This afternoon I was out with Greg Thexton of BIFF (Breadalbane Initiative for Farm Forestry), looking at woodland along the lower Lyon. We are gathering woodland management information as part of our survey, and we want to make the best possible use of this information. We were discussing some changes we could make to our survey sheet, gathering more information on volumes of timber that could be thinned. River-side woods are often inaccessible, either through ground conditions or steep slopes, and the timber itself can be low quality. As a result, many such woods are not thinned or managed, and this can have a detrimental effect on watercourses. Also, many local contractors will not invest in suitable equipment, because they do not know how much of this resource might be available. Working with BIFF, we will quantify this resource, and try to facilitate better ways of getting these river-side trees in to some sort of programme of sustainable management.
BIFF is a successful partnership between local farmers in the Breadalbane area, and Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), who employ Greg to carry out this sort of work. He can be contacted at the FCS offices in Perth, Tel: 01738 442 830.
1 comment:
Outstanding blog Victor. Keep it coming.
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