One of my passions in life is getting people back into the woods. It is so important, not only to encourage people to spend time out side, and away from cities, but also to get people working outside.
As a consumer culture we often experience the woods as just another nice day out. But this kind of relationship can create a sense of seperation from our enviroment and bring on feelings of detachment. We become outsiders peering into an alien landscape meant for other living things that we call ‘nature’. What we seem to have forgotten however, is that we are part of that natural environment! Before the onset of agriculture, and more recently indistrial civilisation, the woodland was our home for thousands, if not millions of years. But fear not. This sense of oneness returns when one engages directly with the woodland environment through hard graft. The primal instinct and ancient connection reemerges.
With this all in mind it was an absolute delight to put on my first community coppicing event. For one unusually sunny February day 14 people had a chance to get their hands dirty and bring light and warmth back to the woodland floor, as has been done so previously for centuries.
Even better was the attendence of a local scout troop! In the era of ipads and social media it was encouraging to see the focus and enthusiam of these children as they engaged directly with the work. They loved it so much they were keen to know when they could come back again! And, with the help of the other adults, all children left with complete sets of fingers, which I was very pleased about indeed.
Coppicing is a perfect way to get people back into the woodlands and learning how important it is to manage this type ecosystem. A coppice expects to be cut, and the more we leave them to overgrow the more, ironically, we damage the environment. A coppice also lends itself well to volunteer work because of the simplicity of the work and the tools that are used. Anyone who can use a pruning saw and some loppers can get involved. And the more we get people involved the more we can send out the message that we have a great solution to managing our woodlands in a sustainable way and providing our communities with amazing, high quality wood based products.
