One of my private dreams is to own a small wood. I tell myself there are practical reasons for this; providing an income by selling timber, having a source of fuel for when the oil runs out. But essentially it stems from a desire to be connected to the natural world and to be the guardian of a piece of England. I suspect I am not the only one to have such a dream, so perhaps you will forgive me my folly. But where does this desire for connection come from and why does it still have such resonance in this country? Doing justice to the idea of the forest means understanding its mythological significance, its contribution to civilisation and its potential to help achieve our ecological imperatives.
The cultural appeal
of Forests
What does the forest represent in mythical terms? To begin
with, it represents nature, nature alive and vital, nature as organic force,
with resonances of fertility and sexuality. Woodlands clearly signpost the
changing seasons; the bare branches of winter, the tightly furled buds of early
spring, the riot of leaf cover in summertime, with the climax of the wonderful
colours of autumn whilst acorns, chestnuts
and conkers litter the ground. Besides the spring growth, woods give us
the stag and hind as exemplars of male and female sexuality. These exemplars
are surprisingly malleable. To compare a man to a rutting stag can be a
celebration of his attractiveness or a critique of his behaviour.
The wood is also a sylvan alternative to the city; an avatar
of the Garden of Eden providing a simpler environment where man co-exists with
nature rather than being in conflict with it. In the forest as pastoral idyll,
as portrayed by Shakespeare in plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or given
form by painters over the years, we can
be better people, freed from the constraints of civilisation.
Such a wood can also be a location where the usual rules of
society are suspended- this is the home of Robin Hood or the outlaws of Sir
Walter Scott’s Black Arrow. In the wood, what and who you are in normal life
ceases to have meaning and a person can gain the status and dignity denied them
elsewhere. The forest provided a refuge for outlaws, literally, those outside
the law, to escape from justice.
Finally, the forest is a place of dangers to be overcome,
the home of wild animals, monsters or even mythical beings. It is a place where
a man can prove himself, or lose himself. The power of mythology lies not in
rationality but in its primitive and visceral appeal to us. It is noteworthy that
Herne the Hunter, a folklore figure from Berkshire who embodied characteristics
of the Wild hunt of Celtic mythology, is a name still familiar to us today, as
is the Green Man, whose name survives as a name for many Public Houses in
England. The folk tales of Northern Europe frequently have a woodland setting;
Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel are obvious examples.
Recently, Edward Rutherford wrote an extended Novel, The
Forest, which tells the story of the New Forest, its trees, animals and the
families who lived there over the course of a millennium.
The Forest and its relationship with the settlement of England.
What of the forest and civilisation? In the history of human
settlements, the proximity of a supply of timber is a common theme, to be used
as both fuel and building material. Not
just tall trees either, plants such as hazel provided raw material for baskets
and other items. Sometimes, the
exhaustion of this resource is the catalyst for the decline of a culture, as
historians speculate may have happened in Central America.
In this country, our
relationship with the forests is an integral part of the story of the
settlement of England. This can be illustrated most strikingly by considering
place-names. The ghosts of forests past can be discerned on the map of England,
in the names of countless towns, villages and hamlets. Whychwood
in Oxfordshire (Hwicce Wood- the wood of the Hwicce, the name of a tribal
grouping of the Anglian Kingdom of Mercia) is one such. Many place name pre-fixes and suffixes have
woodland origins .The suffix hurst,
for instance, means a wooded rise, as in Brockenhurst
in the New Forest, whilst ley refers to
a meadow but can also mean a glade or forest clearing, as in Barnsley. The prefixes ac or acc denote oak woods (from acorn), as in Accrington or Acton,
whilst Ash refers to the ash tree, as
in Ashton under Lyme.
The suffixes shaw
and firth both mean wood, as in Openshaw and Holmfirth; the northern suffix Thwaite, as in Slaithwaite near Huddersfield is Old Norse for a forest clearing with a
dwelling. English settlements were hacked out of the woodlands, which provided
materials for buildings and implements as well as fuel for heating and cooking.
English surnames also tell the story. Coopers, Fletchers
and Carpenters
were all wood dependent tradesmen.
It was small wonder that when the Normans arrived and
annexed the woodland for their own profit and pleasure it caused such social
unrest. Forests had gained economic value early in Anglo-Saxon England- the
shrewd Landowner looked to own not just plough land but a water meadow and a
stretch of forest, for hunting in and as a source of timber. Land designated as
forest was not simply thick with trees; in between the copses or more extended
stretches of woodland proper was more open ground with shrubs and bushes.
From Tudor times onward another imperative added to forest
values; the demand for wood for ship-building. By Nelsons day building a large
man-of-war required the timber of two thousand trees, whilst some ship components,
such as masts and spars, required wood that had to be imported from the Baltic
countries. As the nineteenth century progressed another source of demand for timber
arose from the mining industry which needed it for pit props, firstly in the
tin mines and then in coal mines.
Alongside all this demand for wood was a greater threat to
the forest; rising population. Tudor England supported around eight million
people. By the Second World War the population of the United Kingdom was over
forty million whilst today it exceeds sixty million. As we saw from the
place-names, settlements were created through forest clearances. This tendency
accelerated with the industrial revolution until by the nineteen-twenties only 6%
of UK land area was under forest. Even though a large part of the clearances
had occurred in Roman times or even earlier, enough visible forest was lost from
1800 onwards for writers and artists such as Ruskin and William Morris to
lament its passing.
The taming of the landscape is the story of the changing way
we view the forest, from scary wild
place to source of resources to be managed, then nuisance to be cleared, then
idealised landscape to be re-created (think of the parks of Capability Brown),
and finally a lost Eden to be mourned.
Current realities
All of which brings us, slightly breathlessly, to the
present. Where do we stand today? Here
are some facts. Around 13% of the UK is under forestation, compared with France
at 31% and Germany at 32% whilst Sweden and Finland consist of 67% and 71%
forest cover respectively. That 12% hides a geographical imbalance; in England
it is 10%, whereas in Scotland it is 19%. The UK is one of the least forested
countries in Europe; the average for European countries is 31%.
The current ownership of these forests breaks down as
follows: 54% in private hands, 40% publically owned, 5% owned by charities and
local communities. Just 1% is owned by corporations. The generation of timber
for sale by these different ownership groups is perhaps surprising; 62% of
timber for sale comes from state-owned woodland, 36% from privately owned woods
and just 2% from company plantations. We can deduce from this that a large
proportion of privately owned woodland is being maintained as woodland habitat
first and foremost rather than as cash-generating timber forest. In this regard
it is significant that 90% of conifers are in Forestry Commission plantations.
The timber for sale purpose of much of our forest cover is
shown most starkly in the species breakdown. 56% of our trees are Sitka Spruce,
Scots Pine or other conifers, whilst broadleaf trees account for 44%. In other words
broadleaf trees make up just over 2/5ths of our total cover. By broadleaf we
mean, in addition to Oak, such trees as Ash, Elm, Yew, Sycamore, Beech, and
Birch. These are the traditional trees of England- when people think of a wood
this is what they envisage. It is the future of this kind of forest that people
are most passionate about.
So what of the future for this woodland? Let us begin with a
note of realism. We live in a heavily populated island. The highest figure I believe we could aspire
to in terms of forest cover is 20%. If that sounds optimistic, there are sound
reasons why it might be desirable or even necessary.
The timescale for this will of necessity be long-term. One
of the reasons for the spread of the Forestry Commission’s much maligned
conifer plantations was that they matured quickly and could be productive after
twenty years or so. Broadleaf woods need half a century to come to fruition.
This implies stability of tenure. It does not have to mean state ownership,
although this form of ownership does have the capacity to take the long view. Privately
owned forest in family ownership would also have this. It is also possible,
through the use of legal covenants and planning laws, to ensure policy
continuity for privately owned woodland.
I referred initially to ecological potential. Our forests
need to be mature, but not too mature. Forests have been described as CO²
sinks and so they are, but their capacity to be so declines as they mature. In
2005 the carbon capacity of our forests was estimated at 16 million tonnes, in
2010, projected to be 10 million tonnes, whilst by 2020, without new planting
it would have been only be 5 million tonnes. However there is cause for
optimism, the figure for 2018 was 20 million tonnes, reflecting successful new
planting. In 2014 the forest cover was 12%, giving a 1% increase over six
years. The recent Forestry Commission
report recommends 1 million hectares of new planting (which amounts to 4% of
land area) by 2050. This would reduce UK emissions by 15 million tonnes, which
is 10% of Parliaments target of 150 Million tonnes by 2050.
Creating new broadleaf woodlands would be expensive, at
around £41 per tonne of CO² captured. An alternative would be to mix broadleaf with
single species plantations of fast growing conifers for heating and electricity
generation, which would be partly self-financing. The main objection to this is
the lack of bio-diversity. I believe through study of naturally occurring
conifer woodland we could find a way of mitigating this.
A blueprint for the
future
Such umbrella projects, providing direction, advice and some
financing to a range of owners of existing or potential woodland, seems to me
to be the blueprint for the future. You don’t have to sign up to theories about
forest living being in our DNA from millions of years ago or believe in the
Green Man or Herne the Hunter to appreciate that access to woodland enriches
your life. At my Grandmother’s funeral my uncle spoke about how, in the 1950’s,
my grandparents had little money, but took their children out into the
countryside and taught them the names of all the trees and plants they came
across; a practice that they continued with my generation. Some of my earliest
memories of family Sunday afternoons are of trips to a place we called The
Grove, which I think was somewhere on the outskirts of Rendlesham Forest
in Suffolk. We climbed trees, kicked up
leaves and thrilled at the signs that said “beware of adders”. It was, for us
children, a magical place which fulfilled all those things I listed earlier.
There, we could be ourselves, overcome dangers, and form a life-long
appreciation of the value of nature.
As I write this, perennial uncertainty in the Middle East is
combining with continued demand for fuel from rapidly industrialising countries
such as India and China to increase our fuel costs and make us worry about
future supply, whilst natural disasters are forcing us to confront the
possibility that the climate is de-stabilising. The possibilities offered by
forests both to trap CO² and to provide carbon-neutral fuel should at least be looked at
with as much intensity as solar, wind and water options.
Much has been written about the twentieth century being the
American century and the twenty-first belonging to China. Let me offer an
alternative set of labels. The Twentieth century, thanks to the abundance of
oil, was the Plastic Century. When the oil runs out the viability of plastic as
the material of choice for many everyday objects must also be in doubt. In
addition to this the suitability of plastic for many items is under intense
scrutiny at present. We have a chance to
make the Twenty-First Century the Timber Century. As some-one who prefers
traditional wood over modern materials on aesthetic as well as environmental
grounds, I for one would not be displeased with that.
This is an extended and updated version of an article written and
submitted to the Independent Newspaper, who some years ago invited responses to
Government plans to sell off woodland. The original version was also published
on Linkedin. It is an entirely amateur response to the issue which I
nevertheless hope has some value as a discussion point. Some references and
links:
Inspirations and ideas around mythology and folklore:
Simon Schama: Landscape and Memory
Sir Walter Scott: The Black Arrow
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Edward Rutherford: The Forest
Sources for statistics:
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/1827/state-of-uk-forests.pdf
file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/ch4_climatechange_FS2018.pdf
