Oxfordshire Woodland Group

With the demise of the Oxford Woodland Project a new approach to helping woodland owners manage their woods now needs to be established.

The value of providing "advice" to woodland owners has now been proven to be of limited value in that for this to be effective it has to be accepted, adopted and then implemented by the owner.

Woodland owners come from very varied backgrounds with hugely disparit levels of management knowledge and so it is probably more important for those unsure about receiving and acting upon advice have the opportunity to see some of this advice in action.

In the case of small woodlands if an owner acts in haste then they may truly repent and regret their actions at liesure. A good start point might be to read Caring for Small Woods by Ken Broad who was the original Oxfordshire Woodland Project Manager.

We would now like woodland owners to come forward and volunteer to open their woodlands to Woodland Group members and subscribers in an endeavour to establish networked solutions to small woodland management issues.

From a personal perspective if I hear another woodland "adviser" mention manageing my woodland for the benefit of butterflies - I think that I will scream.

Ken Hume - Executive Trustee
Oxfordshire Woodland Group