‘Heartwoods II exists to develop a regional approach to sustainable woodland management, pulling together a wider partnership to deliver across the region.’

The work focuses on 4 areas:

1. Addressing the deterioration in the condition of our ancient woodlands, reversing declines in Woodland Biodiversity and utilisation of local timber.

Heartwoods contribution to this will be to provide case studies in best practice in sustainable woodland management and wood products. This will then be rolled out across the region through the collation and promotion of exemplar sites.

Current Activities:

• Heartwoods is developing a template to record the information on exemplar sites, to create an information hub to support woodland owners and managers.
   
• Heartwoods, in partnership with the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and others, is seeking to support a local woodland project to promote the use of local timber and establish a timber ‘hub’ that pulls together timber and wood products from the area into a single outlet.
   
• Heartwoods is working with the ‘Grow with Wyre’ HLF project in the Wyre Forest to run training courses to develop the skills base in the area to deliver sustainable woodland management over a greater area of the forest.

2. Take the lead in the promotion of woodfuel in the region; addressing the barriers to woodfuel businesses and promote the benefits of woodfuel

Heartwoods is working in partnership with Bioenergy West Midlands, Forestry Commission WM, the Rural Hubs and the private sector to support the development of the woodfuel industry in the region. This will as an ‘honest broker’ delivered through events, signposting and technical advice.

Current activities:

• - HW has provided technical support to the development of woodfuel groups throughout the region. We are working with partners to develop a project to further support the woodfuel supply chain in the region.
   
• HW has also developed an FSC Chain of Custody certification group to increase both access to affordable certification and accessibility to accredited sources of local timber and woodfuel.

3. To provide a networking and information ‘hub’ for the industry through the active management and promotion of the Heartwoods Website.

Heartwoods has integrated and updated the 2001 MWI Directory of woodland services and the Heartwoods 1 Virtual Timber Yard, in order to create a current listing of woodland and wood related businesses in the region. The directory is biased to the rural west and HW is looking to identify the appropriate businesses across the region.

4. Explore other opportunities to support the woodlands and wood industries of the WMids.

Heartwoods will work with partners to investigate any possible sources of support/ business opportunities/ markets that can assist the woodland and timber businesses of the West Midlands.

If you have any enquiries about Heartwoods 2 please contact;

Andy Grundy
Heartwoods Project Officer
c/o Green Wood Centre
Station Rd
Coalbrookdale
Telford
TF8 7DR

01952 432769
or
email: Andy@Heartwoods.co.uk
 

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