Geoffrey Sinclair argues that the most effective way to promoting local wood consumption is from the bottom up.

Most gardeners these days grow their runner beans up bamboo poles. The beanpole is the simplest woodland product and is required in vast numbers every year by gardeners. There can be no better indicator of the sad state of the British woodland industry than our inability to supply these twigs from our own woods, rather than importing them from China. Unfortunately it is not just beanpoles. I have come across sparmakers in Wiltshire and Dorset, the heart of the hazel industry, who are importing hazel from Poland! Until we can supply our own twigs without going to China or Poland the woodland industry has little prospect of successfully tackling the 'bigger' marketing challenges it faces today.

Think globally, act locally

In global terms, our woods are economically insignificant. In many ways, England, Scotland and Wales as nations are as much small woodland owners as individual member of the Small Woods Association. Both as individual woodland owners and nations, we rarely see the global market place as providing a "sensible" wood gate price for wood and timber. Our insignificant role in the global wood economy, in terms of supply, ensures that this situation will not change. So, if we desire a productive future for our woodlands, we need first to look to markets on our own doorstep for the solutions.

Promoting a "local wood" consumer culture

Working with local markets to promote woodland industries is not a new venture. However, efforts tend to focus on trying to establish "new" local markets such as wood energy plants or on encouraging "new" people to start businesses. This focus on the new leads us to overlook existing opportunities and enterprises. I believe the efforts to encourage new businesses may weaken existing enterprises through destabilising prices for products and raw materials.

What is really needed is a "bottom-up" development of the markets for woodland products. In particular we need to:

     Develop a "local wood" product consumer culture to expand markets for local wood products.
     Improve "capacity" in order to supply the products that people need from existing woodland businesses.

With these basics in place, we will have a robust foundation from which to build a more diverse and sustainable woodland industry in Britain.

The Allotment Forestry Project in Ipswich attempts to foster a local wood consumer culture by encouraging gardeners to not only use local beanpoles and peasticks but also to grow their own as well. This we are doing on disused allotments and on working plots. We also produce a local and national internet woodland product directory as well as fact sheets on growing and using local wood products in the garden, see www.allotmentforestry.com.

In addition to growing and using local wood produced on allotments, the Ipswich Project also recognises the importance of wood "gleaned" from other sources. Traditionally, local people were able to gather wood products from their surrounding hedges and small woodland plots. While traditional use rights have been lost, new opportunities are developing and should be promoted. These opportunities include:

Conservation volunteering: These groups work in woodland and on other sites and can allow volunteers to take wood home.

Allotments: Derelict allotments can provide cheap opportunities for people to obtain wood. For a peppercorn annual rent, the typical 10-rod allotment plot will allow you to grow at least 200 hazel plants as coppice or 200 Norway spruce as Christmas trees.

Recycling: "Gleaning" wood from others' waste is a less obvious but very important part of restoring a local wood using economy.

These ways of expanding individual opportunities to grow and use or reuse wood are important if people are to become directly involved in woodland management, all be it on a small scale.

The vision of the Ipswich Allotment Forest Project is to enable people to gain access to the wood resource that exists, or could be grown, on their doorstep. Encouraging a "local wood" consumer culture will create opportunities for existing, and ultimately new, wood industries and put people back in touch with their environment to the benefit of all, including the bamboo eating pandas in China!

Geoff Sinclair is a forester in Essex responsible for the management 2000 acres of woodland. For the last seven years he has been working as a volunteer with Ipswich Wildlife Group and Ipswich Organic Gardeners Group as part of the Allotment Forestry Project.

Published in Small Woods Magazine Summer 2002