing pointless facts about sports teams and celebrities. Functional and practical knowledge is largely gone. As a consequence, the management of wood pastures will be left to an expert few, where knowledge has either been gained academically, or via being passed-down through the generations (usually limited to rural areas where grazing still takes place). However, as more people now live in cities than in rural areas, and this trend will likely continue as rural areas are swallowed up by urban sprawl, or people move into cities for economic reasons, this tradition of passing practical knowledge on and keeping up the family tradition of extensive livestock grazing within wood pasture may very well become ever more the stuff of legend.
The black Iberian pig grazing amongst a landscape of holm oak, in a Spanish dehesa. Source: Andrew Petcher.
Society is simply in a different place than it once was. For this reason, the conservation of wood pasture is to be far from mainstream. People are certainly aware of nature (of which wood pastures feature), though more and more awareness comes from watching on the television and less from direct experience, and with this comes a discord. There is less emotional and cultural attachment to nature, and as a result, less of an impetus to associate with nature. Why help with the recreation of wood pasture when you can watch about its conservation on television, utter some lamentations, and then switch the channel and soon relegate it to a mere memory? That’s even assuming people watch such programs, in large numbers, in the first place.
This probably turned out far more dystopian than I ever intended for it to come out as, though hopefully this illustrates how social changes have led to landscape management changes, with specific focus upon wood pastures in Europe. This is obviously applicable to other landscape types as well, of course. The principle generally carries across.
Source (of inspiration): Hartel, T. & Plieninger, T. (2014) The social and ecological dimensions of wood-pastures. In Hartel, T. & Plieninger, T. (eds.) European wood-pastures in transition: A social-ecological approach. UK: Earthscan.
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