The North Eastern division of The Royal Forestry Society (RFS) visited our Durham sawmill last week, which marked their first field visit of the year.
There were 30 visitors in total, including 10 agricultural students from Newcastle University Business School, who wanted to learn more about the value of trees and timber and the important work of the RFS.
During the day, we heard from Alison Field, President of the Royal Forestry Society and Tom Coates, Area Supply Manager, James Jones & Sons, who talked about some of the challenges and opportunities faced by the forestry sector.
There were also presentations by Cloud Forest, which has established a digital platform to share planned timber parcels and find a good home for every tree, and STFC Hartree Centre, a funded body that helps organisations of any size to explore and adopt data science and AI technologies. They are currently involved in research to use images of tree rings to determine the provenance of logs as they travel through the supply chain.
Luke Hemmings, Chartered Forester, commented "My key takeaway: the future of UK timber in construction is hopeful but by no means guaranteed. We must all feed into the UK Government's consultation on the Land Use Framework, which will shape approaches for years to come. Investment at this scale into local communities will not be possible without a future supply of sustainable raw materials! Thanks again Tom and everyone who came out on this glorious Spring day."
