Timber

 

The quantities of timber that have been extracted from the forest this year is staggering. Forestry tracks lined with stack after stack of cut and graded timber. The face of the harvested parts of the forest has been transformed, with all the coniferous wood removed, leaving only the occasional isolated deciduous clumps and individual trees, it's difficult to orientate yourself. The purpose? Beyond the harvest, which will be very lucrative in itself, is to restore the forest to its' more open nature by reintroducing pockets of heathland and open woodland grazing.

Replanting

I'd imagined that the harvesting of conifer stands in Brock Hill and Vinney Ridge enclosures was motivated by restoration of woodland pasture, but some stands are already being replanted with oaks in the case of the tubes I looked down. Of course that doesn't meant this isn't part the woodland pasture program, restoring deciduous woodland is part of it. More broadly, the amount of forestry work going on a round the forest is on a scale I can't remember, nowhere appears to have escaped the woodmans' axe.

Mucky work

Timber extraction is a messy business at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. The unseasonal wet has really softened up the forest; it's like walking on a sodden sponge, easily churned up by heavy forestry machinery, broad tracks of deep ruts and mucky puddles quickly form.

Self sufficiency

 

I've noticed from the labels on new gates that the gates had been fabricated in Frome, some way from the forest, and I can't understand why. After all the bulk of woodland in the New Forest is managed for timber, you'd have thought it would be easy to be self sufficient where timber products were concerned; and if not why not. They grow many of the raw materials on site, for negligible price. For me this type of thing is indicative of how we got to where we are. The New Forest shouldn't be an importer of timber products, if anything it should be exporter; the forest should become a hub of sustainable and sensitively managed production, and the preservation and continuation of traditional skills. I can't think of anything greener. 

Now you see them...

Now you see them, soon you wont. When I've seen change in the forest I've often thought...'I should've taken a before shot'; this time I have. Walking up the gravelled forestry track through Roe enclosure from Greenford Bottom we periodically saw cleared and marked areas on the side of the track, cleared in preparation for harvested timber to be stacked; felling was about to take place, and this block of conifers in the Bratley Plain corner of Roe being freshly marked (notice the pink spots) are prime candidates. There are quite a number of deciduous trees within the block, and I imagine they'll survive the cull, creating a nice block of open woodland.

Express yourself

Youth expressing themselves, leaving their marks on a stack of harvested timber in Ferny Knapp enclosure. Although in two separate places on an extensive stack, both sets would appear to be made by the same six individuals; one jokey, one proper. D of E hikers I reckon, it's the right size group, and I can't imagine you getting that many young folk out into the forest any other way. Bless 'em.

Makers mark

I'm certain I've seen this mark elsewhere in the forest, though not over this side of the forest; I think it's a forestry or Admiralty mark. The Admiralty marks are usually broad arrows, so the former is most likely, similar vintage though. This piece is old (for tree graffiti, anyway), a hundred and fifty years or more, maybe; New Copse was enclosed in 1808, and this Beech is a old enough to originate then, and would have been marked when it reached an appropriate size. Most of the trees of a similar age in this block of woodland within the enclosure would have been harvested during World War One, replaced initially by fast growing (30/35 years cropping) conifers and subsequently by what are now juvenile Beech. I'm not sure whether the timber man, marked selected individual trees or so many in a area to claim it.  If they are associated with the Admiralty, technology overtook them and although chosen for great voyages, it was not to be, and many of the forests mighty deciduous trees ended up underground as pit props. As you walk through the different enclosures you still see several marks replicated, as well as plenty of Admiralty arrows; I'd imagine before the two world wars you'd have seen a lot more.

Cash Crop

They're cropping the mature coniferous trees in a corner of Burley New enclosure know as Great Early. Burley New was enclosed in 1810, though these conifers are a much later introduction, planted after the primary timber had been cropped. When you're used to the forest looking a certain way big chunks suddenly missing are a bit of a shock. That's the thing about the New Forest though, it's a living thing, it's not a historical scene set in aspic, it's a working and evolving landscape.  Always changing, either moving forward with new cash crops to be planted, or travelling backwards restoring streams, encouraging the re-establishment of rare bog woodland and returning some former plantations back to open heath. I wonder what they'll do with this piece of land next?  I noticed they've left the few scattered deciduous trees in situ.