……and for those of you who have been patiently visiting the site over a period of months and each time found that it was still ‘Coming Soon’ – our apologies, we had hoped to be up and running sooner. However the delay is in part a reflection on how busy the woodland crofts ‘scene’ has become generally.
We hope however it will be worth the wait, and will be a useful resource for those interested on woodland crofts and wider small-scale & family forestry. We plan to add to the site over coming months and therefore welcome any suggestions or feedback via the contact form.
In addition we aim to make the blog required reading: we set ourselves the challenge of being interesting, topical, and yes, a wee bit provocative at times. That however simply reflects the times we live in – where new problems and challenges require new approaches not business as usual. And to make sure our lofty aspirations do not slip, we have enabled comments on the site – to allow the opportunity for an instant ‘reality check’!
Enjoy reading – and come back soon.
I am very interested in this and its possibilities. I wish you all the best. Please keep me informed. I do hope one day to manage a woodland croft, how cool would that be. What an inspiration for every Scot. Mixed woodland for me haha , kind regards Jim Dallas
oh and a facebook would be cool eh
Jim, thanks for the comments. As to Facebook, we’ll bear it in mind, but Twitter and this website have been a steep learning curve for a woodsman and we should perhaps consolidate these before extending things further!
Although self employed I am currently taking a permaculture design course which I find to be very rewarding. Ultimately I intend to live an outdoor lifestyle in a self sustainable manner and have met many people who are doing this in some style.Forest Gardening being the ultimate in self sustainable living where if a suitable forest area is not available then we must survey,assess,plan and design to create such an environment ourselves.
I am grateful to the gallant pioneers and realise that I am standing on the shoulders of giants who have come before me.
This site could be a great resource for me and I look forward to its progress.
Best
Andy
Thanks Andy.
We do hope that in time this site will evolve and be not only a source of factual information, but become a focal point for a ‘community of interest’ who believe in the merits of an alternative approach to managing woodlands.
In this however we recognise that really all we are doing is doing is highlighting what is common elsewhere in the world, and perhaps the first lessons we can learn are not just from home-grown ‘pioneers’ but from the example of millions of people in other countries whose lives are directly supported by their woodlands.
Saw some nice examples of community interests by the mountain men in the Drau Valley in Carinthia district in Austria.
Wasn’t terribly impressed by the coed project in Wales, other than that I am a complete newbie. Learning nice strategy and technique at the permaculture design course, all of which will be required to resuscitate land which has been abused over the last 4 or 5 decades as far as I have seen.
For every problem there is a solution. Hoping to visit a few places with my gf at Easter time.
Ty
Andy
This is great! Good to see you up and running. This type of change in woodland regeneration and resource utilisation via a peopled landscape is long overdue! It would be fantastic to see this take off in the crofting region, (and rolled out UK wide) a pioneering attitude to regeneration is needed and it would be comforting to see local people and communities back and in charge of their trees and woodland.
Woodland crofts are a fantastic opportunity to bring many different goals under one umbrella. Restoration of soil fertility, productive woodland, increased biodiversity, employment, housing, heating, food……the list goes on. Woodland economy should be the heart of every community across the UK.
The early stages of this seem promising to say the least and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Thanks Ian – you have hit the nail on the head, woodland crofts are very much about ‘forestry for people’ or ‘family forestry’, and diverse and enhanced benefits should be generated by the level of management input that will be typical on a woodland croft.
Nice one Ian, I have spotted derelict land in carntyne and my dream is to create an urban forest garden to educate east end kids on the strategy you mention and highlight the hugely underestimated benefit a good diet can have in your health.
I am having trouble joining this organisation online, canny get the application form to work online?
Any tips ?
Andy
If your main interest is in forest gardens you may wish to have a look at: http://scottishforestgarden.wordpress.com/ if you haven’t previously seen it.
Note that at present there is no organisation specifically for woodland crofts that you can join. The form available on this site is to register interest in a woodland croft and more detail about this is given on the relevant page and on the form itself. Currently it is not available to complete online – you can download Word or PDF versions and return by e-mail or post once completed.