Please explain "sourced from Sustainable Woodland"

[cessna]

We all see the "sourced from Sustainable Woodland ", info bounded about, but please can someone explain what "Sustainable Woodland" is.How can it be achieved, if trees are being cut down,for whatever end use, faster than they must growing worldwide,not just our tiny U.K. Every one can plant as many trees as they like but they are going to take years and years to grow.

I will need some convincing.

[ThrustSSC]

Generally it means a woodland that is being managed, as opposed to the land being just raped and everything felled. Managed woodland is thinned, with new planted where old, diseased trees are taken out, and the species balance is carefully watched, too.

 

We've all seen hillsides that have been clear-felled and look dreadful. And we've all seen woodland left it it's own devices for decades and getting into a dreadful state. Sustainable is the middle ground.

[treedave]

Sustainable woodland is a method of managing the woodland so that it continues to produce useful material in rotation. Look up coppice with standards as an example. A small section of the wood is cut, leaving selected big trees (usually Oak) to grow on to full size timber trees. The others are cut for firewood, hazel rods, charcoal etc. The young trees regrow with multiple stems, so renewing the smaller timber products. The only input from us is the motor manual to cut it and some deer management to protect the regrowth till it gets above browsing height.

The time between cuts depends on the species, products wanted and local conditions, but 15-20 years is a rough guide.

Seems like the woods have been maintained and become productive aka valuable, under such management systems.

 

 

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[cessna]

Sustainable Woodland seems to me to mean to me unsustainable supply of wood, on a world wide basis.

[Ollywood]

Exactly as tree save says. We mange out woods and coppice about 3acres of ash per Annum. We do this in a patch work method across the woods and the. We return to the coppiced area in 23 years time to do the same again. As long as we aren't fraping the woods by cutting too much down each year it will remain sustainable.

[doobin]

I'm pretty sure anyone in the UK can claim to be selling timber from 'sustainable woodland' as the FC regulates it and ensures replanting.

 

That same cannot be said for some banana republic where the king meets and greets whoever audits these things, plants a few trees for the camera, and next week after he's flown home clearfells another hundred acres of virgin rainforest....

[cessna]

I fully understand the principle of "Sustainble Woodland" as you gentleman have explained,and how it works on a small scale,BUT I am not convinced that with the huge amount of wood now being consumed for paper pulp , construction industry,furniture making, wood burning stoves,open fires, and now the huge power generating stations(I appreciate only a small recentage of there fuel burn but that still comes to thousands of tonnes),that in the big picture, that "Sustainble Woodland" is achieveable. As you well know, to make matters worse the trees in most of Canada and I believe Scandinavian countries grow much slower,than in the U.K and New Zealand, and they are felling thousands of tonnes of lumber per day.

"Sourced from Sustainable Woodland", I very much doubt could be genuinely pinned on much the wood that goes for all the uses mentioned above,the amounts being cut down per day world wide are so huge.

[doobin]

I believe I'm correct in saying that the UK almost ran out of trees during the middle ages, such was the amount of timber that was used for charcoal to work metal?

[openspaceman]

I believe I'm correct in saying that the UK almost ran out of trees during the middle ages, such was the amount of timber that was used for charcoal to work metal?

 

Oliver Rackhams' books deal with this, for England woodland was at its lowest at the end of the iron age (5% cover IIRC), mostly cleared for agriculture with the edge tools that were previously not available. In the Roman period it was warmer and the traditional grain growing areas of north Africa were depleted so England was an exporter of grain and the roman bread basket.

 

By Tudor times the value of timber for fuel, smelting and boat building was recognised so measures were put in place to protect regrowth from grazing animals as cutting broadleaved woodland was not a problem per se.

 

The area of coppice then increased at the beginning of the industrial revolution, partly because of displacement of wood fuel by coal but also because of demand for packaging ( baskets and crates) for export goods like china.

 

The push for plantation forestry followed the first world war because the need for pit props and chockwood in mines was anticipated strategically. Since then we turned from a coal economy to oil and now gas and those early plantings are being reverted to broadleaf.

 

Wales and Scotland are different as they took longer to "civilise".

[woodyguy]

As Oliver Rackham explains (and others) in the middle ages we had very few large trees. That is a modern situation. Timber for building was carefully controlled and owned. Wood ie coppice, was vital and used by local people for almost everything (think, no plastic!). So wherever there was smelting, there was more woods ie it was valued and managed. Industry didn't "use up" woods, it created and sustained them.