Symposium: Evolving the Forest

An international gathering celebrating trees and woodlandIn collaboration with The Royal Forestry Society and Timber Strategies, we are convening an international group of foresters, artists, writers, thinkers and do-ers to look back at the last 100 years of Forestry in the UK and forward to the next. It’s for everyone who works, wanders or wonders in our varied British forests, and to help us learn from others around the world about their own cultural connections to trees and woodland. 

You can join the event for all three days, or for just one or two of the three days. Only a limited number of places remain so don’t delay…

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If you would love to attend the whole of Evolving the Forest but are finding this rather beyond your means, we do have a number of Stewarding Bursaries available. In exchange for a few hours work you can be a full delegate for £35. Interested? Please contact us right away.

Special events at Evolving the Forest

There are a number of events at Evolving the Forest open to all, not just to delegates.

On  Wednesday June 19, join us for the opening keynote by Prof. Fiona Stafford with her reflections on Why Trees Matter. Author of The Long, Long Life of Trees(Yale 2016), writer and presenter of the BBC Radio 3 series The Meaning of Trees, Prof. Stafford will remind us of the cultural importance of trees within literature and society from the 18thC on. 

Later that evening we return to Dartington’s Great Hall for a public conversation between Sir Harry Studholme (Chair of the Forestry Commission), Beccy Speight (CEO of Woodland Trust) and architect and broadcaster Piers Taylor (Invisible Studio Architects) about the future of forestry in the UK, why we love trees, and how we must learn to live differently with them.

The final keynote will be delivered as the Royal Forestry Society’s NDG James Memorial Lecture. Prof Kathy Willis CBE will talk about The framing of the UK’s forests: past, present and future. This important overview will look at how as a nation we manage, conserve and enhance forests, and how our approach to policy-making has shifted radically over the past century. 

All of these events have a very limited number of tickets available and will fill fast.

Pre-conference workshops

Finally, there are three special workshops open to the general public taking place the morning of Wednesday June 19.  These include a tour of the Forest Garden site at Dartington led by its long-term designer and manager, Martin Crawford; a guided visit to Fingle Woods where forester Dave Rickwood will guide you through the woods and explore its history and close connection to Dartington Hall, and its new and experimental approaches to contemporary forestry. The third offer is to experience a three-hour Forest Bathing session with the Nature & Wellbeing Collective at one of the Dartington estate’s very special woodland places.

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