Deforesting For Nature

Friday was a perfect start to the weekend as all staff were out of the office to volunteer at Colin Glen Forest Park. I had no idea where the place was to begin with and was surprised how big it was.

After a quick cup of coffee at a briefing session, we made a pleasant half-mile walk to an area of young woodland that required forest management in the form of clearing certain trees to allow sunshine to reach the floor to allow natural growth to take place.

I was a deft hand at cutting down trees and a dozen or so fell to the ground ready to be piled up and re-used. Those of the right size were dug up to be replanted later in a nursery.

As we made our way back to the centre for lunch, the sun came out in grand style and filtered through the branches in streams giving the forest that mystical glow.

After a decent lunch and a good rest we made our way to the back of the centre to weed the plots and replant the trees we had dug up. It was hard but satisfying work especially when you could see the fruits of labour and knew that it was important work on a small scale.

It was still a glorious afternoon at this point and a group of returned to Yvonne's house for refreshments. We all sat outside in the blazing sunshine, enjoyed a few well deserved glasses of wine and talked until it was time to go. If only every Friday was like this it would be the prefect end to the working week.