blogs

[smojo]

Hi all, in my enthusiasm as a new woodland owner I have started a blog about it. The format is still being tweaked a bit. Anyhow if anyone is interested in my progress as a novice, here's the link to it.

http://woodlander23.wordpress.com/

If anyone else has a woodland blog, I would love to see it, so please post links to yours too.

[oldclaypaws]

If anyone else has a woodland blog, I would love to see it

If you go to the SWOG homepage, some blogs are shown on the right.

Not quite sure how one goes from the realm of 'unofficial' to 'approved homepage listed blog' ??

Perhaps Rich could enlighten us, sure there are other group bloggers out there who'd be happy to be included in the officially highlighted updates. Might even be tempted to do one myself, if I don't already go on too much about all things woody. Mrs Paws tweets all the time about ours, featuring quite a few uninvited pics of yours truly as I (retweeted as we) engage in various activities. She got very excited when one particular tweet was selected as a favourite by Jeremy Vine. Wow, we have arrived .

I've noticed the intake of new members seem to be taking the forum to a new level of activity, its positively rattling along now, which has to be good.

[oldclaypaws]

Reply to a bit of your blog Smojers (which looks good);

the realisation that our natural woodlands were disappearing

It surprises many people, including presumably yourself, when they find out we have significantly more tree cover in the UK now than at any time in the last thousand years. The reason is perhaps that we used to use wood as the main fuel and for hundreds of other uses, now that has been replaced by coal, gas, oil and plastic.

Go to a poor country where they can't afford oil or plastic, all the trees are cut down. Our woods are a sign we are a rich country that can afford other forms of energy, and can import food and afford fertilisers to grow food intensively-our wheat yields are 4 times what they were a Century ago. There'll be other factors, back in Norman times when wood cover reached its low point the Nations main income was wool, and of course sheep eat young trees. (A major contribution to the almost total deforestation of North Africa).

We are a country that generally (apart from the Secretary of State for the environment) appreciates our remaining woodlands, is planting more, and has the luxury of not needing to fell our remaining trees and can afford to see the benefits of them for wildlife and recreation.

[smojo]

It surprises many people, including presumably yourself, when they find out we have significantly more tree cover in the UK now than at any time in the last thousand years.[/quote

Yes that does surprise me. I read somewhere though, that the UK has the least percentage of forest cover per total acreage than anywhere in Europe. When I first became ecologically aware was in the 1970s. At that time farmers were ploughing up hedgerows and the FC were still clear felling ancient woodland to replant with monoculture species and anyone with an interest in wildlife and nature could see that it wasn't good for the ecology of our land. Gladly we seem to have turned a corner now and the present generation of farmers and foresters are putting trees back into the landscape.

I've noticed the intake of new members seem to be taking the forum to a new level of activity, its positively rattling along now, which has to be good.

Cool, I am enjoying the communication here, glad we're contributing to the general content too and not just a case of pestering people for their knowledge. Right now my brain is positively buzzing with all this woodland stuff and I need to have an outlet. Writing helps to ground it.

[outeredge]

smojo you might be interested in my new thread, noticed on your site you said soil type yet to be categorised.

[oldclaypaws]

Just to slightly correct myself when I said

It surprises many people, including presumably yourself, when they find out we have significantly more tree cover in the UK now than at any time in the last thousand years.

I was roughly along the right lines, but a more full and accurate answer would be;

Forestry cover declined steadily over most of the last thousand years, from about 13% at the end of the Norman period down to a low of 5% at the end of WWI, when war restricted wood imports. Since WWII though forestry cover has more than doubled back to about 12%, heading rapidly back towards Norman levels, helped by tax incentives, healthy returns for landowners and government policy. (Much of current cover is coniferous, whereas historically most of the loss was deciduous). Changes in incentives such as WGS are now encouraging deciduous, which is increasing.

A couple of detailed reads here if interested;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8039667/Forest-levels-booming-as-UK-woodland-returns-to-highest-level-in-more-than-250-years.html

[Judith]

Hi Folks, The blogs on the home page are all from the Woodland site, but we also have an old page with links to blogs/websites of SWOG members (http://www.swog.org.uk/resources/). If anyone has a blog or website we would love to link to it – updating the old links is on the to-do list! I'm about to put something in the next newsletter asking for links and contacts so please let me know of any good ones!

Judith

[smojo]

If anyone has a blog or website we would love to link to it – updating the old links is on the to-do list! I'm about to put something in the next newsletter asking for links and contacts so please let me know of any good ones!

I'd be happy for you to link to mine that I posted here but whether it's any good or not It's early days yet so not much content but I do intend posting regularly.

[boxerman]

looked a good start from what I saw and I'll be following it with interest.....