As well as the natural sciences, like biology, chemistry and physics, forestry involves the social sciences - the study of human behaviour and society. Forests provide many important benefits to people and communities.
Social forestry is the study of things like:
How people interact with forests
How foresters can improve engagement with local communities
How forests support employment and rural economies
How forests contribute to health and wellbeing
As a public body, the Forestry Commission has been particularly active in this area, but private forestry companies also make use of social forestry.
Forests and climate change are very closely linked, but in ways that are not generally well understood by the public. The science is complex and interconnected and often you hear only one side of the story. Fortunately the Forestry Commission has recently released a video that covers the subject in a very clear and balanced way. It also tackles a few widely believed myths too. I challenge you to watch it and see if it doesn't tell you something that surprises you.
The reality is that human impact on forests is both a problem and a solution - and that we need science to tell us what the consequences of our actions are. If you are thinking of a science or engineering based career that helps save the planet you couldn't do much better than working in the forestry and timber.
Forests are vast sinks of the greenhouse gas CO2 but they offer so much more - from renewable energy to low carbon building materials...just so long as they are sustainably managed. The challenge for foresters is to use science to understand both the effect of forestry on climate change ...and the effect of climate change on forestry.
It's December so a good time talk about science of Christmas trees.
Apart from looking and smelling wonderful, real trees use fewer materials and less energy to grow than artificial trees take to make...and if you recycle the tree afterwards (which you should) it can be turned into useful compost.
There are three main groups of plants that produce woody material:
Softwoods like pine and spruce
Hardwoods like oak and ash
And woody monocots like bamboo and palm
This classification is botanical and has nothing to do with the hardness of the wood material (or any other mechanical property). Unless you're going to be particularly unusual this year, you'll be wanting a softwood as your Christmas tree...a cone shaped tree with needles.
Trees can be known by a common name and by a scientific name.
Common names differ around the world – even between English speaking countries. For example, the timbers known as redwood in North America (chiefly sequoia) are not the same as the timber known as redwood in Europe (Scots pine). This is why it is useful to use scientific (botanical) names in addition to the common name to avoid potential confusion.
Botanical names have two parts. The first word denotes the genus (family) and the second word denotes the species. The name is normally written in italics.
So types of wood that have the same genus name (e.g. Picea sitchensis and Picea abies) can be seen to belong to the same family...in this case spruces (Sitka spruce and Norway spruce).
These days there are lots of different species of christmas tree to choose from. Here are a few examples...
Norway Spruce (Picea abies) is the traditional Christmas tree in the UK. It has a mid-green colour, a fine delicate foliage and a rich Christmassy scent. While fine in the chilly halls of Victorian times, it tends to drop its needles in modern centrally heated houses. Although we call it Norway Spruce the tree is native to a wide area including central and southern Europe, southern Scandinavia and the Balkans. This is also an important timber tree for the UK and is used to make timber framed houses. Mature trees grow about 35-50 metres tall.
Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) is the traditional North American Christmas tree. It has the advantage that it keeps its needles well so long as you keep the tree from drying out. The downside is that the needles are pin sharp. If you like your tree to be more tree than decorations this is a good one to go for as it tends to have lots of tightly packed branches. Scots pine is certainly not limited to Scotland...it has the widest natural range of any pine, growing right across northern Europe and Asia. This is also an important timber tree for the UK and is used to make timber framed houses. Mature trees grow about 25 to 35 metres tall.
Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta) has a cheerful yellowish green colour, and a sharp fragrance. It is native to the Rocky Mountains in North America and was introduced into the UK in 1855 because growers liked its ability to grow well on poor wet soils and its resistance to pests.
Korean Fir (Abies koreana) is a tree native to Korea that was introduced into the UK in 1913. Mature trees are relatively small, growing only about 10 metres in height. It has a bright silver undersides to the leaves, white buds and grows tightly packed branches making it an attractive choice.
UPM's Forest Life is a really beautiful combination of Flash, still photography, video and audio. It takes you on a tour of a Finnish forest looking at trees, plants, animals and people. Find out about how forests are managed sustainably for different purposes and how there is much more to a forest than just the trees.
The UK's multipurpose forests provide environmentally friendly materials for all sorts of things and there are a vast array of different types of job out there.
"National tree week" starts today and runs until the 2nd of December. The Tree Council has organised several events around the UK celebrating trees and planting new ones.
If you want to know how to identify some of the trees that grow in the UK from their leaves you can play Kerf's leaf quiz on the main firrs website. There are more identification guides over at the Woodland Trust's Nature Detectives.
Tree planting is a great team building and feelgood activity to do in schools...and it goes on all over the world. This is a video made by a school in Costa Rica.
Trees can be planted as seeds, as small saplings, or as young trees several metres tall. Remember, although larger trees give instant satisfaction they also weigh more. It's also good to have a bit of expert advice to make sure the trees thrive and you know how to look after them.
You can still join in even if you don't have much outdoor space ....you can plant a tree as a bonsai.
This video from Greenpeace has a forceful message. It asks the question:
"Why destroy ancient forests for wood and paper, when it can all come from responsibly logged timber?"
Why indeed.
Well one reason this happens is that many people don't really understand how they can choose wood products that are environmentally sustainable - and come from properly managed forests. There is good wood and bad wood and we all need to understand the difference. Check out the certification schemes like FSC and look for the logos. Buying certified wood is a good thing...it encourages people to look after their forests.
Some of the UK's forests were created hundreds of years ago as places for the rich to ride their horses...and now anybody can do it.
There are several jobs involved in working with horses in the forest and maintaining the bridalways. For small tree harvesting operations and tree thinning it is often best to use the traditional methods of horse logging. Horse loggers can move up to 10 tonnes of timber in a day leaving hardly a trace, and making hardly a sound. The big shire horses work best on flat lowland forests, while forests with hills and steep banks require smaller, more agile, horses. Horses are also used to move materials and equipment and to control invasive weeds like brambles and bracken.
Think you know what a lumberjack is? A big guy with a beard, a checked shirt and an axe? Possibly saving girls in red hoods from wolves dressed as grandmothers? Well think again...
For starters the people (men and women) who take down the trees are called loggers or harvesters...and its all part of forest management, which also includes tree planting, silviculture, landscaping and a range of other 'forest operations'.
Technology has changed the job considerably from the days of yore. Chainsaws started to replace axes back in the 1920s, but these days most of the trees grown for timber in countries like the UK are felled by machines a bit like the ones you see on construction sites. These machines can cut a tree, strip the branches and cut the logs to length in a matter of seconds...plus they have a lot of other fancy gadgets too...like GPS to locate the trees marked for felling. Other types of specialised machines are used to get the logs to the road and on to the sawmills.
All this is done while causing minimum damage to the forest floor and to young trees. The forest owners don't want their future timber crops to be put at risk...or any income they get from other uses of the forests such as recreation and tourism.
This is another film from the excellent Prelinger Archive. This one was made in 1954 and looks at the job of the forest ranger in the USA. Again, you might recognise parts we used for our own videos.
Notice how the forests are talked about as a resource...but also how emphasis is placed on sustainable forestry and protection of the environment...even back in the 50s! Notice also how they stress the importance of avoiding forest fires. Back then many people smoked and lots of fires were started accidentally. Forest fires are still a big issue...all over the world (the UK included).
This blog is dedicated to finding videos on the web about trees and timber - from the forest to construction. Use the labels below to look up the subjects that interest you ...or simply browse through the archive of posts. Don't forget to check out the main firrs website.
This blog is part of the firrs project at Napier University. Our project aims to tell people about the forest and timber industries in the hope that better knowledge about it will mean more people considering careers related to it. We are part funded by the European Social Fund, and have also received sponsorship from the Forestry Commission and the Scottish Forestry Trust. We are also very grateful for the in-kind support we have been given since the project began.
