Technology transfer in forestry

Abstract

Foresters in the British Isles have been compelled to develop and apply new techniques during this century. By 1919 the area of woodlands and forests in Great Britain had been reduced to 0.9 million hectares, less than 5 per cent of Great Britain's total land area of 22.7 million hectares, and this in a country which would, without the influence of man, have had tree cover extending to all but the most exposed sites, with a natural tree cover 6,000 years ago of between 60 and 70 per cent of the land area. It was evident that these crowded islands could no longer support woodlands without government intervention; financial returns on investments in afforestation were low in industrial terms and took many years to be realised; the ever present need for food production had largely ousted trees from all but the least fertile sites and the widespread introduction of herbivores and persecution, often to the point of extinction of the larger carnivores, meant that natural regeneration by native tree species had little prospect of redressing the balance.

Citation

Hibberd, B.G. (1988), "Technology transfer in forestry", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 40 No. 6, pp. 183-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb051099