We’ve cleaned everthing off ready to go out again… doing our bit to keep pests and diseases out of woodlands.

Clean kit about to go out to the woods

Not solely to keep everything looking nice a shiny and out OCD cleaning….

One of the key reason’s for cleaning the equipment we use in the woods is to ensure biosecurity between sites. This is to ensure that no pests or diseases (if present) are transferred from one site to the next, thereby minimising the potential risk of transferring non native invasive species (eg. Himalayan Balsam) or diseases (Ash dieback, Chalara Fraxinea). For more info on keeping it clean please take a moment to have a look at the Forestry Commission’s information page linked here.

With the global trade in timber products we are seeing lots of timber being imported into the UK, which has not always been treated sufficiently prior to arrival to ensure that there are no living pests/diseases arriving with it. There are a number of things you can do ranging from buying locally produced firewood (rather than imported because it’s £5 cheaper) to managing neglected woodlands (Phytophthora ramorum – often affecting larch – flourishes amongst rhodedendron and dark woodlands with limited arirflow. Ideal conditions for the disease to establsih and spread from).

If you have some woodland or pests and diseases that you are concerned about or would like to bring a wood back into a managed state, get in touch via the contact us page here and we will do all we can to help.