'a good forest…'
Ideas from the local project and Pro Silva have informed my projects. My current, ongoing project, the conversion of a spruce plantation to a ecological and permanent forest, the Holly Wood Diaries project, relates to how my Holly Wood woodland, is managed using close to nature forest methods as described by Pro Silva, of which I am a member:
background to the ‘local project’ and ‘Close to Nature’ forestry
I’ve had this one page article below, A Good Forest Economy by Wendell Berry, from the time when I worked with the Irish tree NGO, Crann, in Co Leitrim, Ireland, back in 1996! Working on an environmental project for the first time, and still getting to grips with simple ideas such as ‘thinking global, acting locally’, I put this article in the 1997 Crann newsletter, it seemed to explain all the new concepts I was encountering.
When I revisited the local project in 2005, I was startled to find that I still had my original photocopy of this article ! Some of the ideas naturally flow through the local project film I made (below is an extract of the main points; Berry describes his points in the context of a US Indian local community forest he visited). I have always meant to write to W. Berry. He is, I believe, a farmer/forester and a well respected writer in this area. He writes in the magazine, Resurgence but I read somewhere that he corresponds only by pencil, so I’m not sure what he would make of this art cum tree film-blog project 
A good forest economy
by Wendell Berry appeared in the CRANN newsletter in 1997, kindly reprinted from the Scottish Radical Rowan. Its principle arguments extracted from his article below underlie the many aims in the Leitrim ‘local project’.
- A good forest economy, like any other good land-based economy, would aim to join the local human community and local natural community or ecosystem together as conservingly and as healthfully as possible
- A good forest economy would therefore be a local economy, and the forest economy of a state or region would therefore be a decentralised economy.
- A good forest economy would be owned locally. It would afford decent livelihood to local people. And it would be serve local needs and fill local demands first, before seeking markets elsewhere.
- A good forest economy would be properly scaled. Keeping the scale reasonably small is good for the forest. Only a local, small scale forest economy would permit, for e.g., the timely and selective logging of small woodlots.
- A good forest economy would be locally complex. People in the community would be employed in forest management, logging and saw milling, in a variety of value-adding small factories and shops, and in satellite or supporting industries.
- A good forest economy would obviously need to be much interested in local education. It would of course, need to pass on to its children the large culture’s inheritance of book learning. But also, both at home and in school, it would want its children to acquire a competent knowledge of local geography, ecology, history, natural history, and of local songs and stories..
- And so, to complete my description of a good forest economy, I must add that it would be a long-term economy. Our modern economy is still essentially a crop-year economy, as though industrialism had founded itself upon the principles of the worst sort of agriculture. ..
- But even the slightest acquaintance with the vital statistics of trees places us in another kind of world. A forest makes things slowly; a good forest economy would therefore be a patient economy. It would also be an unselfish one, for good foresters must always look toward harvests that they will not live to reap.
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What is the ‘Close to Nature forestry’ that is promoted by Pro Silva Ireland & Pro Silva Europe?
pro silva (latin: ‘for the forests’)
PRO SILVA promotes forest management strategies which optimise the maintenance, conservation and utilisation of forest ecosystems in such a way that the ecological and socio-economic functions are sustainable and profitable -i.e. by following close to nature.
The general approach to management which is advocated by PRO SILVA, includes market and non-market objectives, and takes the whole forest ecosystem into consideration.
With reference to sustainability in its broadest sense PRO SILVA believes that forests provide four categories of benefit to society. These are:
2. protection of soil and climate
3. production of timber and other products
4. recreation, amenity, and cultural aspects
