🚀 go-pugleaf

u04hjb@abdn.ac.uk wrote:
> 
> After attendance to two Aberdeen University arranged lectures I have been lead
> to the belief that the UK forestry industry is in it's worst period for some
> time. It is becoming a school of thought amongst academics that the UK would
> be better placed concentrating on the production of recreation rather than
> timber forests. Does this mean that the British forester in ten years time
> will have more in common with a theme park manager than a bloody tree
> manager??

The UK has a large tourist industry, no? The forest may be worth more
for it's recreation value than timber value. This is the same debate
going on for many US national forests.

>    The recent collapse of Pacific Asian economies has had serious implications
> for the exporters such as Canada, US and Finland. All of whom export to Japan,
> who have taken advanage of the cheaper timber from the tiger economies
> that is now available. This creates an export excess, which has to be found a
> market. The most logical place is the UK due to our poor forest reserve in
> comparison with the rest of Europe. This combined with the flooding of timber
> from the Baltic states desperate for hard currency, is going to lead to a
> substantial rise in supply and competition with all the price problems that
> market saturation can cause.

I would suspect that cheap timber from Asia and the Baltic would be far
cheaper than timber grown in the UK; since there is so little of it.
Turning yourselves into park managers might be a good idea.


>    Then you have to take into accont the current problems with prices for sawn
> and pulp wood, to the extent that thinning has almost ground to a halt in an
> attempt to halt expenses. (This has an implication as no thinning in
> plantation woodlands makes your crop less economically and silviculturally
> productive. Thus meaning that indigenously produced timber in 10-20years, the
> supposed boom of UK timber from the 70's planting will become uncompetitive
> and over priced, dendering itself open to the spectre of the cheaper large
> exporting countries.) The other option will be to fell at a loss and give up
> the land to other devt's. With the govt. announcement of the need for 4
> million homes, it easy to guess where land owners will target their land!!
>   Are there any answers??
>   Please reply to Hayden Bennett
>    e-mail : u04hjb@abdn.ac.uk
> 

Here in the northeast USA, anyways, we often have to thin young stands
by a "precommercial method"; by just killing the "bad" trees by chainsaw
girdling. It's fairly inexpensive, especially with modest subsidies by
the federal goverment.

You need 4 million new homes? Why not tear down decrepti commercial
areas and rebuild there. That's what we Americans should have done.
Instead of rebuiling on millions of acres of slums, and failed shopping
centers, we continue to pave over "virgin" land. In the UK, I suspect
forest land is so rare, your government should protect every last acre-
to protect your valuable tourist trade. Nobody will go to the UK to see
it completly paved over.

But, with a wise governemnt you should be able to have it all- real
forestry in a park like environement- managing for both timber and
recreation- protected from the bulldozers. But the UK and America are
now under the control of right wingers who don't understand or
appreciate the beauty of land, except the land they personally own of
course- their personal estates that become more common under the rule of
the right.

-- 
-------
http://forestmeister.com
"The only forestry web page in the otherwise sophisticated state of
Massachusetts"

In article <6dolad$aos$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, u04hjb@abdn.ac.uk writes

>   Then you have to take into accont the current problems with prices for sawn
>and pulp wood, to the extent that thinning has almost ground to a halt in an
>attempt to halt expenses.
> (This has an implication as no thinning in
>plantation woodlands makes your crop less economically and silviculturally
>productive. 
Many owners will still carry out thinning so long as there is no net
loss on the operation because they are aware of your statement above.
Thinning will be stopped in the more marginal and difficult to access
sites first, as price drops, therefore the effect on quality stands may
be less than at first it might appear.

> The other option will be to fell at a loss and give up
>the land to other devt's. 
Ho Ho! Try getting an unconditional felling licence on that basis<G>

>With the govt. announcement of the need for 4
>million homes, it easy to guess where land owners will target their land!!
I agree with Joseph, we should be targetting redevelopment to derelict
urban or industrial areas not paving over the countryside.

>  Are there any answers??

Dont be too depressed by the apparent "doom and gloom" being spread
around in forestry circles at the moment. As I am reliably informed
(being too youthful to have experienced it first hand<G>) UK forestry is
cyclical in nature.

There have been similar depressions but everyone thinks the current one
is the worst ever. The issues involved in each are too complex to go
into in detail but, just as food for thought:
The difficulties in marketing of small roundwood in the 1970's due to
collapse of pitwood markets. This lead to export of timber then
subsidised investment in new processing plants leading to the large
number of processing mills we have today.

As for answers:

What about the redirection of small roundwood into the energy production
market to take up some of the overproduction. With the forescast rise in
timber output in the UK and the question over the quality of sawlogs
produced from some of the wider spaced plantings of the 70's and 80's,
could we see sawlogs being sent for energy chip?

Dont let the pessimists get to you. No one is saying that solving the
looming problems in UK forestry will be easy but they will not get
solved if the industry sits on its thumbs and moans about it. We need
good innovators to sort out the marketing difficulties coming up in the
next 20-30 years, that should be right in the middle of your career
span. Feel up to the challenge<VBG>

-- 
Will Anderson           will@drumin.demon.co.uk