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Y
Cylch Coed
The
Tree Cycle
HARVESTING
Resource
The locality is rich in forest cover with much first class commercial timber. This is an important economic resource which could provide the raw material for all our local timber requirements.
Present situation
Thinnings are often late, leading to premature clear felling. Contractors operate under competitive tendering systems benefiting neither the environment nor themselves. Trends are towards large, expensive, environmentally unfriendly machines with minimal benefit for local communities; the onus is on speed rather than quality. There is a lack of long term vision in restocking and a lack of continuity and security of work. More experienced, older contractors using traditional and proven harvesting methods are being forced out of the industry and their skills are being lost.
Intention
Local teams of contractors manage small plantations, currently only marginally economical or even non-economical. Management operates from first thinnings onwards in continuous rotation (perpetual cycle management) generating a consistent flow of timber. Harvesting teams take responsibility for their own areas of forest, thus encouraging a sense of stewardship, best practice and management for the future. Harvested timber is of high value (for buildings, furniture).
Community involvement through branch members allows for specific harvesting for specific tasks (such as an item of furniture or repairs to a fence) and harvesting at many levels (jam from soft fruit, bees). The harvesting branch benefits from careful planting designs (such diversity of tree size within the plantation, creating denser timber for specific uses, multiple yields etc.) and supplies the processing branch and some workshops directly.
Summary points