To Value a Landscape, You Must Also Value the Forester, Arboriculturalist and Other Land Management Practitioners Working In It.

There cannot be many other professions that are so heavily infiltrated and usurped by ‘others’ as the UK Arboricultural & Forestry industry.

Conservationists, economists, politicians and even celebrities happily carry on not just discussing what to do with the trees in our landscapes, but implementing policy as well, as though ‘Tree Pros’ do not exist.

Some other land management professions suffer from the same and I honestly believe that this disenfranchisement is one of the greatest threats to our landscapes and biodiversity contained within them.

Indeed much damage has already been done and biodiversity continues to decline despite huge funding and a myriad of NGOs and Quangos dedicated to natural elements within the landscape. A lot of discussion and a lot of flawed decision making has occurred because of the absence of the voice of the land management practitioners in their place.

“The development of an environmental policy as part of state forestry in Scotland was not so much driven by external pressures from conservation organisations but by a combination of economic and social pressures in the Highlands and the fact that many foresters are sensitive to the environment in which they work.“
Kornelis Jan Willem Oosthoek

The hurry to install Biodiversity Offsetting is a classic example of ignoring practitioners yet again. Which is odd in so far that much rhetoric appears favourable to practitioners – but as offsetting allows for the dumping of sustainable development measures in any particular place then practitioners who could deliver such measures could also be dumped.

Site specific land management goes out of the window together with potential funding direct from the developer towards practitioners. Could BS5837 and other standards, guidelines and simply ‘good practice’ be deemed ‘red tape’ and slashed, with Biodiversity Offsetting used as an exemption?

Valuing nature in financial terms is often cited as ‘radical’ and ‘innovative’ yet Helliwell’s amenity valuation system has been in use since 1967. Subsequently a very different tree valuation system, CAVAT and others were devised all providing a tangible value and a valuable tool for the practitioner in decision making, client liaison, insurance purposes, etc,. I fear such tree valuations will also now be considered to be within the ‘red tape’ slashing by the current coalition. Those who devised these valuations state it is still not a ‘true’ value, as this is impossible to do – which is why study into the wellbeing and health benefits of a tree are so important also. In trying to go one stage further and add in that most vital of values, a persons personal value of a tree (the tree in which they climbed when young, the tree under which they were proposed to, or the tree into which a loved one crashed) one must be in direct communication with people in their place, something that practitioners do on a daily basis.

With the rush towards using the value of nature as a tool to enable development would it not have been sensible to have investigated tree valuation methods first? It would prevent a huge waste of public and developers money.

The ignoring of practitioners by other ‘stakeholders’ (whose work allows them to dominate discussion in conferences, online and in the halls of central and local government whilst the practitioner is working in the landscapes being discussed) is somewhat inevitable given a host of other disenfranchising factors.

In schools land, garden and tree management is considered, quite wrongly, to be a fall back career for the less gifted. There is a huge shortfall of properly qualified land management practitioners and the National Trust are amongst others in highlighting a lack of properly qualified head gardeners – yet pay their existing head gardeners an appallingly low salary!? A hotel or restaurant knows it needs to pay its head chef well – why has this fundamental good business sense not translated into land management?

Indeed the economics of land industry are somewhat bizarre. If you read most press releases and most ‘policy’ discussion with regards funding two words dominate; ‘volunteers’ and ‘grants’. With the flow of money into land management it is quite clear that some very lucky people are enjoying huge salaries at the expense of practitioners.

Added to this is the rogue trader element, which arboriculture and landscaping is severely affected by – to such an extent that the rogue trader and unqualified persons influence has reduced the ‘going rates’ for all.

It is no surprise therefore that a steady ‘skill drain’ of foresters and arboriculturalists has been ongoing for many years. You will not struggle to find UK tree pros (as well as horticulturists and other land management practitioners) across the globe.

As policy making as well as other initiatives for our landscapes continues to proffer ‘solutions’ which are lacking the site specific research and are all too often found damaging after being applied, it is the practitioner who has prevented considerable wider damage due to their knowledge and care of a place, and most importantly it is they who embrace the complexity and diversity of a place and celebrate the reality that we don’t fully know all there is too be known yet about a place – and this is what makes all landscapes wonderful.

The rapidly growing amount of practitioners online and engaging in social media is very very welcome and it is interesting to see who these practitioners engage with and it is pleasing, although not a huge surprise, to see considerable following of these practitioners by interested public. No nonsense wins attention, but is it enough to counteract the volume of spurious policy ideas and actual policy? Time will tell – but lines are clearly being drawn in the sand and it is apparent that the majority of the public will be behind the practitioners line.

Our Landscape – Lies, Lies and more Lies.

Landscapes are so complex, so diverse that it is probably impossible to ever fully understand them.

It is thus all too easy to fill in the huge gaps with spurious information and there is now an industry who do nothing more than this.

As we pass beyond the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere figure of 400ppm and continue to see huge losses of biodiversity it is all too obvious that what we are being told, what we are proffered as solutions have to be binned.

As a practitioner, along with most others, what is happening in our landscapes is all too apparent. Breakdowns are occurring and are accelerated by lies, downright nonsense. These lies have infiltrated into every possible funding channel towards the ‘environment’.

2 simple facts: 1 – to halt further CO2 emissions deforestation must end now and we must start planting trees. 2 – to reduce CO2 we must support engineers and land managers in finding a real method of sequestration, which will probably be below ground.

Biodiversity Offsetting, Biochar and a host of other ‘initiatives’ are all just crap.

As a Briton myself it is sad to have to accept the fact that the government of Britain is one of the most malfeasant on the planet with regards the environment – in allowing there to be a future for my child. (I cannot think in terms of grandchildren as the way things stand now). The coalition dismiss science, they have listened to and accepted the lies and unfortunately a significant proportion of the population of the UK have also. The environment has been and remains a playground for the very worst PR and we in land industry are culpable by way of allowing these numptys to get away with it.

The NGOs are as complicit as multinational companies – sitting around discussing bollocks like Biodiversity Offsetting as though it isn’t the complete crap that it is.

What is worse is that much of what is ‘on offer’ further removes both people and practitioners from any kind of process, helping to secure a future of continuous funding of bollocks by the taxpayer. At a time when climate change and biodiversity losses accelerates this is unforgivable.

A landscape approach, which lets be honest is the only route forward, has been hijacked by the likes of Nestlé, whose CEO believes that water ‘is not a basic human right’!!!

All discussion is instantly polarised by the media and which suits the two extremes; the ‘conservation’ NGOs (who make a lot of money from this, but don’t do an awful lot of conservation) and the large corporate lobbyists (who have made good friends across the political spectrum – THIS WAS NEVER POLITICAL & NEVER SHOULD BE).

Our children face a crap, uncertain, dangerous future. They do not deserve this. As parents, as guardians, as custodians of the land and landscape we have to stop the lies. We have to accept that we don’t know everything and that this is a good thing. We have to look back at historic, traditional techniques and rely on them whilst the innovative is fully tested.

Let’s start to fully trust those with soil under their fingertips, those in the labs and the engineers. When these people start talking to those who live in a landscape then we will see results, then we may actually have a future for our children.

Cultural Heritage – A Saviour to Sustainable Land Management

Watching a recent French documentary on the work in understanding how those that built the great French cathedrals did so in order to preserve these monuments of ancient architecture for the future highlighted the loss of so much knowledge and the fact it would be impossible to build such architecture nowadays. The knowledge of our ancestors with regards land management is also largely lost, knowledge which would have provided methods needed in order to progress sustainably, but there are enough examples to ensure it is still possible to achieve on a much greater scale if need be.

With my work I see daily that our ancestors knew how to manipulate tree roots in order to increase the longevity of structures built to facilitate sustainable long term. The construction of dry stone features in our landscapes show common European wide traits in using composted material, careful placement of stones to anchor trees and to direct the spread of roots to ensure they help maintain and increase the integrity of the structure. Such discovery falls into the realm of ‘cultural heritage.’

Being British it is now time to accept the hard truth that any chance for sustainable land management and climate resilience is now dead in policy making and heavily threatened in the small pockets holding out against the influence of the multinational malfeasant industries such as the pesticide companies. The UK government has without that much dissent, (yet again where is the NGO voice? probably sitting patiently for their funding from Biodiversity Offsetting to arrive in the post), given up any attempt at proper science being included into land management policy as the lobbyists from both sides of a falsely polarised situation shout at each other, (a position that the likes of Bayer and others have played upon to ensure victory by injecting cash into the pockets of assumed neutral voices such as ‘The Amenity Forum’). I struggle with the resulting doomsday predictions coming in from ‘green’ commentators, which are predictable given what has happened in the UK – but wrong when you take into account the optimism that can be found elsewhere in Europe, a Europe our forebears did not regard as so separate as the now entrenched, and frankly ludicrous, mindset of many British, particularly the media and politicians today. John Donnes’ ‘No man is an island’ is probably more relevant today than when it was written’.

I am optimistic with the burgeoning recognition of ‘Cultural Heritage’. Heritage is a twisted word in England, with the likes of the ‘Quango?’ English Heritage continuing to damage it for all. English Heritage have made the very worst of our heritage standard, making our historic monuments strimmed, floodlit and expensive lumps of the past with little relevance to the landscape they now sit in. It is no surprise, but still appalling, that English Heritage are members of the aforementioned Bayer sponsored ‘Amenity Forum’, one has to ask why? It is not too cynical to assume that there exists a compatible mentality with regards controlling and manipulating landscapes for profit.

Cultural heritage is thankfully at odds with such a mentality, but very much in tune with proper scientific discovery and ‘on the ground’ work of many practitioners. It is very apparent that our ancestors guessed at things only recently discovered as fact. The ‘mother tree’ and fungi communication being an example. Given the ignoring of our forebears intelligence by policy makers of the past – particularly the church, it is not much of an assumption to make that they knew a heck of lot more, which can be found within their land management techniques some of which are still in use by the practitioners of today.

Cultural heritage is progression as it includes all of us and what our ancestors were also. It has been thus, so far, a disgracefully and deliberately disregarded element of land management – tossed aside in favour of the innovative and of ‘exciting’ archaeology. The latter is understandable, the former unforgivable.

Our landscapes are all so complex, so diverse, that we cannot allow the disgraceful and damaging polarisation to continue and cultural heritage which includes by default the knowledge of past and present land practitioners helps to halt this stalemate in favour of the richest lobbyist as well as embracing the fact so mislaid and abused that we are all Europeans, geographically and culturally – a fact our ancestors used to their advantage in laying out food, culture and heritage that we take for granted and yet are so close to losing.

Over Reliance on Woodland Volunteers is a Threat to Achieving a Woodland Culture

A controversial issue many think not, but it is and is a major issue if we are to realise a ‘woodland culture’ in England.

Volunteers are wonderful and one should never discourage anyone from volunteering to assist in their local woodlands, no matter who the owner may be. However has it reached a point where woodlands are under threat because of a lack of restrictions on the limitations of what a volunteer can do? I would argue yes and is clear to see within much English woodland. Further of concern is the lack of and disenfranchisement of existing forestry and arboriculture professionals with both the traditional and innovative skills and knowledge essential to the longevity of a woodland.

Firstly there are few, very few areas of woodland, if any, which do not require some form of human intervention in England. The reason is simple – the native flora and fauna ecosystems no longer exist and many non native, invasive, alien species are now too well established.

Volunteers can help to redress this imbalance and many have helped to keep things in check in some places where it is crucial and long may they do so.

But many more woodlands are suffering as the sheer weight of the volunteering sector has taken hold to an extent where it is considered a vital asset in woodland management. This is dangerous and the results can be clearly seen: large areas of woodland with the wrong trees removed by ‘thinning’ without proper regard for the balance of age and species needed. Understorey and 2nd generation vegetation cleared, often with tools unfit for purpose by an untrained eye, working to their own personal belief of what a woodland should look like, combined with the all too common ‘native planting’ schemes which lack any decent ground preparation, are badly planted and rarely maintained, much broadleaved woodland is in a bad state.

With some woodlands in ‘conservation’ management the situation is often even worse. In the attempts to create a ‘perfect habitat’ for a particular species whole swaths of trees are cleared. This management for a single purpose is as damaging as replacing the woodland with a single species for plantation purposes only and disregards the immensely complex and diverse nature of a woodland (having allowed such management it is easy to understand why some conservationists have allowed ridiculous ideas such as Biodiversity Offsetting loose in the land management sphere).

The forestry and arboricultural sectors have to start to shout more about its professionalism and particularly the heavy influence that science has over it. It is maybe too late and certainly the possible merger, which has actually been welcomed by some in the conservation sector, of the FC into Natural England is proof that it is too late?

What other profession or industry would allow such an infestation of volunteers to the ludicrous position of having volunteers giving talks with trained professionals in the audience? This situation is the result of having a top heavy presence of those who manage and profit from volunteers claiming ‘stakeholder’ status. Easily done when a significant section of the industry is silenced and many of the rest are out there without the technology and certainly without the time to counterbalance things to how they should be.

The pitiful salaries of many highly qualified forestry personnel in the UK is a direct result of an over reliance on volunteers. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the fact that many high up in the industry and charitable sector profit hugely and selfishly in disenfranchising the industry as a whole by the overuse of volunteers and thus any chance of a real woodland culture is completely thwarted.

For the sake of our forests please accept that there are foresters needed together with local knowledge from the owner or users for those forests to exist and to thrive for the benefit of biodiversity, society and economics (if desired), knowledge which unfortunately cannot be replaced by volunteers.

Economy, Environmen​t – but where is Society?

 

Sustainable Development is dying in England and the conservation and heritage NGOs are as complicit as Government both local and central, because proper public engagement simply doesn’t exist.

SD was based on the fact that not only do societal needs have to be included into a future for all but were an absolutely essential component to achieving SD. Such a notion tied in very nicely with the concept of ‘landscape’ (which does not exist without people) as a basis for policy making in a locality or place and also ‘site specifics’ - a practitioner approach, well established and based on recognising the complexity and diversity of landscapes.

Public engagement should be assured as the UK signed the Aarhus convention and the European Landscape Convention, which also provided a platform to work from.

I live and work in France where public engagement was assured in all land management planning following the 1999 Loi d’aménagement et de développement des territoires (LOADDT) known as the ‘Loi Voynet’. Subsequently a landscape approach was embraced because it offered an easy method of adhering to this law and providing a truly integrated approach. This has guaranteed the preservation and increased biodiversity from the urban centres outwards. There are many things that can be criticised about France and indeed biodiversity still faces huge threats, but you still have insect splattered windscreens (even in town centres), wild flora and fauna populations are on the increase and soil (already enjoying an ‘intrinsic’ connection with all people due to Terroir principles) is firmly established as the base to work from. Fragment the soils you not only fragment the landscape including its people but cut the circle of life for all biodiversity. Many nature conservationists holiday in France and wonder at how and why the biodiversity seems intact despite obvious heavy human interaction – it is because decisions and management at all levels include humans, it is not unusual to attend ministerial high brow conferences and find a significant proportion of public and practitioners not only sat in the audience but actually invited to speak.

People and soil is the key, all people and all soils. As such a precautionary principle extends well beyond the limitations of what the English have defined it. And science over rides commentary at all times as it should.

This mural of a forest ecosystem is painted on a bus stop near Cannes

England has lost it’s way and I blame ‘stakeholders’ – what a presumptuous term – and an installed and heavily flawed system staunchly defended by experts whose goal is ego driven to appear on TV or be quoted in newspapers who have their agenda to follow and only use what they need to attack whomever they have chosen to. Government policy is bound to be flawed with such a system based on everyone wanting to have their voices heard.

Everyone is talking, no one is listening to anybody and consequently the people are ignored, practitioners disenfranchised and biodiversity suffers.

Forestry and forests offers a route out of this situation as when the public forest estate and those who manage it, was threatened it was the public voice that secured public forest estate for the public, although the future management of the public forest estate is not yet assured. As NGOs and others realised what was happening during the campaign they jumped, or tried to, on the bandwagon or dismissed its importance. But it was moving too quickly, with grassroots activists keeping their feet hard down on the accelerator. The British have an intrinsic link to trees and woodland as much as the French do for soil. the result is a real chance for the first time to see public engagement at the forefront of future policy making and planning for England’s forests.

The NPPF, the text of which includes SD heavily (with 3 different definitions), was subject to a campaign of disapproval also. The NGOs CPRE and NT headed the charge of this campaign and largely got what they wanted - but for all their talk of SD they seem disinterested in the huge land grab going on in urban and peri urban landscapes.

England is now building again, but not sustainably and as many guessed without much impact on the economy also. Allotments and other urban open space is threatened as it never has been before. But it doesn’t matter to the NGOs as they have secured more specialness for their special landscapes and might even make even more money to preserve this specialness even further by way of ‘Biodiversity Offsetting’ (BO), which is the antithesis of sustainable development, defies Landscape and worst of all ignores people.

Whilst nature conservationists are busy discussing how to progress and the possibility of mega NGOs or dividing into smaller outfits, could they not finally admit that they have to sign up to SD also. Or do we need a new NGO based solely on campaigning for landscapes & SD?

The Loss of a Landscape in Watford

The Save Farm Terrace Allotments campaign fronted by Sara Trebar on social media has led to a considerable amount of attention – not by general media, not yet, as they wait for a ‘Yes’ from Eric Pickles in approving the destruction of the Allotments.

The arguments against the disposal of these allotments come from a wide range of people and cover a myriad of issues – this could all be added together and placed under a single heading: ‘We do not want to lose this landscape’

The reason for the disposal of the allotments is what separates this campaign from many others, (although I am sure that there are many other landscapes under a very similar threat), and is why this small campaign in a place I have never been is so important to all involved in the progression of sustainable development, which is of course all of us. It is the language involved and it is this language which could prove to disrupt sustainable development goals and all land management & planning for many many years to come.

The language used to promote the proposed development in Watford is pure spin. The development is to consist of affordable housing, but what is affordable to one person may not be to another, a term I have never liked for its ambiguity. The Mayor of Watford, who is passionate about realising this development stated that ‘good design’ will be used for the new open spaces, again a highly ambigious use of words. But such wording is now so regularly used that it can be forgiven it is merely useless and as such nonsense.

The worrying language is when the destruction of the allotments is included into the ‘Health Campus’ jargon, impressive spin and it has largely worked – a majority of Watfordians are clearly in favour of the health campus overall and as such the allotments are a sad but necessary loss. What is a health campus? The words to me conjure up an image of a University campus, with residential blocks for health workers and the occasional laboratory or training building. This is far from the reality. This is development for housing and businesses and there is nothing wrong essentially with that and I hope they refrain from using medical terms for the housing development – who would want to live in Gynecology Grove or Pediatrics Place? ‘Health Campus’ are words used to disguise a planning gain, it should be considered no more than that. It is neither and cannot be considered as a development based on the principles of Ebenezer Howard because the destruction of the allotments, which are little more than an added ‘gift’ to the developers to ensure the planning gains are forthcoming, to enable the ‘project’ actually negate any and all aspects of this development embracing social needs beyond the nearby hospital itself (please remember any condemnation of the proposals I make are with regards to the allotment land only). And forget ‘environmental’ – there is nothing at all on offer. Sustainable Development has to include environmental and social, this development is purely economic and as such the NPPF has to be ignored in the decision making with regards the development.

I use the word landscape deliberately, for the allotments are a landscape, which adds value to all surrounding landscapes. The gifting of the allotments to ensure the development proceeds may well be cheap for the council, but ultimately very costly, for allotments are now well known as the zenith in achieving sustainable, socially inclusive, urban or peri-urban landscapes.

And as a landscape in its own right, Farm Terrace is subject to, as with all landscapes in England, the European Landscape Convention, the text of which has been wholly ignored so far by the policy makers involved, (as I write this, on the Watford Health Campus website, the link to ‘public engagement’ leads to a 404 Not Found page).

The Mayor of Watford is clearly no ‘policy maker’, she has made herself the chief lobbyist for the development. But as Mayor is she not also in charge of the policy makers who need to be ensuring adherence to consultation guidelines, the Aarhus convention, the ELC etc., – is this not a conflict of interest? Is taxpayers money being used for lobbying & PR purposes on the side of the developers? If this is not illegal it should be.

Mayor Dorothy is acting as chief prosecutor as well as head of a jury to see a landscape executed. Let us hope the judge, Eric Pickles, sees the injustice of this.

Otherwise a very worrying precedent is set, one where any attempt at a landscape approach, (essential to prevent further disenfranchisement of people from the landscapes they live in as well as the death of other species in that same landscape), is thwarted by the elected mayor system England has chosen to accept.

Flood Mitigation – We Need Miles and Miles of New Hedgerows

To suggest any species for planting (be it for amenity and landscaping purposes, agriculture or forestry) with the swing between drought conditions to flooding that we now have to accept as normal, indeed prepare ourselves for worse, is simply stupid unless we sort out the soil first. And both in the UK and France as well as most of the rest of the world the majority of our soils are in poor shape as a direct result of poor management by humans.

There are widespread comments that rain is falling on ‘saturated’ ground and thus the flooding is exasperated – but with the vast majority of land this is simply not true. The soil is saturated as far down as the first impermeable layer, which in the majority of urban, peri urban and rural landscapes is not that deep – certainly nowhere near as deep as the groundwater level, which despite the rains is nowhere near as high as it has been throughout much of modern history.

40cm on average – dig down 40cm and you will likely discover a soil pan. It may have been created  by the countless passings of a plough, a rotovator, or other machinery or possibly the limit of a spade.

New tree plantings often suffer as a result of this pan. If the trees have survived their dose of disease courtesy of an unknown nursery, their planting too deep or too shallow in an unprepared field, they will go on to develop a shallow lateral root system which does little to protect or enhance the ‘new woodland’ habitat that they are reported to be.

Commercial forestry ground preparation is much more advanced than NGOesque ‘new woodlands’ – it may look ugly in comparison, but well designed ground preparation by mixed dolloping, ploughing, 3degree drainage etc., is highly effective in slowing and trapping substantial amounts of water. In upland areas with high soil carbon where much of this forestry has taken place in the 20th century in the UK, the ground preparation has resulted in substantial filtering systems, which have the potential of reducing surface water run off considerably. Many unprepared new woodland sites cannot claim such additional benefit.

Tree planting for landscaping purposes often involve substantial ground preparation also, which if carried out correctly can help mitigate urban surface water run off considerably. Good design can easily incorporate good landscaping to achieve real sustainable development that can progress our adaptation to climate change, our resilience and soil is the hub to work from.

When reviewing tree planting as has been done recently, and not before time, we must not throw the baby out with the bath water and dismiss it entirely. It can work, it has worked, to provide a host of benefits that include mitigation against flooding risk but we have to take the planting process much much more seriously as well as grapping the opportunity to reinstall those quintessential elements of a British landscape proven to reduce flooding and allow for a two way water flow (downwards in times of heavy rainfall and upwards in dry periods): Dry Stone Walls, Earth Bank Hedgerows, Retaining Walls, Swales, Ditches (a good ditch is a work of art as well as  one of the most simple yet effective engineering ever) and even Covered Leats.

And one habitat should become sacrosanct: The Riparian Zone. Despite condemnation from many quarters, flood plains in Britain remain a favourite zone for developers, who have proven time and time again to be useless at installing the engineering really required and leaving the costs up to the insurance industry as well as utter long term misery for householders. Paying to allow the natural regeneration of Britains riparian zones will surely provide future dividends beyond our wildest dreams.

And get planting new hedgerows, miles and miles of new hedgerows and fatten existing hedgerows. There is no need for agroforestry in the UK – hedgerows are far better; providing slow effective drainage, acting as biodiversity corridors also as well as extending a national and / or regional identity to the British landscape to adorn the biscuit tins of future generations.