What is a forester?
Balancing the benefits of woodland
Before detailing exactly what I do as a Consultant Forester, it is worth giving some consideration to what any forester does.
Conventionally, foresters are thought of as producers of timber. This is often true, but it is more than that. If we are producing timber, then we are usually doing so in a beautiful landscape, or an ecologically diverse habitat or an important public greenspace. We are as much producers of these things as any timber: and the timber doesn't have to be the main objective.
This is 'multipurpose' forest management and the forester's role is to manipulate woodland for the achievement of one or more of a range of outcomes. If, as a woodland owner, your main interest were the conservation of a particular forest butterfly, for example, a forester would be able to manage your wood to achieve that. The required skill is not, primarily, that of entomology but so-called 'silviculture': intervening to promote your target species across the wood, without undermining its wider biodiversity, its beautiful landscape, its public amenity or its sporting possibilities. However, unlike a 'conservationist', a forester would probably be looking to fund the conservation programme with the sale of any woodland produce arising out of the process.
At the centre of a forester's work, therefore, is finding commercial potential in the range of management possibilities.
What is this forester?
Productive Forest Ecology
As a practicing forester, I conform to this general prescription but, trained as an ecologist, I tend to work from ecological rather than silvicultural first principles.
Silviculture (the way trees are grown) is really applied ecology and foresters tend to work with a limited suite of 'silvicultural systems': different modifications of forest ecology. Plantation forestry is based on population ecology: a simple 'field' of one or very few species growing in a regular layout to a defined 'rotation'. Plantations have predictable growth rates, thinning intervals, rotation lengths and economic returns. They are designed entirely to produce timber.
In my forestry I look more to community ecology: to work with a range compatible forest species for a range of objectives, of which timber is one. I view the forest as a whole ecosystem, in which the constituent stands are compatible communities of diverse structure that deliver high levels of biodiversity, strong sporting structures and beautiful landscapes. They don't have to be native communities but they are composed of species from the same native range. Nevertheless, as might be expected, my work involves a significant area of north European native woodland.
At the centre of this forester's work, therefore, is finding ecological potential in the range of management possibilities, including commercial forestry.
Sustainable forest and business management
Central to my work over the last 30 years has been the strategic planning and management of private and public forest land, particularly within mixed-portfolio rural businesses. As market demand for timber has grown and wood has gained heightened importance as part of a low-carbon economy, the forester's role is to meet the present landowner's objectives in such a way that their woodland will continue to provide for their successors, without detriment to the environment, society or landscape in which it is set
Policy
A successful forestry business comes from a well thought-out policy based on clearly defined objectives. Landowners invariably have a strong feeling for what they want to see happen to their woodland, but often need support in defining the necessary forestry strategy. This is by far the most important role of a forestry consultant: listening to the landowner's intentions, hopes, needs and limits and sculpting from that a clear policy which frames all future operational activity. Good policies produce good woods.
Ecological assessment
Establishing an effective woodland strategy means understanding a wood's ecology. This is not just a matter of environmental policy; the forestry business will be defined by microclimate, geology, soils and the ecosystem within which any timber resource is developed. If forestry is working with due cognisance of this complexity, the business will work with, rather than against the environment: costs will be minimised and income maximised
Resource mapping, Geographical Information Systems and data management
If a picture is worth a thousand words, woodland maps are a wordy plan in pictures. And these pictures are founded on a thousand digits: more than just maps, they are windows into forest data stored and analysed in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). My work is founded on a bespoke GIS that, using baseline forest survey data, generates maps and derived forecasts for forestry planning, licensing, management and reporting. This also feeds onward to cloud-based collaboration between manager, landowner and other parties
Management planning
So you know what's in your wood, you know what you want to achieve with it but what are you actually going to do? Across large, diverse woodland, identifying what you need to do, how you do it and in which order it is best done is crucial in making the best of your forest asset. Does it need you to do anything? It is easy to identify something that needs doing and get on with it; it is much harder to determine which of the 100 things that needs doing should be done first. Based on good data and GIS processing, I can assist in making these decisions and formulate detailed plans to attain the necessary licencing
Cloud collaboration
Woodland management is a collaboration between a wide range of interests and the internet is now a viable basis for really effective interaction between varied interests, often spread widely across rural communities. Primarily, of course, it is a collaboration between manager and landowner, who may run other activities that are affected by forestry. As work proceeds there needs to be good communication between them and their staff, harvest and haulage contractors, buyers and a range of public and private interests. I curate various systems to facilitate successful project interaction
If you think I may be able to help with your woodland, please get in touch
Gare Hill
Nr Frome
Somerset
BA11 5EY