good news or not

[dangerous brian]

I watched the piece on firewood on country file tonight, and just wondered do the guys on here think this is good for english trees and wood lands,bearing in mind we dont have as many trees here as they do in some parts,of europe or have we just doomed our woodlands to be turned into deserts just so some rich buissness man can get even richer at the expense of our wood lands,or mabe im just not seeing the big picture.

[samarb]

sorry mate didn't see program, but cant you manage wodland for production and conservation?

[slasherscot]

i think they were saying that in general hardwood woodlands are not probably managed, a natural resource can be better used to help reduce fossil fuels usage, it doesnt really matter who owns them, if they are put into some sort of better management we in this sector will benefit too.

[samarb]

yes, managed by big companies to make a much return as possible for clients to justify their costs....makes sense but could be run to better standards. eg 60 acres af mixed ash birch and oak, 1 acres a year clearaged and re-planting 60 year cycle, will keep a small family business runing till the end of time and what a family heritage to be a part of.

[dangerous brian]

Iagree but im worried we may end up cutting faster than we can grow,then where will we be .

[samarb]

Iagree but im worried we may end up cutting faster than we can grow,then where will we be .

 

True, we all have responsability to use out resources corectly.

[MattyF]

uhhm no ... in a nut shell i would guess 80% of wood lands around my area have not been touched since ww1 if they have only by game keepers who have not a ...most have become deserts any way of ivy ,dead and rubbish trees ..... hope fully it might make a few people realise what they do have how to manage it properly and plant some more.....

[sylvanfirewood]

I watched the programme too. It didn't reveal too much about merchants which i would have thought given they chatted to a gas merchant would have been fair game. Talking to the estate manager didn't give a great understanding to the bigger picture of how many people already use firewood but did give us an idea of how cost effective (if properly managed) it can be to large houses/estates, this is based on woodchip at that large a scale. The plans are in the pipeline for new homes to be built with wood as a heating source in mind and it will only be good in the long term, with everything proper managment is essential. How is the planting down in England? I know that in the north of Scotland around the Cairngorms we have rich woodlands and some lovely Softwood crops. As far as hardwood goes for us we are limited, thats not to say there isn't any but that access to it for us just now is only Dead Elm or dead/dangerous trees. I think our national outlook to woodfuel will change and we will start to take heed to the advanced Scandinavian countries. Over all i think this is great news for us and we should benefit greatly.

[Saw-sick Steve]

Seemed unable to make up their mind what agenda they were trying to follow.

Jumped from hardwood logs to softwood chips, from conventional wood burning to wood-chip boilers, large plantation softwood to small broad leaves - and managed to not mention the word 'coppice' at all.

All in all, pretty much what you can expect of 'magazine' format TV these days.

I suppose it will raise awareness of us woodland managers and fuel merchants

- for a couple of weeks at least...

[smiles]

I had also noticed that the word "coppice" appeared to be stategically avoided,not sure why - they seemed to prefer scenes of large machinery lumbering around softwood plantations ! whole thing seemed to be a bit unfocussed - just skimming the top of the subject I guess.