Social science

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.

Virtual forest tour

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.

Horses

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.

Mountain biking

Have you watched our videos about Forestry Civil Engineering? Well this is one of the benefits of the work they do - mountain biking trails! Forests are very important to recreation, heath and tourism as well as being 'factories' for growing wood. If you live in Scotland check out 7stanes.