CCFG visit to Castle Hills and Nutwood, near Leeds, West Yorkshire

Please arrive at 9.30am so that we can start promptly at 10.00am

Themes: PAWS sites and productive coppice management

• Castle Hills PAWS site – owned by Leeds City Council
• Nutwood – privately owned Ancient Semi Natural Woodland
• Local co-oprative – Leeds Coppice Workers
• The day will offer the chance to explore coppice restoration and productive coppice management as well as discussing other PAWS restoration considerations amongst different compartments.
• Your guide for the day will be Tom Coxhead, Chair of the National Coppice Federation.

The visit details

Meeting point

Mickelfield MX Track

On arrival, drive underneath the bridge and park on the left hand side as close as possible to other vehicles due to limited parking space.

Google pin: https://maps.app.goo.gl/XifDMkEh41Nbv15p7

What to bring: Outdoor clothing and rugged cleaned footwear.

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 16th October with Kate Holl and Tom Crowther, a recording has now been made available on  YouTube which you can view using this link. 

CCFG will be hosting their next webinar – Why do we need to be concerned about deer? – with David Jam – on Thursday 20th November at 4pm GMT. 

Summary of presentation:

• • • • • • • • • • • Why we are where we are
                    • What is the current situation with wild deer in the UK?
                    • How big is the risk
                    • What are their impacts?
                    • Some case studies

 

 

David has over 35 years’ experience within forestry and deer management, at a practitioner, operational and strategic level within the public and private sector.

He is based in Herefordshire but has a national remit. 

His experience has included:

• Forestry Contractor
• Forest manager (Harvesting and Establishment)
• Wildlife manager and National Wildlife Lead
• Deer Officer and Director Deer Initiative Ltd
• National Deer Policy Advisor Forest Services/Forestry Commission

 

His current remit includes:

• Embedding deer into current and future policy, guidance and incentives to support increased levels of deer control
• Provision of advice to DEFRA and other government departments.
• Increasing Sector skills and capacity
• Developing the evidence base
• Improving the venison supply chain
• Development of the England Deer Strategy/Action plan as part of governments Environmental Improvement Plan.
• Commissioning evidence gathering and research.
• Leading the FC Deer Officer team, setting regional and national priorities related to protecting woodland creation and the management of existing woodlands.
• Representing Forestry Commission on national stakeholder groups
• A director of Deer Management Qualifications Ltd (DMQ)

 

To book your place please visit this link. 

 

CCFG visit to Gwydir Forest, Gwynedd

Please arrive at 9.30am so that we can start promptly at 10.00am

Themes: Continuous cover forestry in Gwydir Forest

• Artist’s Wood research
• New Forest Resource Plan
• Contractor availability
• Champion trees

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. 

CCFG will be hosting their next webinar – Woodland Ecosystems and Carbon – with Tom Crowther and Kate Holl – on Thursday 16th October at 4pm BST. 

The relationship between woodland ecosystems and carbon is a complicated but increasingly important one, with many European countries now proritising sustainable forest management as a way of building resilience to climate change and pests and diseases. Our autumn webinar will be a fascinating discussion with Thomas Crowther and Kate Holl.

Thomas Ward Crowther is a professor of ecology and the founding co-chair of the advisory board for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. He is the head of Crowther Lab, an interdisciplinary research group exploring the role of biodiversity in regulating Earth’s climate. In 2020 he founded Restor, an international organization that supports hundreds of thousands of local community-restoration initiatives across the globe. He was a finalist in Prince William’s earthshot prize, and the world economic forum recognized him as a young global leader for his contributions to global nature conservation.

Kate Holl has been a woodland advisor with NatureScot and its predecessors for almost 40 years, specialising in assessing woodland habitat condition, particularly the evaluation of herbivore impacts in natural woodland. She is a joint author of the Woodland Herbivore Impact Assessment method, and in 2017 under a Churchill Fellowship, travelled widely within the North Eastern Atlantic bioregion to learn about the flora of woodlands less impacted by herbivores.

 

To book your place please visit this link. 

Abbey St Bathans, Berwickshire

Hosted by Ellinor Dobie

Themes for the day

• Transformation of scattered estate woodland to CCF
• Impact of Storm Arwen
• Management of woodlands using estates team and equipment
• Integration of estate sawmill and woodland management

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. 

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 9^th 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. 

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. 

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!).

• • Hazel Cowan has been a forest manager for over 25yrs working mainly in the 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.
  • Andrew Leslie is a forestry educator and researcher with more than thirty five 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.
  • David Pengelly is a fellow of the ICF. Having worked in the 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

Transforming productive coniferous woodland with forest health and drought risks

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.