Excellence in Forestry - winners 2009
Woodlands of all shapes and sizes, as well as school woodland projects across Yorkshire and the North East, won the praise of forestry and education experts judging the first Royal Forestry Society Excellence in Forestry Awards.
The Awards, which were held in association with the Forestry Commission, were piloted in 2009 by the RFS in Yorkshire and the North East.
The RFS Yorkshire Division Teaching Trees project donating the Schools award first prize, and all schools which entered will receive 10 trees supplied and delivered by the Forestry Commission from their Delamere nursery near Chester.
Prizes for all five categories were presented at the Great Yorkshire Show
- Duke of Cornwall's Award for multipurpose forestry
- Community Forestry Award
- Schools Award
- Farm Woodland Award
- Silviculture Award
See the poster (scroll down) for further details, including images.
About the judges
Judges in 2009 for The Duke of Cornwall Award for multipurpose woodlands, The RFS Silviculture Award, The Farm Woodland Award and the Community Woodland Award were:
Rodney Helliwell
Rodney is a well-respected forestry consultant and author. His career has included research with the University of Wales, working with Staffordshire County Council, Nature Conservancy and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, where he continued his research into the growth of trees and herbs on different soils, and carried out surveys of woodland and montane vegetation.
He has been an independent consultant since 1978 and, among other assignments, has acted as terrestrial ecology consultant to the Channel Tunnel Project.
Roderick Leslie
Roderick, a Chartered Forester, graduated with an MA in Agricultural and Forest Sciences from Oxford University. He worked for the Forestry Commission from Edinburgh to East Anglia before settling in the West Country in 1988; and he held several posts including Chief Executive of Forest Enterprise (England) and Head of Policy for Forestry Commission England. He led the development of the Government's Strategy for Woodfuel.
He co-authored Birds and Forestry with Dr Mark Avery of the RSPB, and is currently working on a book on the countryside in 2050 and a 20 year update of Birds and Forestry.
Judges in 2009 for the Schools awards were:
Hugh Mathieson
Hugh is a retired Primary Headteacher and an Education Consultant in Out of Classroom education. Working through the Countryside Foundation for Education he has developed the RFS (Yorkshire Division) ‘Teaching Trees’ Project since 2002. He also runs a range of courses for teachers for the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and the Devonshire Education Trust.
Susannah Podmore
Susannah has been the Forest Education Initiative Coordinator for England since 2002, initially with the Woodland Trust and now with the Forestry Commission. She previously worked in environmental education with the London Borough of Ealing, and Groundwork UK.
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