Collecting firewood from Welsh Assembly woodlands

 

More people are turning to wood as an economical and carbon neutral form of fuel. Forestry Commission Wales, (FCW) is committed to promoting the use of wood as a fuel in Wales. FCW produces the majority of the timber that is marketed in Wales and some of this timber feeds into wood energy markets including domestic firewood. This will increase as demand for firewood increases and we undertake more thinning of the woodlands.

Only a very small proportion of the people in Wales who use firewood collect it directly from woodlands managed by FCW. Contrary to popular belief, there is no ancient legal right that entitles people to gather firewood from woodlands. However, over the years, FCW has tried to accommodate requests for licences to collect firewood.

The nature of the requests vary greatly in terms of the amount and type of material, and the extent to which the licence holder need to use chainsaws to cut material and vehicular access to the forest to remove it. The location of the site and timing can also affect the extent to which other forest users may be affected by the licence.

It may be inappropriate to license the collection of the type of material that people want, as dead and decaying timber can be an important part of the woodland ecosystem and as a habitat for insects and fungi.

We have a duty of care to the public in our woodlands and to the potential collectors themselves and must make a reasonable assessment of the potential risks involved before issuing any licence.

All these considerations mean that it is difficult for us to be consistent in our response to requests for firewood as every situation differs. Responding appropriately to each request (and tracking who has been licensed to collect what), can take up a great deal of FC staff time.

Our approach to firewood is not financially driven. We charge for firewood collection in order to avoid undermining local firewood businesses. However, the income from firewood collection permits does not cover the full cost of dealing with the issues associated with firewood collection.

As a publicly-funded body, we are obliged to ensure that we use our resources effectively and issuing lots of individual collecting permits is not a cost-effective use of our time and resources.

As more and more people turn to wood as a fuel, we anticipate that it will become increasingly difficult for us to meet individual expectations. It is against this background that we have concluded that we need to move away from licensing individuals to collect firewood and instead support the development of local suppliers to meet local demand. This will ensure that everybody – including the elderly, infirm and others who may not be able to access their local woodland easily – will have an opportunity to buy firewood sourced from the woodlands that we manage.

Following an outcry about this change from some of those who wished to continue to collect firewood under licence, we announced that we would resume considering requests for licences for this Winter while we work towards putting in place a network of contracts with firewood suppliers during 2009.

We believe that this does not contradict FCW’s policies relating to communities or the management of woodlands as an economic resource. We are not aware of any firewood collection licences that are issued to communities, they are generally licences to individuals to collect wood for their own private use. Supporting the development of local firewood suppliers will enable more people to use firewood.

Firewood supply represents a business opportunity that could help to generate employment in this difficult economic period. FCW would be happy to consider proposals from community enterprises looking to use this valuable resource to generate employment and fuel from the woodlands close to where they live.

There are many examples of projects where we have worked closely with communities all over Wales, but we are not aware of any such projects based on the use of firewood.