FORESTRY & TIMBER NEWS February 2020 Issue 97 HUMAN RESOURCES FORESTRY MANAGEMENT & DIVERSIFICATION THE NEXT GENERATION OF FENCING SYSTEMS UK MANUFACTURED METAL POSTS AND FENCING ✓ , and Fencing Products ✓ Versalok® Metal Post and Clip System ✓ Hampton Box and Angle Strainer Post Systems ✓ Hampton NETTM Fixed Knot Fencing ✓ Hinge Joint Fencing ✓ PVC Coated Chain Link Fencing ✓ Galvanised Chain Link Fencing ✓ Barbed Wire ✓ Line Wires ✓ Hexagonal Wire Fencing ® Rylock Green • • Y E E A E R T G AN Te UAR ly. rm pp s and conditions a +44 (0) 1933 234070 | [email protected] | www.hamptonsteel.co.uk CONTENTS 40 | COMMUNICATING FORESTRY WIDENING THE NET TO SECURE Confor is a membership organisation OUR FUTURE WORKFORCE that promotes sustainable forestry and 42 | EDUCATION & TRAINING wood-using businesses. Confor mem- bers receive Forestry and Timber News MENTORING THE FUTURE OF for free as part of their membership. For FORESTRY more information on membership, visit VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS TO INSPIRE www.confor.org.uk/join-us THE NEXT GENERATION OF Past issues and articles can be accessed FORESTERS online at 46 | MARKETS www.confor.org.uk/news/ftn-magazine TIMBER MARKET REPORT Non-member subscriptions: BIDDING SUBDUED AT £60 (£65 overseas). HARDWOOD AUCTION Please contact [email protected] TIMBER AUCTIONS MARKET REPORT CONFOR CONTACTS NEWS & COMMENT 53 | OBITUARY Stefanie Kaiser 55 | MACHINERY Communications and editor FTN 5 | EDITORIAL T: 0131 240 1420 CHAINSAW MILLING E: [email protected] 6 | GENERAL ELECTION ‘GET TREE PLANTING DONE’: 66 | TIMBER TRANSPORT Caroline Harrison DELIVERING ON THE RHETORIC ROADS, FORESTS, PEOPLE National manager for England M: 07500 927482 SNP BACKS CONFOR PLANTING E: [email protected] 68 | INTERNATIONAL TARGETS ARE THERE LESSONS TO BE Jamie Farquhar 10 | CONFOR NEWS LEARNED FROM WOODFUEL- National manager for Scotland M: 07817 374906 ANDY LEITCH TO JOIN CONFOR RELIANT COUNTRIES E: [email protected] IN APRIL 71 | MOTOR ANDREW HEALD MOVES ON TO Anthony Geddes CONSULTANCY ROLES NEW DEFENDER SET FOR APRIL National manager for Wales SHOWROOM DEBUT T: 074 94079305 CONFOR BUSINESS PLAN 2020 E: [email protected] CONFOR EVENTS CALENDAR 2020 73 | SMALL WOODLAND OWNER Dr Eleanor Harris 16 | PUBLIC SECTOR Policy Researcher 74 | FORESTRY IN PICTURES T: 0131 240 1417 Q&A WITH MIKE SEDDON, CHIEF E: [email protected] EXECUTIVE FORESTRY ENGLAND FEATURES REGULARS 22 | FOREST MANAGEMENT & DIVERSIFICATION 18 | EVENTS INNOVATING FROM SEED TO USING BIOCHAR TO TACKLE TIMBER SUPPLY CLIMATE CHANGE RETHINKING THE OPPORTUNITIES SCOTLAND’S FINEST WOOD FROM AGROFORESTRY AND FARM AWARDS OPEN FOR ENTRIES WOODLANDS Confor head offi ce and editorial offi ce 20 | MEMBER PROFILE 61 | HUMAN RESOURCES 59 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2JG AGRIFOREST WHAT3WORDS 0131 240 1410 29 | INDUSTRY FUNDING FISA GUIDANCE ON MANAGING HEALTH & SAFETY IN FORESTRY HOW POTATO SECTOR BENEFITS [email protected] FROM ‘FUNDING FROM WITHIN’ LOOKING AFTER YOUR TEAMS’ WELLBEING www.confor.org.uk 33 | RESTOCKING IGGESUND TRAINS STAFF AS FORESTRY AND LAND MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AIDERS For the latest news of forestry and wood SCOTLAND’S APPROACH TO TRACKPLOT sign up to #forestandwood on Twitter RESTOCKING COVER STORY Published by Countrywide Publications, 37 | FUNDING Fountain Way, Reydon, Suffolk IP18 6SZ An international group on behalf of Confor. INNOVATING TO GROW YOUR of chainsaw users BUSINESS AND THE SECTOR attending a technical For advertising, contact Laura Munnings demo at a Husqvarna 01502 725866 38 | YEAR OF PLANT HEALTH product launch in [email protected] PLANT HEALTH: A SEED Sweden. Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd SUPPLIER’S PERSPECTIVE Photo: S Kaiser Wolmanit® CX Trusted preservative for high quality timber treatment Wood preservatives for use class 1-4 Patented Wolmanit CX formulation, since 1989 BASF warehousing and logistics Engineering support Marketing support Leading the Way in Wood Protection BASF Wolman GmbH, Dr.-Wolman-Str. 31–33, 76547 Sinzheim, Germany, Contact: [email protected], Phone: 0161 488 5329, www.basf.com/wolman EDITORIAL The year we could make a difference STUART GOODALL CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CONFOR ® t’s an over-used cliché to talk about people has come a long way in recent Wolmanit CX the importance of the coming year, years. That has taken time and resource, but 2020 may just live up to its and we need to maintain that activity, Ibilling. if only to avoid going backwards. In Trusted preservative The UK Government is gearing up to that vein, I was heartened to read that make unprecedented funding available The Woodland Trust have publicly for forestry in England, especially tree recognised the need to plant more for high quality planting and possibly nursery and productive woodland and use more seed supply, and it has signalled to the wood in its high-profi le call for action in devolved administrations a desire to January to tackle the climate and nature timber treatment work with them – code for additional emergencies. funding? I wrote this article while travelling COP26 will take place in Glasgow in back from London after the launch of November, shining a strong spotlight on Committee on Climate Change report climate change. We’re approaching the on land use. It makes stark reading Scottish Government to run an event and has clear recommendations – on UK trees and timber designed to trees and timber are fi rmly in there, increase the pressure for action across and governments should be listening. all four countries. However, there is a proposal to raise Wood for Good is developing a funding for new planting from a new promotional campaign built around its carbon trading mechanism based on registered collective mark ‘Wood Co2ts a levy of polluting businesses, such as Less’. The aim is to unite the forestry airlines. and timber sector around common For me, there is a danger that placing messages promoting greater use of the onus on carbon trading will produce wood. unintended consequences. I have At the same time, we’re watchful of already warned against ‘charismatic a potential backlash. Popular and news carbon’ where businesses only want to media reporting has been on the whole plant native woodland and do it near positive about the need for more communities – they are more interested trees, but the signs are there. in the perceived PR benefi ts for their Farmers are challenging the need business than offsetting carbon. to move away from grazing The report also highlights locking up animals. Some environmental carbon in wood products (something interests are criticising tree we lobbied them very strongly on), but planting for its use of plastic then it lacks detail on how that will be tree shelters and are calling for stimulated. rewilding or natural regeneration Clearly the picture is mainly one of Wood preservatives for use class 1-4 alone to establish new woodland. ‘work in progress’. We need to keep Confor has developed a making the case for action and advising Patented Wolmanit CX formulation, since 1989 number of links into the on what that action should be… and BASF warehousing and logistics media and our networking push on in 2020! Engineering support with key groups and www.confor.org.uk Marketing support Leading the Way in Wood Protection BASF Wolman GmbH, Dr.-Wolman-Str. 31–33, 76547 Sinzheim, Germany, Contact: [email protected], Phone: 0161 488 5329, www.basf.com/wolman GENERAL ELECTION ‘Get tree planting done’: delivering on the rhetoric David Lee asks to be delivered “by the end of the next par- for Climate Fund, we will overhaul our ap- whether or liament”. Assuming two full fi ve-year terms proach to tree-planting and in the spring (a big assumption after three general elec- we’ll launch our consultation on the English not the new tions in less than fi ve years, but much more Tree Strategy. Conservative likely with a majority government in place), “I urge you to take up whichever tree of- that would take us to December 2029. fers – the one which fi ts your business best Government can live But will the Conservatives turn words … whether it’s woodland creation grants or up to its positive rhetoric on paper into trees in the ground - and are the Woodland Carbon Guarantee.” they serious about meeting these planting The language is positive - “big prom- oris Johnson and the Conserv- targets? ises”, “stepping up planting”, “overhaul our ative Party won the General The available evidence suggests grounds approach” - and the specifi c mention of the Election by promising to Get for optimism. Barely had we shaken off our ‘bidding war’ and different funding pots Brexit Done. With a stonking New Year hangovers that Environment suggests the commitment is truly there to Bmajority, they can now deliver Secretary Theresa Villiers was talking trees try to change things for the better. on that pledge, but they will also come un- at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC). der fi erce pressure to deliver on manifesto It’s worth looking carefully at what she said: Mantra commitments - and that includes a promise “I very much hope we can engage the We are in a very different world from to Get Tree Planting Done. knowledge and expertise of our farmers as 2015/16 when Forestry Minister Thérèse For the fi rst time in modern politics, we deliver our big promises on trees. Coffey constantly repeated, without much trees were an important subject of an elec- “This was the fi rst election where there conviction, the mantra that 11 million trees tion campaign, with all parties promising to was a bidding war between the parties on would be “planted in the lifetime of this ramp up existing woeful planting rates in tree planting. Our manifesto commits us parliament” (theoretically fi ve years).