In England and Wales people are concerned about what sort of shed you are allowed to put up in a woodland and indeed there is much planning history on the subject, but in Scotland similar questions are described as "hutting" issues.  Woodland owners need somewhere to store their tools and to shelter when it rains wherever they are. But in Scotland,  there is a distinctive history of hutting - during the interwar years (1919 to 1938),  Glaswegians wanted to spend time outside Glasgow at the weekends and for short holidays, so they arranged to build a series of huts at Carbeth and elsewhere. Read more...

Nowadays it seems we have all the map resources we could dream of at our fingertips; public libraries that stock maps back to the 16th Century, apps on our phones that tell us how to get somewhere or how long it will take us and SATNAV's that will read us directions as we drive. The availability of maps no longer seems to be an issue. These digital resources are updated constantly; drivers will keep others informed by sending in details of traffic congestion in different areas which are then passed on by a SATNAV to those headed in a similar direction. Not only are maps available, but they are consistently up to date. It seems the days of pulling over to struggle with an A-Z to find an alternate route are firmly over. Read more...

This summer (2013) a record-breaking 46,000 people took part in the Big Butterfly Count – organized by Butterfly Conservation.  More than 830,000 butterflies and day-flying moths were recorded across the U.K.

   The  previous wet and miserable summer (of 2012) has gone down as the worst year on record for butterflies; it followed a series of ‘indifferent’ summers weather-wise that had compounded the long-term decline of various butterflies. The warm and often sunny conditions this summer saw a “butterfly boom”, with large numbers recorded in the the  gardens, parks, playgrounds and countryside of the U.K.

  Generally speaking, observers counted almost twice as many  butterflies as compared to 2012. Read more...

Albert Einstein said, "people love chopping wood: in this activity one immediately sees results". The problem with splitting wood is to get a pile of logs split speedily and with minimum effort and risk. Using an axe usually means the split pieces fly everywhere and it also leaves you spending most of your time lining up logs to split. This is inefficient and you spend a lot of your time bending down to pick up work you've done or to prepare work to do. Sean Collins has demonstrated shown a better way. First he puts an old tyre on a chopping block. Read more...

A recent visit to the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail turned out to be not one, but three truly memorable experiences.   Firstly, the 7km walk through the forest in all its early autumn colours, with spectacular, huge beeches and ancient yews was worth the admission in itself. In fact, entry is free but there is a pay & display car park and a map/guide for the trail is £1.50 – but well worth the money. The walking is easy along broad, well-maintained tracks with only the occasional slope to negotiate; although it is also possible, indeed necessary to wander off the tracks to try and discover some of the uncharted sculptures which have been deliberately left off the guide in order to encourage exploration. Read more...

Forestry is a surprisingly important part of the Swiss economy and the sector employs 90,000 people, with 1.3 million hectares of Switzerland being given over to forestry.  To put this in a UK perspective, it is about the same amount of forestry land as Scotland and is a little more than England (which has 1.1 million hectares of forest).  The reason why Switzerland, smaller in size than England, has as much forestry land is that a much higher percentage of the countryside is given over to trees - Switzerland has 31% tree cover which is much more than England's 9% and is high even compared to Scotland which only has 17%.  In fact European countries are generally more forested than the UK - with Finland at a whopping 76% tree cover and even France is 27%, so Switzerland stands at just above the european average. Read more...