The good news about forests is that their expanse has gradually increased to 17 per cent of England and Wales, and has more than doubled since the end of WWI. There is also more biodiversity and more commercially productive woodland. “Forestry is a long-term business,” said Simon Hodgson, Chief Executive of Forest Enterprise England. “We are turning boring plantations into interesting woodland, nurturing wildlife and native trees. The key to success is that these areas should be beautiful, useful and economically productive.” Emyr Roberts, Chief Executive of National Resources Wales, urged more community management of forests, offering sustainable tourism in the form of eco cabins and other activities that people would engage with. “We aspire to more tree cover,” Roberts said, “but much of this will have to come from landowners in the private sector”. World timber prices are good, and we can sell what we produce on the global market, but we still import huge quantities, they remarked, making us the fifth largest importer of timber, so we should focus on increasing the volume of home-produced wood.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 17:56:08 +0000
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