| Forestry
Programme
Life in the
UK would be very different without forest and woodland products.
No paper, no charcoal for the barbeque and no Brazil nuts at Christmas.
Our houses and furniture contain large quantities of timber and
would have to be radically redesigned without wood. Where does it
all come from?
Most comes from overseas. We import
around 84% of the timber and timber products we use in the UK; that’s
equivalent to 39.2 million cubic meters of logs. At the same time
many areas of woodland in the UK are not being fully managed. Low
timber prices, down by around 75% in real terms since 1996 are one
factor. Another, ironically, is increasing use of recycled paper
in UK pulp mills which reduces the demand for logs from sustainably
managed woodlands in the UK.
The abandonment of age old management
practices such as coppicing has led to a decline in the value of
many woodlands for recreation, wildlife and conservation . BioRegional’s
forestry programme addresses this by promoting increased use of
locally grown, UK timber.
BioRegional are:
• promoting sustainable management of UK woodlands through
Forest Stewardship Council certification
• increasing the market for UK charcoal through the BioRegional
Charcoal Company network of local producers
• developing regional
scale charcoal
production
• establishing a local market for woodchip as fuel in Croydon
using tree surgery waste
• investigating TreeStations
as a way of making best use of local timber resources
Information
sources:
Index of Coniferous Standing Sales Prices for Great Britain, published
ever 6 months by the Forestry Commission.
Forestry Statistics 2003, published by the Forestry Commission
both available from www.forestry.gov.uk/statistics
Last updated 14th January 2008
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