We go into 2006 with our new Patron, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. Peter, our Trustees and I, regard this as a tremendous accolade and a vote of confidence in our work to date and a vindication of our founding principles.
This is going to be a year of progress. We have already made major strides towards reinventing our website, which we intend to be highly interactive. It is very much your website and one of its major features will be a Members’ Market Place allowing you to buy and sell trees and timber – hopefully “locally grown and locally used”. We will also promote your services, products and courses.
Further, we intend to have a members’ knowledge forum, which will facilitate and draw on the information, advice and extraordinary knowledge that our collective membership possesses. Please, give us your views – what else could we offer?
International Dimension:
Forestry and our environment are global issues and the UK cannot afford to be isolationist in its outlook. Hence, you will see our international dimension reflected again in our Journal this year. You can read articles by our sponsored Champions who have visited Croatia, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Denmark, California and Switzerland.
Many people talk about diversity, but I believe that we really do embrace the concept of learning good practice from other cultures around the globe (page 8 Ted Wilson’s article).
“Right Tree – Right Place – Right Reason”
Wherever I go, I see the Wrong Trees planted in the Wrong Place, for the Wrong Reasons – with little chance of survival. Our caption (above) is echoed on our planting leaflet and reflects Woodland Heritage thinking.
Accordingly, we have produced a third pocket guide in our series, about planting trees…. properly ! We are indebted to the three authors for this publication and as a valued member, your copy is enclosed.
However, we are not just about planting trees, we are also committed to education and fostering good practice, wherever it can be found.
I feel that Woodland Heritage is now set for a period of rapid and sustained growth, but I can assure you that we will not lose sight of our basic principles, nor the resonance that we have with our membership.
We continue to be a “broad church” that unites tree growers with wood users. Increasingly, we are supported not only by corporate members wishing to “put something back” into the environment, but also countless individual members who care about trees and our most beautiful renewable natural resource, that is “wood”.
Lewis J. Scott – Editor