NWDG 40 th Anniversary Conference
Native Woods – what’s the use?
Friday 23 rd May, 2.00-8.30 pm
Talla nan Ros, Kingussie
Ruth Anderson has been joyfully attending NWDG excursions since 1996 and organising (most of) them since 2007. Self-employed, she is also a founder member and secretary of the Forest Policy
Group and has provided the same role as network hub for the Forestry for People Advisory Panel
(2000-05) and the Native Woodlands Policy Forum (1995-98). Before doing Environmental
Management at Stirling University (1993-94) she worked mainly in the building trade and sometime on farms.
Will Boyd-Wallis is the Head of Land Management and Conservation for the Cairngorms National
Park Authority leading a team of people whose chief role is to work with Land owners and managers across the National Park to help them look after it. He’s been with the CNPA since 2005. Before that he worked for the John Muir Trust on community land partnerships across the Highlands and Islands.
Back in 2000 he hosted a visit by the NWDG to Sandwood Bay when he was JMT’s Sandwood Estate
Conservation Manager. His interest in woodlands and wood extends to a love of creating a eclectic variety of stuff out of it. He is married to fellow ecologist Becks Denny; they live with their two kids in the heart of the Abernethy native pinewood.
Irvine Ross graduated with a BSc in forestry from the University of Aberdeen in 1973. After a spell planting Sitka spruce in the Scottish borders he was appointed Forestry Manager at Glen Tanar
Estate in 1977. In 1979 the Glen Tanar native pinewood was declared a National Nature Reserve by agreement with Nature Conservancy Council Scotland. He became a self employed forestry consultant in 1992, retaining Glen Tanar Estate as one of his clients. The practice expanded and clients included Birse Community Trust, Aberdeen City Council, and several private estates. Irvine was one of the consultancy team who prepared the Forest and Woodland Framework for the
Cairngorms National Park, a member of the Native Woodland Advisory Panel from 1992-1999, a member of Grampian Forestry Forum from 2004-2008 and chairman of the Native Pinewood
Manager's Group from 1991 until he retired in 2012.
Peter Quelch is now more or less retired after a lifetime in forestry. Most of his career was spent in general forest management with the Forestry Commission all over the UK but mainly in west
Scotland. Latterly Peter specialised in native woodlands and was an adviser on native woods for the
FC in Scotland for more than ten years till retiring in 2005. Freed from official duties (and responsibilities) Peter continued with woodland history studies all over Scotland, and over the last five years has carried out woodland landscape history studies and training events with dendrochronologist Coralie Mills. Peter also keeps his hand in with small scale sawmilling of local timber in Mid Argyll, mainly for social reasons as part of a community venture under AGWA.
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Simon Pepper's interest in native woods is as an owner, planter, enjoyer and user of a few acres in
Perthshire, as a land use policy campaigner and funder of native woodland initiatives in his capacity as director of WWF Scotland from 1985 to 2005, as founder of Millennium Forest for Scotland (£28m funding from the Lottery to support hundreds of projects), as member of the Native Woodland
Policy Forum in the '90s, National Committee of FCS '03-'09, Deer Commissioner '05-'10 and currently member of the Forest Policy Group, and Board of SNH. All of which has taught him that he has a great deal to learn about native woodlands, their ecology, condition, and use. Looking forward to learning more at NWDG’s 40 th year event.....
Mairi Stewart is a freelance environmental historian specialising in Scottish woodland history. She was on the staff of the UHI Centre for History from 2006 until 2012 and is currently working on a four-year research project dealing with the social history of 20 th century Scottish forestry. She holds an M.Phil. research degree from St Andrew’s University, where she studied the woodland history of
Lochtayside with Professor Smout. Mairi has published in several environmental history media. She is joint organiser of the Native Woodlands Discussion Group’s annual woodland history conference.
Rick Worrell has been a self-employed consultant since 1987, specialising in native woodland and growing broadleaves for quality timber. He was a research associate at the School of Forestry,
University of Edinburgh from 1997-2002. He is chair of the FCS Perth and Argyll Regional Forestry
Forum. He has served on the following Forestry Commission Committees: Home Grown Timber
Advisory Committee, Timber Development Programme, FES Working Group on Quality Broadleaved
Timber, Scottish Tree Health Advisory Group, Native Woodland Panel and the Forest Enterprise
Environment Peer Review. Received the Silvicultural Prize of the Institute of Chartered Foresters in
1990 and 1999. He has published 50 professional papers and reports.
Piers Voysey graduated from Aberdeen University with a forestry degree in 1987. Currently employed as the forester at Rothiemurchus Estate and a member of the Institute of Chartered
Foresters; he has also worked with community woodland in Grantown-on-Spey and with community woodland management and utilisation in Papua New Guinea and Guatemala. He was also involved with product development whilst working with Scottish Native Woods and enjoyed a varied introduction to a forestry career with the Forestry Commission in Argyll.
Simon Hodge is originally from Devon. After reading Rural Environment Studies at London
University and Forestry at Oxford, he joined the Forestry Commission in Suffolk. Ten years in Forest
Research as Project Leader for Urban Forestry and subsequently Head of Woodland Ecology was followed by six years as Forest District Manager for West Argyll. In 2004 Simon came to Edinburgh to develop Forestry Commission Scotland’s social policies and programmes. From 2005 to 2009 he served as Head of Policy for Forestry Commission Scotland, before being appointed as Chief
Executive of Forest Enterprise Scotland in December 2009. In this role he is responsible for delivering economic, community and environmental benefits from Scotland’s National Forest Estate
(NFE) which covers nearly 9% of Scotland’s land mass, extending to over 650,000ha.
Gordon Patterson is Biodiversity Policy Adviser for Forestry Commission Scotland. He has worked for
FC in various capacities including forest management and ecological research before his current role
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in developing and promoting policy and best practice. He has steered the Native Woodland Survey of
Scotland from the beginning right through to its completion, and is main author of the final national report which was published in February 2014.
Maggie Birley is project co-ordinator for Scottish Wood, a local hardwood (and premium softwood) sawmill based in West Fife, which is a social enterprise working alongside others to improve and expand the local sawmilling sector. Chair of the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers from
2003 to 2006. Previously worked in community reforestation work in El Salvador and in agroforestry research at the MacAulay Institute. She is involved in the Forest Education Initiative and the rolling out of Forest Schools in West Fife, and works with community groups to promote the use of local woodlands.
Ivor Davies is a wood scientist and technologist with over 20 years experience in the timber products sector. He joined Edinburgh Napier University in 2004 as part of the Forest Products
Research Institute, moving to the Institute for Sustainable Construction in 2014. He previously worked at Highland Birchwoods and was a co-director of Russwood Joinery Products Ltd. Ivor teaches at Edinburgh Napier University and is a visiting lecturer at several other universities. He is author or lead author of two books: Sustainable construction timber (3 rd edition in press) and
External timber cladding: design, performance and installation (with John Wood), plus several academic journal papers and government reports.
Jamie McIntyre is a freelance forester and community development worker based in Strontian.
Involved in the Sunart Oakwoods Initiative since 1997, including a spell as community forester.
Following this he worked as woodland crofts officer for FCS & HIE, supporting the development of community-based woodland crofts. Has had a long interest in smaller-scale, rural development forestry and in particular ‘family forestry’ models such as woodlots and woodland crofts. Former director of the Community Woodlands Association, a current director of Sunart Community
Company, and a member of the Scottish Woodlot Association.
Kate Holl has been a woodland advisor with SNH for the past 23 years and during that time has visited and advised on the condition and management of over 200 woodland designated sites.
Special woodland interests include herbivores and woodland, sustainable use of woodlands, wood pasture, veteran trees, orchards and Atlantic hazelwoods. In her spare time she has an organic smallholding with hay meadow, orchard, small woodland and livestock which is an endless source of inspiration, education and humility.
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