Tom Barnes is managing director of Vastern Timber, and he's making a series of films about the future of British forests. He says "I have worked with wood all my life, as have the past three generations of my family, and I hope future generations can continue this tradition. But British woodlands are in peril. Our trees are at risk from climate change, disease and poor management. Trees capture carbon, encourage biodiversity, create important green space for us and they also provide us with timber, a renewable and sustainable building material.
2020 could be a golden opportunity to capture the public and political will to plant more woodland. Broadly speaking, we all want 'more trees' but there's an increasingly polarised debate about how and where we should plant trees and to what extent we should manage our forests.
If we get this right, we could see the greatest period of afforestation in the UK helping to mitigate the causes of climate change, but getting it wrong could be disastrous. So throughout 2020 I'm working with a team of activist filmmakers to record a series of conversations with experts about the future of our forests.
At the end of the project we hope to have a film ready to show for the COP26 UN Climate Change summit in Scotland.
I hope you'll follow my journey. Opinions and contributions all welcome."
00:00 The Future of Britain's Forests. Wood For The Trees Film #1 Introduction
00:40 Challenges facing UK trees, woodland and forests
01:08 Opportunities and the importance of UK trees, woodland and forests for sustainable low carbon future
03:49 Climate emergency and the Climate Change Summit 2020
04:46 UK Afforestation and Woodland Regeneration
05:08 Debates between different stakeholder groups within UK forestry
05:38 Introduction to Wood for the Trees: Tom Barnes (saw miller/sustainable timber merchant)
05:53 Introduction to Wood for the Trees: Charly Le Marchant (environmentalist and film maker)
06:21 Experts being interviewed in this series of short films
06:51 Follow us on this journey