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HOW CAN WE GET OURMESSAGE ACROSS?Published online: 27 Apr 2012.

To cite this article: (1991) HOW CAN WE GET OUR MESSAGE ACROSS?,Arboricultural Journal: The International Journal of Urban Forestry, 15:4,322-344, DOI: 10.1080/03071375.1991.9756435

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071375.1991.9756435

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Arboricultural Journal 1991, Vol 15 pp 322 & 344 '" AB Academic Publishers 1991 Printed in Great Britain

HOW CAN WE GET OUR MESSAGE ACROSS?*

Logoff

We bleat repeatedly as an industry about being misunderstood. We are accused by the environmentalists of raping the forests, cutting down trees and replacing with foreign conifers and converting our nice broadleaved woodlands to pulp factories, destroying the native flora and fauna.

A Channel 4 programme, 'Forest of dreams', gave the impression that neither the Forestry Commission nor private forestry was planting any native broadleaves in the Highlands of Scotland. It was riddled with mis-statements and untruths. For example, it stated that the forests were still being depleted and we were now down to to 5% of the UK being wooded!

Why are we not getting our message through to the general public? Why is the media so prejudiced? Is it because, as usual, good news is not news in the editors' eyes and knocking the forestry industry is the flavour of the month?

We seem to be missing out, keeping our heads below the parapet and hoping that we can continue the good work we know we all do by keeping a low profile. But over the past few years this has not paid off. We have had the Financial Act 1988 cancel the Schedule D/B switch.

For all that people say 'not before time', it was, let's face it, a very good means of increasing planting and was mainly responsible for reviving the fortunes of the private industry during the 60's to 80's and created the very professional forest management organisations now reeling from the effects of a predictable sudden, nay catastrophic, drop in planting. Does the forest Industry have a death wish?

I would like to quote from a paper read to the institute of Foresters in 1969: Certainly, other industries have problems, but most of them have less contact

with the general public at the sources of raw material. The forest industry, with trees as its raw material, is particularly vulnerable, for the public not only seeks the forests but has a proprietary interest in trees-valid or not.

People come in waves into the forest, to enjoy the multiple phases of recreation to be found there. Rarely can they be turned aside or halted. The pressure they exert needs industry to do stop-gap work in developing recreation areas (here the FC has been good at this).

But from the owners' points of view for their best interests, coordinated and segregated planning for human use of forest areas well ahead of demand can return much more per pound spent on improvements.

Consider this statement: 'Modern civilization could get along without wood but not without forests. A world that can put men on the moon certainly has the

(Continued on page 344)

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344 ARBORICULTURAL JOURNAL

(Continuedfrom page 322)

technical capacity to develop and finance a universal substitute for wood-but not for trees'.

The public does not really care about the industry's internal problems. The public does care about trees though, no matter who owns them.

What can we do about it?

We can cash in on this phase of forest management-and why not? Why not make money? That's what business is all about whether the cash register rings from timber sales or camper registration. I have heard recently of an owner in Kent who makes £40,000 a year on opening his woods at 'bluebell time' to the general public at £2 per head.

The FC already has a healthy income from its camp sites and holiday homes. And what about the current war games craze? Why get fixed on growing trees for timber? The FC's new woodland grant schemes have recognised this fact and you now need not grow trees with timber in mind to get a grant. Think laterally!

What about education?

Here we are still failing miserably. I was talking the other day to Charles Gray, administrator of the Forestry Trust which was set up in 1988 by the Royal Forestry Society with the specific task of promoting the message that productive forestry is compatible with conservation.

With the exception of individual estate owners who support the Trust generously, backing from the industry is poorer although support from conservation­orientated bodies has been good.

The Trust is developing a major education project for GCSE on forestry and timber but it needs the enthusiastic backing of the forestry industry itself if it is to raise the necessary funds.

Being independent of the industry, the Trust is far more likely to command the attention of those in teaching as a provider of objective and factual educational resources than the industry itself; but it needs the involvement of the industry if the right balance is to be struck.

At 'A' level geography, the optional subjects for rural land use are water and forestry. The water industry has provided an excellent package for this subject so it is water rather than forestry that is chosen-by default. Surely it makes no sense to deprive the Trust, which is geared to educational development, of the resources to do the job if we want to get the message across to future generations. What better cause is there in which to invest our cash?

*Reproduced from Forestry and British Timber Volume 20 No 8, August, 1991 by kind permission of the editor.

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