Sylva Foundation CEO Dr Gabriel Hemery reflects on the centenary conference of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
I recently attended the national conference of the Institute of Chartered Foresters which celebrates its centenary in 2025. I also had the privilege of being on the conference steering committee which over the course of a year brought together the packed two-day programme, held at the University of Edinburgh.
The conference set out to look partially to the past, reflecting on successes and failures over the last 100 years, yet mostly looked forward. After all, among all professional walks of life, it is surely the forester who is most adept at planning and imagining the future.
The main sessions included Policy, People, Technology, Future, Environment and Economics. One of the conference highlights for me was a panel and audience discussion centred on an important horizon scan completed last year (see Horizon Scan of Issues Affecting UK Forest Management within 50 Years). The session was chaired by Professor William Sutherland from the University of Cambridge, assisted by Dr Eleanor Tew (Forestry England and a trustee of Sylva Foundation). The audience really engaged in a fast-flowing commentary of key issues from their perspectives.
It was revealing that so much of the conversation revolved around people, as much as trees. Indeed, there is an old adage that forestry is as much about people as trees. And so it was that the importance of bringing more people closer to nature rose to the fore. We heard from Lee Batstone, an inspirational head teacher who has fully embraced Forest School. The conference reflected on whether forestry still carried the baggage of negative messages resulting from its mistakes over the last 100 years, rather than celebrating its huge successes. Does the forestry sector as a whole require PR training? Journalist and long-term friend of Sylva Foundation, Robert Penn, closed the conference with aplomb, challenging foresters to tell their stories, of which there are so many rich and important ones to tell.
Personally, I often feel a little flat after a major conference, and that in no way reflects the quality of this conference which is one of the best I remember attending. I really value catching up with professional colleagues and making new acquaintances, I love for my mind to be expanded (for example by Dr Jeremy Leggett talking about Green Finance), and to learn more about the wonderful and diverse nature of forestry. But I also wonder ‘so what?’. What will change as a result of this conference and the bringing together of so many great forestry and arboricultural minds? Perhaps I am little ambitious in harbouring such expectations, and instead I should reflect on what I can do more as an individual.
For me then, I feel challenged to become bolder at telling the stories of forestry and engaging with wider elements of the environmental sector. Have I got the energy to routinely engage with the media so that the voice of professional foresters is heard, bringing more balance and expertise to the debate on live tree-related issues (of which there have been several major stories in the last year alone)? Perhaps I should volunteer as a STEM Ambassador and engage more actively with schools. Maybe I should lobby the ICF to include school outreach and the promotion of forestry as a compulsory element for continuing professional development? I could stand for election again to support the core work of the ICF.
So, I ask fellow delegates and indeed all foresters, what are you going to do next to secure a better future for trees, nature and society by 2125?
Dr Gabriel Hemery FICFor CEnv
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Gabriel Hemery is CEO of Sylva Foundation, and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and a Chartered Environmentalist. Gabriel was recently profiled for the Society for the Environment.
