SYLVA would like to thank Nicholsons for providing SYLVA and myForest with a space on their stand at the Country Land & Business Association Game Fair. This years CLA Game Fair was held at Ragley Hall, Warickshire from the 23rd – 25th July. Following the game fair there has been an upsurge in woodland owners and estates signing up, so much so that the area of woodland mapped nationally on myForest has passed the 2000 hectare mark, with over 120 woodland owners signed up.
There are many woodland interest initiatives and NGOs and we at the SYLVA Foundation value the variety and diversity of these initiatives.
This said, we also feel strongly about avoiding duplication of information and actively look to link with strong research and woodland management guides and information.
One such publication that has recently been published is the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Woods – A guide for woodland owners and managers.
myForest aims to ensure that the user account features that are provided for owners, managers and agents can be used to support the mapping and management of Ancient Woodlands as set out in this excellent guide.
Well done to the Woodland Trust and to Tom Curtis (the author) for producing such a clear and useful guide.
SYLVA has a promotional stand this week at the Institute of Chartered Foresters’ National Conference in Newcastle.
The topic of the conference is “Energy and wood fuel”. The myForest service could play an important role in helping to bring more woodlands into sustainable management, and in connecting the energy market to the resource.
The April 2010 ( #38 ) issue of ConFor’s magazine, Forestry and Timber News contains a full page article promoting the myForest service to the forestry sector at large.
As the myForest website becomes more popular we hope that the forum will be a useful feature for everyone with an interest in the UK woodchain, from woodland owners to wood users, and everyone in between.
We have been having some fun producing a short video with the aim of introducing the myForest Service.
We felt that the depth and power of myForest was difficult to get across to people new to the service, and that a video would be a good way to provide an overview of the mapping, managing and marketing elements of the service. The video has been placed prominently on the updated front page of the myForest website: www.myForest.org.uk.
Did it work for you? We would love to hear your views.
We are making final preparations for the public launch of the myForest Service in April.
The development of myForest by SYLVA has spanned about 18 months. During this time we have discussed and listened to all views right across the forestry sector. We have also developed powerful yet simple IT tools for our future users. We have used this time to develop a service that we hope will be really useful to all elements of the woodchain; from woodland owner and agent, through to wood using businesses.
The current usage of the myForest service is approximately 100 businesses and some 50 woodland owners. These users have come to the service by word of mouth, and via our research and development activities. We believe that we are now ready to launch the service publicly and now hope to gain rapid support and uptake. The more myForest is adopted the better it will support the forestry sector.
We have been working closely with the Silvanus Trust in South West England to develop a regional myForest Service. The concept is that regional NGO partners will administer myForest locally and support woodland owners.
We hope to take this forward with other regional partners across Britain during 2010.
