FORESTER’S DIARY
P
HEW, it’s hot! As I
write, it looks set to be
the hottest day of the
year, if not the hottest
day ever! So, having
spent a stressful hour last
night clipping and shaving our
two dogs to relieve them of
having to walk around in the
equivalent of a winter coat, we
all set off early to a delightful
place in the forest where
there is a series of lakes, ideal
for cooling off superheated
bearded collies. And it has
other attractions as well.
It’s strange where you end
up sometimes, and with whom.
Last week, I found myself in
a very celebrated garden, in
company with a very celebrated
garden owner and rubbing
shoulders with the great and
the good. Now that’s not a
set of circumstances I have
encountered all that often.
And, although the theme of the
party was benign in nature, I
came away with two distinct
messages. The first was a
fairly general condemnation of
the ‘native species’ nonsense.
We are already in the climate
change soup too deep for this
kind of outdated thinking. If you
don’t agree with this assessment
then you are in trouble. Andaren’t we all.
So we need new species,
just as the first pioneers of the
Forestry Commission needed
new species to address their
own problem, how to create a
strategic reserve of home-grown
timber and create that reserve
right soon. Which brings me
back to the swimming dogs.
The wood we visit has a content
which mirrors the response of
those foresters a hundred years
ago, and shows us a valuable
lesson in how to face up to our
own dilemma.
Here was a traditional
oakwood which must have been
plundered for wartime timber,
and of which some remnants
of 200-year-old oak survive.
There are some veteran trees,
but around and about them is a
rich mosaic of what must have
been very exotic exotics when
restocking eventually took place.
There is Scots pine, looking
drawn up and miserable. There
is some equally undistinguished
European larch. There is some
quite nice 80-year-old beech, in
an area not noted for beech, but
then we get on to the meat of the
content, the exotic conifers.
First, of course, is Douglas
fir, which reaches 130 feet and
is truly magnificent. Walk on,and we are in Tsuga,
surrounded by
regeneration. Then, surprise
surprise, grand fir, with
smooth bark like gun
barrels. And look, what’s
this? Californian redwood.
Absolutely huge, very
impressive. Japanese larch,
big butts and on the corner
ahead enormous, apparently
healthy Corsican pine. And, of
course, you don’t have to walk
far to come across the bark
plates of big, big Sitka, and a
neat plantation of Norway. And
among all this richness, some
quite decent oak, the same age
as the beech and looking good.
It’s notable, in passing, that
the woodland floor under the
hardwoods is not at all as rich
and diverse as that under the
big conifers, but perhaps I’m
biased. Perish the thought.
So, imagine yourself as a
member of the planting gang
that set all this in motion in the
early years of the FC. And now
imagine yourself taking on the
same choices as we swelter.
Have we got the imagination,
the initiative and the bravery
to make hard choices and take
risks? We’re going to need it,
and time is getting few, as my
grocer Mr Dahramsi is fond ofsaying.
So what else did I learn last
week? I put it to my group
that there ought to be a way
of linking all the energy and
dedication of the Extinction
volunteers with the oft-stated
aim we have to increase the
area of our national forest.
Instead of stopping the innocent
commuters of Bristol getting
to work, can’t we have just as
dedicated an effort to get all
these in-many-ways-admirable
young people to embrace our
cause, pick up forestry and run
with it? In South Korea they
have a National Tree Week,
when all schoolchildren have to
plant a tree, with a good deal of
ceremony. Surely, surely this can
happen here too.
What is needed is leadership,
a programme, mass media,
social networking. We have
all these except the first. And
surely, this can be arranged too,
can’t it?Can’t stand
the heat?