A hundred years of forest fortitude

With the demands of the First World War and noise of the Somme offensive echoing over the English Channel, why, during July 1916, was Sir Francis Acland asked by Prime Minister Asquith’s government to set up a committee to “consider and report upon the best means of conserving and developing the woodland resources of the United Kingdom”? Weren’t there more pressing priorities?

By the beginning of the 20th century, Britain’s woodlands, which once thickly clothed the countryside, had been reduced to about 4% of the land area due to centuries of clearance by our ancestors, who needed the land to grow food crops and wood for industrial processes. Apart from a small number of ‘Crown forests’, such as the New Forest and Forest of Dean, there were no state woodlands: 97% were privately owned.

For years this meagre woodland resource managed to supply some 8% of Britain’s annual wood requirements. Concern, , published in 1664, the diarist and gardener John Evelyn claimed that the growth of the glass and iron industries would have serious consequences for British timber resources and strongly recommended that there should be an extensive reforestation programme.