Survey of woodland owners – your views please!

The BritishWoodlands2012 survey is run by the Sylva Foundation and supported by Natural England. We'd also like to hear from farmers and other land managers who are considering creating woodland on their land.

The survey asks about motivations for woodland management, planting and support.

The survey builds on work that has been carried out by Cambridge University‟s Department of Land Economy on five occasions over the last 50 years. Their most recent survey report from 2005 provides some context for a current project entitled "Private Woods in Crisis?"

We hope the survey will help us to:

• gauge the current level of sustainable forest management in British privately-owned woodlands
• assess the potential for woodland creation
• assemble evidence of the level of public benefits that are delivered from private woodlands
• find out why some woods remain unmanaged
• provide ideas to contribute to improvements in grants and to grow the domestic timber markets

The survey should take about 20-30 minutes to complete. All data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. Results will be presented in an amalgamated version only and will be used to help inform us about how we can best support the woodland and forestry community.

People who take the survey will be invited to a woodland conference at Oxford University to be held in December 2012 at which the results of the survey will be discussed. 

The survey is supported by Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Forestry Commission, Woodland Trust, Natural England and the Institute for Chartered Foresters.

For further information contact Chris.Reid@naturalengland.org.uk

We are encouraging woodland owners, managers and agents to complete the new online questionnaire survey by 30 September 2012.