ENGINEERED FOREST

摘要

During recent years the downturn in timber prices has forced ongoing reassessment of Forestry Commission priorities. Substantially reduced income from timber sales has meant that to meet financial targets significant diversification has had to be built into business plans to make up shortfalls. Public recreation and amenity has always played an important part in the management of the forests of Britain. Arguably, however there is an ongoing change in the way the forest estate is used for recreationalpurposes and an associated change in land use. Twenty years ago the majority of recreational use of forest engineered (FE) land tended to be by regular walkers and horse - riders, with the provision of infrastructure being limited to informal car parking. In addition, honeypot sites, generally at viewpoints such as SymondsYat Rock in the Wye Valley, continued to attract the majority of tourism based or weekend visitors. In circumstances such as this the engineering requirement would have been limited to providing fairly low specification car parking facilities and ensuring the viewpoint site was safe for public access.