Search Underway for the new Muirdrochwood Forestry Apprentice

Muirdrochwood Woodland, near Carsphairn, has been a hive of activity since ownership passed to Carsphairn Community Woodland Ltd. The Directors are now looking to recruit the next Forestry Pre-Apprentice for a whole range of outdoor and practical tasks on site.

Thinking back over our first operational year at the community woodland, it has certainly been action packed! A little over a year ago we commenced work, firstly felling the diseased larch and created a site for the yard and shed. Stone was then laid and the shed went up in March thanks to funding from South of Scotland Enterprise. We took on staff, Andy and Phoenix, who have proved to be a great asset, running the woodfuel enterprise, alongside the many tasks they undertake in the woodland.

We asked Tom Clark, Forest Manager for Czernin-Kinsky, a Dalry-based commercial forestry company, to give us an insight into how current changes to the forest sector.

The current approach to land use in rural Scotland is unbelievably outdated. It is centralised in government departments and agencies.

Some years ago, I attended an interesting forestry workshop at which a local forester outlined the history of a particular woodland. However, he then went on to confess - if that is the right word - that he had only managed to visit the wood once in the previous 18 months.

It would seem whether fighting in the name of the fatherland, the motherland or the homeland, that one word - land - has probably been at the back of every conflict since mankind could wield a club.

A woodlot allows local people to rent and manage an area of woodland from a landowner on a long-term basis. The Scottish Woodlot Association encourages woodlots in Scotland on a model inspired by how woodlots are run in Canada, where this has been common practice for decades.

With land sales accelerating by the day and new commercial forestry schemes expanding rapidly across the Glenkens, we wanted to give you an update on what Communities for Diverse Forestry (CDF) have been doing.