Tristan Haynes, Field Manager (Cheshire to Lancashire) for the Forestry Commission’s North West & West Midlands Area Team, reflects on two days of learning, fresh perspectives and new connections at the recent Early Career Professionals Study Tour in Wales.
Whilst I have now attended a couple of excellent face-to-face ICF events previously, I had never considered myself particularly ‘early career’, having worked in the wider land management sector in England for more than 25 years. However, having noticed that this is how ICF regard those within the first 10 years of their forestry career, and that the location was just over the Welsh border from me, I agreed with my line manager that I would benefit professionally from joining this year’s Early Career Professionals Study Tour (ECPST).
Upon arrival at the Llanwddyn Village Hall I was immediately put at ease by some familiar faces in the room and it was also immediately clear that there were actually people here from all walks of life, including one chap who, I am sure won’t mind me saying, most definitely not ‘early career’. John Browne FICFor, renowned professional forester, local resident and author of TREES magazine’s regular ‘A Forester’s Bookcase’* feature, had joined us for the day. John’s main contribution was to offer some words of advice for the cohort from his experience of attending a similar event back in 1995 – that this was a safe space for early career professionals, without the risk of being dominated by louder, more experienced, and (dare we say it?) strongly opinionated voices, there is no such thing as a silly question, and also implored us to exercise our professional curiosity. This proved to set us up well for the next two days and it was a privilege to benefit from John’s experience and gentle guidance over the course of the first day.
As well as the students, graduates, apprentices, colleagues and even a Young Professional Forestry Exchange Programme student from Tasmania, forestry attracts a good number of career changers, or perhaps more accurately ‘specialisers’ like myself. As well as foresters the attendees also included Welsh Government officers, local authority arboriculturists, ecologists and others, demonstrating just what an amazing array of professions interact across the sector. As an event with plenty of opportunity for networking, this made for an interesting range of different perspectives over the course of the two days. Emyr Parker MICFor had organised the site visits around two of Tilhill Forestry’s managed sites.
Day One directly involved the client from Hafren Dyrwfyd, who own the Lake Vyrnwy reservoir site in mid-Wales. We first took a look at an area of mature Douglas fir that had been notoriously flattened by the devastating Storm Darragh event in late 2024. Despite living just over an hour away, I had not been to the site for a few years, and as we approached this north-west corner of the lake was immediately struck by how dramatic an impact it has made. A major takeaway from this for me was that ‘disturbances’ are an inevitable natural feature of any forest ecology and whilst these could be considered a liability, there are clearly also opportunities to be had from forced changes of plan, and accessing the expertise to make the most of such a scenario is key.
A spot of lunch by the waterfalls left me questioning why I don’t spend more of my recreational time in the area, and also gave everyone a chance to get to know each other a little better. The afternoon gave us an opportunity to consider the relatively recent history of forestry tree health issues and interventions, with some amazing insight into this from John Browne FICFor. Certainly over the entire time that I have been working in the sector, managing the threat of a seemingly ever-increasing raft of tree pests and diseases has always felt like a constant challenge for foresters. John’s explanation of how he and his colleagues had first worked to deploy the now seemingly relatively routine SPHN process in response to the identification of larch as a sporulating host for Phytophthora, and the risk that the resulting environmental ‘loading’ would result in the pathogen impacting upon other species, gave some interesting context to this. Tilhill’s Senior Area Timber Buyer, Mark Morgan, then also gave us the opportunity to consider the practicalities of marketing the ‘oversized’ timber from the windblow site we had seen in the morning as we viewed some of the last remaining loads of this in the yard. Many of the group were camping overnight and we were also able to visit a recently established farm woodland scheme en route, giving those from England and Wales a chance to compare notes on the machinations of our respective grant regimes!
Day Two took us to a different long-term Tilhill-managed site in North Wales. As a keen mountain biker I had visited Llandegla before, and there had certainly been a number of clear-fell operations and restocks amongst the spruce crop since I was last there. The origin story of the plantations at this upland site is compelling with the Shotton Paper Mill within viewing distance and its subsequent development into also becoming the first privately-owned mountain bike trails centre through the enduring partnership with One Planet Adventure of some 25 years.
Whilst the value of recreational activities in woodlands is now well-regarded, the visit really highlighted how there is perhaps just as much ‘business’ for the forest manager through the other land uses that are typically going on amongst and adjacent to the forest, as from the management of the plantations themselves. At Llandegla this includes projects as diverse as the maintaining and upgrading of various aspects of United Utilities’ water infrastructure, to grant-funded work to improve the condition of the adjacent Ruabon Mountain SAC – all requiring plenty of professional input into the planning and liaison and some specialist forestry/contractor operations themselves.
Tilhill Area Manager, Simon Miller, has been instrumental in facilitating the development of the recreational use here from the outset and emphasised a wider point I have heard others make previously but was really brought to life here, that forestry is as much about the people involved as the trees themselves. The long-term retention of the team by the client, the partnerships, the stakeholder, and contractor, relationships that were evident here are clear testament to their careful management of both the people and the trees.
Although some unique challenges, and the objectives of its owners, resulted in the site continuing to be under a largely fell and restock system, it was interesting to note that, with the relatively small size of coupe across a fairly self-contained site, this system does also effectively create rotational areas of diversified habitat at any one time with notable benefits to numerous species. I think whilst it is fair to say I still found the commercial reality of some other aspects of this (necessarily) productive forest management focus challenged some of my own values, it is important to recognise that as professionals it is often necessary for us to reconcile conflicting factors to resolve complex problems.
Despite the occasionally uncomfortable heatwave conditions that persisted throughout the two days, I am certain that all those that attended were hugely grateful to the ICF for the opportunity and to Emyr and his colleagues for providing such an enriched itinerary and plenty of much-valued honesty. Whilst I had started the tour wondering whether I really was early career, I left with no doubt that I am (though with a renewed sense of energy to get on with preparing for my PME submission!).
* You can read John Browne FICFor’s article on Lake Vyrnwy, the legacy of forestry educator Professor William Fisher, and the story of Britain’s first forestry school in the Autumn 2026 edition of TREES magazine.
