So, you’re a bright lot.
Point me at stories and sources for why we subsidise fir and spruce plantations in the UK.
Yes, I know quite a bit, but would love to see what you can point me at.
Subsidies to spruce plantations
October 13th, 2011 · 16 Comments
Tags: Academic papers I'd like to see
16 responses so far ↓
1 Philip Scott Thomas // Oct 13, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Native Crimbo trees, perhaps?
2 diogenes // Oct 13, 2011 at 8:02 pm
I guess you have been to the Defra site already?
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/forestry.nsf/byunique/infd-8hnflk
3 View from the Solent // Oct 13, 2011 at 8:04 pm
forestry commission
and
independent
and
pdf
are good places to start.
It seemed to have started as a means of ensuring sufficient (coal mine) pit props after WW1
4 Surreptitious Evil // Oct 13, 2011 at 8:35 pm
It all started with the Royal Navy needing tall trees for the masts for 1st Rate sailing ships. The bureaucracy, as is standard, never quite lost the habit as the world moved on.
There’s some quite relevant stuff in the East Coast of the US on size of the earliest “rich person & family” houses. Main roof members above a certain size were extremely heavily taxed – because trees of that size should have been sold to the RN. There are some interesting house designs in New England as a result.
5 dearieme // Oct 13, 2011 at 8:48 pm
If you want to know about the historical botany of trees in Britain (and elsewhere) read Oliver Rackham’s books. He’s particularly good value when dismissing all the factoids about Timber Shortage Hits Royal Navy, Woods Felled for Iron-Making, Serfs Eviscerated for Hunting Deer, and Anglo-Saxons Had To Clear Trackless Forests.
(One of his most fascinating points is that no-one has a clue how our ancestors cleared the original British wildwood. No evidence at all.)
6 dearieme // Oct 13, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Oh yeah, and if you want a nice anecdote, read the one about one of the Stuart Kings subsidising mulberry trees in hopes of starting a silk industry. They planted the wrong sort of mulberries. Silk worms no likee.
7 Thornavis. // Oct 13, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Can I just endorse dearieme’s comments, Rackham’s ‘Ancient Woodland’ is one of the finest books ever written. There’s something fascinating on every page.
The Silkworm fiasco should be brought up every time someone demands that governments plan future industries.
8 David Gillies // Oct 13, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Why do we subsidise this? You want a link?
Because we are stuck with a collection of utterly massive cunts, that’s why.
9 diogenes // Oct 13, 2011 at 11:59 pm
but SE and dearieme, the 20thc. cult of forestry had very little to do with the Royal navy, which was burning coal and oil by then…..for some reason, someone decided that the UK had too few trees…and we had to increase the number of trees
10 dearieme // Oct 14, 2011 at 12:16 am
but diogenes, it’s all of a piece with hundreds of years of govt cock-ups. Anyway, Rackham is on the case – he attributes the curse of modern forestry to Germany, originally, then being taken up in British India, then being introduced to Britain from there through the university departments of Forestry.
11 diogenes // Oct 14, 2011 at 12:53 am
I blame Terry Wogan and his abuse of schedule B
12 JamesV // Oct 14, 2011 at 5:28 am
Something to do with the common agricultural policy?
13 Matthew // Oct 14, 2011 at 7:13 am
@David Gillies: With cunts of that dimension, you don’t need a gyno so much as a spelunker.
14 Pete // Oct 14, 2011 at 10:09 am
Chapter 9 of Derek Ratcliffe’s wonderful book ‘Galloway and the Borders’ tells the whole grisly tale.
Ratcliffe was Chief Scientist of the Nature Conservancy Council until he retired in 1989.
He says: ‘The latest argument for planting more conifers is carbon sequestration….Oliver Rackham remarked that this was rather like asking people to drink more water in order to reduce sea-level rise’.
15 diogenes // Oct 14, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Pete, when I worked at O2 in the Netherlands, the Board came up with a plan whereby the employees could contribute to planting a new forest in the Netherlands – their contributions being topped up by the company – to offset some imaginary consequence of building a mobile phone network. My preferred method of carbon offsetting is to eat a big steak for every time you fly in an aircraft.
16 JohnRS // Oct 14, 2011 at 9:56 pm
In a word – Pitprops
The current tree planting fetish is a WWI hangover from when the nation needed more coal to fuel its industry but was short of the trees needed and was unable to import them easily.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7TLE26
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