New Hall Farms wood blog
Having seen just how uncomfortable it is to be at the mercy of oil producers living thousands of miles away, the only sensible option for many people is to choose a carbon-neutral fuel that can have a real benefit and impact on the surrounding countryside and if we act sensibly, can be sourced locally from people who may well be neighbours, and who will contiribute emencely to the local economy
Ensuring that there is enough quality, seasoned wood to go around is becoming trickier . "If we don't manage woodlands, they become inaccessible to human beings, and instead of supporting a whole array of plants, including bluebells, we get nothing but oak trees that can't easily be converted into fuel.
Important start
While this represents less than 50% of the potential unharvested firewood already available in privately owned English woodlands, "it is an important start
The commission controls just 827,000 hectares of British woodland - compared with the 2m hectares owned by the private sector, the Crown, local authorities, big government departments and charities - the current problem of scarcity cannot be laid at the commission's door. "They harvest 99% of their woodland because they believe that this is the best way of both protecting and utilising it,"But until the private sector wakes up to the fact that wood can be a valuable product, under-supply will remain a problem."
Convinced that the new love affair with wood is a long-term phenomenon rather than a temporary dalliance, the government's current woodfuel strategy for England aims to bring another 2m green tonnes of wood to the market by 2020 - enough to heat around 250,000 homes.
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