Logging with savage machines tends to leave swathes of machine-tracks that look like a path of destruction. The machines also churn up loadsa mud on the forest tracks.
- A logging machine inroad for thinning.
- Clear-felled area (leaving the deciduous trees)
- Log stacks awaiting collection
- The logger clears brash
But it's surprising how quickly the forest grows back. (More photos of forest-reclaimed logging "avenues" after the next collie walk or two). The brash and mud disappear under swathes of moss and eventually other kinds of growths, from bilberry to heather.
Talking to a couple of forestry rangers today, they tell me that Brechfa is being thinned from one end to the other this year but will then be left without logging for five years, to allow the remaining trees to put on a growth spurt now that they have less competition for soil, water and light. They also tell me that clear-felled areas are still replanted by hand rather than machine - very hard work indeed, as the planting holes must be made through the brash into very flinty soils.
The replantings are mostly more softwood but every track, as well as various designated areas, are now planted with a variety of native deciduous species. There's also a "forest garden" where many different kinds of trees have been planted. As time goes on, their seeds are naturally distributed by bird, beast and wind so that examples of these forest garden trees pop up all over Brechfa and beyond.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
