Thread by @FlyingQuercus

My slides for the launch of the UK Forest Market Report (produced by ⁦@JohnCleggWoods⁩ & ⁦@TilhillForestry⁩)

How we think & talk about wood creates limitations on what we "can" do with it.

#forestry #forestryinvestment #naturalcapital #timber

What we are doing with wood is changing

For modern wood products, high density is not as important as it used to be.

There is much more to wood properties than density - and huge variation within a species (even within a tree) because trees have had a lot of practice at growing wood and they got very clever at it (but they do it to meet their own interests not ours)

Since there is variation between trees, how can we sort things earlier in the process and get more value?

Different products have different requirements - and here species is not all that important in many cases

Many of these properties are strongly influenced by forest management, site and local climate

And rate of growth is not always that important (or even what we think it is)
blogs.napier.ac.uk/cwst/speed-of-…

But species /is/ still very important for processors like sawmills

Getting a good idea of wood properties requires a lot of testing of UK-grown timber

We have a lot of good information about our main species and getting more about ones with potential for the future... but what are future markets? Hard to say when things change so much in the time it takes tree to grow. Research and information is key. blogs.napier.ac.uk/cwst/grade-in-…

It is inevitable that the timber we process will change over time - even familiar species. Need to get better at recycling & reuse too. Future is great for wood but we need to start preparing. Trees are vulnerable because they cannot adapt to change quickly but we are the same

The forest market report itself is now downloadable here
johnclegg.co.uk/forest-asset-m…

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