Once upon a time the whole of Britain was covered in trees. Slowly, but surely, this woodland was cut down and replaced with farmland, villages and towns from the mesolithic period onwards. The trees provided the perfect material for buildings, tools and fuel. We are quite lucky to have the amount of trees that we do today. Who looks after them now?
One thing is for sure, there is still plenty of material left for companies like the Southampton Timber Merchants http://www.timbco.co.uk/ to provide a good quality service to you for your wood needs. The reason they can do this is in part to the management of our current forest and woodland.
There isn’t any of the ancient woodland truly left. We began planting and replacing the trees that we felled from about 1600 onwards. Organisations like the Forestry Commission. English Heritage and The National Trust manage a huge amount of forest and woods. It is reckoned that there is about three point nine million hectares of wood and forest in the UK. This means that about thirteen percent of Britain is devoted to this arborual splendour. Whilst this is nowhere near what it was, it is still a significant chunk of the country that needs protecting.
The main responsibility to look after it all falls to the Forestry commission. This was created by the government after the first world war. There was great concern that there was a lack of natural woodland for the war effort and huge tracks were planted to make up the shortfall. Over 100 new forests were planted.
Why England needs more woodland
Trees were once central to the country’s economy. A large part of Magna Carta dealt with forestry rights, oak was vital to the navy, and millions of homes were built with home-grown timber. The Forestry Commission was set up after the First World War to supply timber for housing and provide jobs for returning soldiers.
Today England is running short of oak. The last trees planted by the Victorians are being harvested, too few were planted since, and the gap is filled with imports from America and Europe. Only about 13 per cent of the UK is forest, against a European average of around 30 per cent, so much of the timber we use has to come from abroad.
This is why a government tree champion role was created, to push for millions of new trees and better protection for existing woods and ancient trees. Progress is hard while farmland and housing land command high prices, and reliable records of how much woodland exists are lacking.