Pine regeneration at Thetford. Photo: Lucie Jerabkova
Our latest newsletter has just been finalised and added to our website. You can read about last autumn’s field visits and study tour, a range of updates from the Chair and Committee, news about Chad Oliver and an interview with Arne Pommerening.
Thanks to a recent decision at our AGM, our newsletter is now available for all to read, not only members, and you can find it on the website under Resources.
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Stourhead Estate, Wiltshire
By Kind permission of Nick C Hoare
THEME:
Moving the forest towards its full potential in the face of climate change, ensuring it is sustainable, both biologically and financially, and resilient in the long term.
The day will include an introduction to Stourhead forest, and discussion on forest resilience, sustainability, irregular silviculture, biodiversity in irregular conifer dominated forest and forest monitoring. For more details of the theme, the estate and the planned visit, please use this link.
Rendezvous time – 9.30 hrs, Friday 9th May 2025
Meeting point – Main National Trust Stourhead Carpark, Stourton, Warminster BA12 6QF
Please park vehicles in the overflow carpark at the back, indicated by following in-carpark CCFG signs.
Carpark facilities – There are National Trust toilets and a café at the carpark.
Vehicle consolidation – After an introduction, attendees will need to please share vehicles from here, thereby minimising in-forest traffic. The tour will take place in the main Stourhead Forest (within 6km). Metalled tracks are suitable for cars driven slowly (avoid cars with low sumps).
What to bring – Suitable in-forest footwear and waterproofs. For biosecurity, please ensure footwear is clean before arrival.
Lunch and drink – As we will be picnicking in the forest, please bring your own lunch, drink and snack requirements. We will NOT be returning to the National Trust Stourhead Carpark at lunch time. There will be a portaloo located near to the lunch stop in the forest.
Finish time – Back to the National Trust Stourhead Carpark by 16.00 hrs.
Booking – is essential. To allow for good discussion and facilitate logistics, places at the meeting will be limited in number. Priority will be given to CCFG members, and there will be a waiting list if numbers exceed this so please let us know if you cannot make it. To book, please click this link.
For any queries, please contact Polly Spencer-Vellacott, CCFG Administrator.
Following a webinar on 23rd January with Alex Held, a recording has now been made available on YouTube which you can view using this link.
A chat file from the event can be viewed here.
CCFG will be hosting their next webinar – Biomass – Fuel – Silviculture: The role of CCF in fire prevention- with Alex Held – on Thursday 23rd January 2025 4-5.30pm.
Weather permitting, all biomass can become fuel for a wildfire. Fire spread is determined by the fire behaviour influencing factors: weather, topography, and fuels. While we foresters cannot modify weather nor topography, biomass (fuel) we can indeed modify and with this have positive or negative influence on fire spread, fire intensity and its severity and negative effects. CCF is providing a toolbox of silvicultural measures to increase our forests resilience in that regard.
Alexander Held holds an MSc in Forest Science from 
Freiburg University, Germany. He started as a fire ecologist at the Fire Ecology working group of the Max-Planck Society, got a number of operational qualifications in the US and South Africa. He moved from fire ecology to fire management and worked with the Global Fire Monitoring Center GFMC in Europe and Southern Africa. Later, Alex worked with the South African Working on Fire Program, from its early beginnings till 2012, when he joined EFI.
At EFI, Alex works on the current project Waldbrand-Klima-Resilienz, where the exchange of expertise and knowledge, mutual assistance and cooperation in Europe is the tool to create more resilient landscapes and better-informed fire management for Germany. His expertise is in fire management, silviculture and deer management for resilient forests.
See examples of Alex’s work in media here.
To book your place please visit this link.
The Royal Scottish Forestry Society has announced that they will be 
publishing an important long-term research study on the survival of the Caledonian pinewood by CCFG’s former Chair, Bill Mason will be in their journal Scottish Forestry.
Bill had submitted the paper before his death earlier this year, and his colleagues have completed the final edits.
Following the second session of CCFQT, Continuous Cover Forestry Question Time, chaired by Jonny Hulson and featuring Hazel Cowan, Andrew Leslie and David Pengelly, a recording has now been made available on YouTube which you can view using this link.
A chat file from the event can be viewed here.
)))))))Continuous Cover Forestry Question Time – CCFQT2
Please join us for our second online CCF question time on Thursday 21st November at 4pm. Our Chair, Jonny Hulson, will be joined by a panel of foresters: Hazel Cowan, Andrew Leslie and David Pengelly. The panel members will reply to questions about any aspect of CCF. The questions can either be provided in advance or posted during the session (the panel would appreciate some advance notice of as many questions as possible!).
north of Scotland on private estates for Cawdor Forestry Ltd. She has been fortunate to have worked in forests where she has been able to practice CCF, almost exclusively with Scots pine using group selection systems or strip felling. Hazel has learnt that CCF requires a lot of patience and that you don’t always get it right first time! She’s also starting to underplant larch and initiate regeneration of Douglas fir.
years’ experience across a range of jobs and countries. He has managed silvicultural research in the UK and in Somalia, Lesotho, Vanuatu and Guyana covering natural forest through to plantations and temperate to tropical and across a range of different cultural environments. Currently Andrew is part of a team at Forest Research conducting silvicultural and wood properties research, with specific responsibility for CCF, short rotation forestry and species mixtures. For twenty four years he led the development and management of undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in forestry, delivered through part-time, distance-learning and full-time teaching at the National School of Forestry.
industry since the 1980’s and operated as an independent manager and consultant since 1997, he has considerable experience in a broad range of forestry related issues. David’s client base includes large estates, voluntary organisations, public sector and smaller privately owned woodlands, covering a range of forest and woodland types. David has particular expertise in timber harvesting and marketing. He is a director of SelectFor Ltd and Partner of D&H Pengelly Forestry & Agi-environment Consultants. David is responsible for several properties where owners’ objectives are met through the long-term application of Continuous Cover Forestry principles, resulting in the emergence of well-developed permanently irregular stand structures.This is a second event along the lines of the previous event held in March this year, with a slightly longer timeslot. Booking is essential, please use this link.
Thetford forest, East Anglia
Thetford forest, managed by Forestry England (FE), is the largest pine plantation in England. The fact that it was established in a relatively short period of time, just over 100 years ago, almost exclusively with Scots and later Corsican pine shapes the forest today and underlies many of the issues threatening its future thriving.
This site visit will feature large-scale underplanting as a way to transform even-aged coniferous monocultures. We will visit sites at different stages of the underplanting process to showcase and discuss operational considerations of species choice, site preparation and ongoing management of the underplanted sites; explaining what the main catalyst for larger scale underplanting was, why underplanting was chosen as the main method, and what the main operational considerations and ways to addressed them have been.
We plan to visit Forest Research (FR) operational trial testing growth of a wide range of tree species in the open and understory conditions. Chris Reynolds (FR) will walk us through the design, goals and the first outcomes of this trial.
FE foresters promise to share a comprehensive picture of their rationale, evidence, practical considerations and long-term plans and look forward to discussing principles and application of CCF in the context of forest health, soil, climate and herbivore pressures.
Meeting point (to be confirmed): Santon Downham Forestry England – parking lot.
The tour will take place in the main block of Thetford forest, further details to be confirmed.
What to bring
PPE Boots suitable for rough ground and waterproofs. For biosecurity, please ensure that your footwear is clean before arrival.
Lunch and drink: Bring your own food and drink for lunch and snacks.
Finish
By around 4.00pm
Booking
Essential. To allow for good discussion and facilitate logistics, the meeting will be limited to 30 people. There will be a waiting list if numbers exceed this so please let us know if you cannot make it. To book, please follow this link.
