Rock Croft Safe® Eyes – Product Review

Un-Fog-Able protective eye wear that will not fog, scratch or smear.

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Most, if not indeed all, ordinary safety goggles and -“glasses” have one major drawback, when you discount that the lenses scratch very easily indeed, and that is the fogging up in a variety of conditions, leading to loss of vision.

Safe® Eyes mesh safety goggles by Rock Croft, on the other hand, eliminate both of these problems. No fogging and they also are not affected by scratching. On both counts this is due to the fact that the “lenses” are not lenses but are made of a blackened stainless steel mesh. They will also not smear.

While seeing through the mesh takes a little getting used to, much in the same way when using a mesh visor on a chainsaw helmet, one soon does not even really notice the mesh pattern anymore.

The Safe® Eyes goggles are, basically, your mesh visor in goggle/safety glasses format, with the “lenses” being very strong and resistant to many a thing.

While the Safe® Eyes mesh goggles do not protect the whole face, or at least most of it, in the way does your helmet visor does, they do prevent stufgf getting into your eyes. The face heals; your eyes won't.

Often sawdust and bigger particles with much greater velocity, and thus even more dangerous bit than mere sawdust, still can and will get into your eyes despite wearing a helmet with visor – I speak from experience – and it is for that reason that forestry workers in Germany, for instance, now must wear eye protection under the visor.

Safe® Eyes on their own, in fact, would suffice in my opinion and experience, and it makes it thus possible to leave the visor away.

There are a couple of different style of this kind of eye protection, that is to say Safe® Eyes, available and one version, so I was told, I currently on trial with the (US) military.

This would definitely be a product that I am happy enough to endorse and promote.

For more information check out the website at: http://www.meshsafetygoggles.co.uk/ and http://www.safe-eyes.co.uk/

© 2011

Keep an eye on the playgrounds in your parks

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Metal thieves strip playground bare in West Midlands and this is just totally out of order and I do not care who those thieves were; they need locking up.

A few poles and frames were all they left after heartless scrap metal thieves stripped the West Midlands playground – including swings, monkey bars and slides – almost completely. They struck the Halesowen nature reserve recently overnight probably using metal disk cutters. A symptom of booming scrap metal theft across the UK.

Just about most metals are now considered fair game – lead, iron, steel and metals from car catalytic converters. Old air conditioning units. Even manhole covers. In some parts of London, even tube signal cables have been stolen, and even empty homes, even temporarily empty ones, are broken into and stripped of copper and other metals.

It's not just the theft that's a worry; it's also the mess, disruption and replacement costs it leaves, often leading to higher insurance premiums.

Hopefully the thieves can be caught in this case easily. It is not that hard to spot someone trying to offload a children's slide or swings and scrap merchants should be on look out for these thieves. If the thieves do manage to offload the metal nevertheless then the merchants too should be locked up.

Farms, churches, cemeteries and hospitals and schools are all high risk targets – but children's playgrounds are a new low. But it's also a question of police resources. For example, a local Wiltshire Police squad dedicated to dealing with metal theft was recently disbanded following budget pressure.

The problem is, though, and we must, unfortunately face those facts, that with the way times are at present and the price of metals, even the most base, fetching serious money, criminals will go after that stuff.

But, I am sure that a good example made, say, of those thieves in the West Midlands, by sending them down for a couple of years, even if it is their first time, should get the message heard loud and clear.

© 2011

Coppicing: a woodland management system of the past for the future

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Coppicing is an ancient woodland management practice that needs to be revitalized and reestablished if we want to have a sustainable supply of timber for a variety of purposes. Bean poles are but a small section of this, as is making of lump wood charcoal.

Coppicing has been carried out in British woodlands as, more or less, the mode of woodland management until just about the 1960s from night time immemorial.

It was in the 1960s when rather misinformed and misguided “environmentalists”, those who have read a lot but know little to nothing, put a stop to it claiming that those were ancient woodlands that needed to be left to return to their normal state.

Little did they know that they about signed the death warrant for those woods for, without proper continued coppice maintenance those woods will, in fact, die.

Coppice stools that are not maintained will, in the end, break apart and the trees will die. It is as simple as that.

Instead of being bad for woodlands and forests coppicing actually benefits the trees and the environment as a whole.

Much like pruning a rose or a fruit tree to encourage growth, coppicing, basically, has the same effect. Unlike pruning a tree or a rose it is a little harsher and not done as often but, in return, bring usable timber.

Not all trees can be coppiced (or pollarded) and some reproduce better than others.

The great majority of conifers, if not indeed all, do not respond to this treatment and some deciduous trees also do not.

We are lucky, in a way, as far as coppicing goes. It is not rocket science and book knowledge and learning can get it revitalised.

This makes it somewhat different from the use of crosscut saw and other old forestry ways.

Some skills can only be learned from a “master” in the filed, and not (just) from books. The sharpening of saws and axes is one; the setting of saw teeth another and the latter is much more difficult to learn than sharpening.

But, I digressed.

Some people, environmentalists included, still do not get coppicing (or forest management per se) and some, alas, also immediately seem to turn off listening when professional foresters try to make the case for forest management, even the most sustainable types of it.

I have been told, nay accused, more than ones, “but you are a commercial forester!” and aye, that is true but what does that have to do with it and why can a forester not be caring for the environment. In fact all proper ones do.

It is the same with advocating the old “clean forest” police – which even the Forestry Commission is staring to “get”, finally – where all debris, more or less, as in dead branched, tops of felled trees, etc., was taken away from the site (or burned on site) to avoid and prevent the transfer of diseases and also fire ladders.

Today the call goes out that habitat piles is what we need “for the wildlife”, as in fungi and invertebrates, etc.

The fact is that the forests under the “clean forest” policy that I worked in as a young man had more wildlife and were more alive with mushrooms of all kinds and much healthier than are place with hundreds of habitat piles.

Let's take a closer look at the old ways again. They may be able to teach us something about sustainable practices and about making use of everything.

© 2011

MACHINERY MATTERS AT IOG SALTEX

With 429 companies and organisations on show supplying industry-specific products, knowledge and advice for all manner of turf care and open space management disciplines – coupled with an equally wide-ranging education programme - this year’s IOG SALTEX (Windsor, September 6-8) promises to be the fount of all knowledge for everyone involved in the maintenance and management of sports, amenity and leisure facilities.

Companies supplying turf care machinery and services continue to feature heavily at the show – with 45 per cent of exhibitors being listed under this category (compared to 28 per cent last year and 30 per cent in 2009).

Indeed, this year 157 ‘machinery companies’ will be on the showground – 51 more than were present at last year’s show!

Coupled with the fact that companies involved in the supply of amenity services also figure prominently this year (visit www.iogsaltex.co.uk for the complete list of companies represented), the statistics prompt IOG Sales Director Clare Johnson to comment:

“The exhibitor count for this year’s show again truly reflects suppliers’ confidence – both in the industry as well as in IOG SALTEX’s ability to attract high-calibre visitors from all corners of the sector.

“There’s no doubt that while a host of suppliers are understandably exercising a degree of caution, there remains a healthy appetite for business in every aspect of effective and efficient turf care,” she says.

IOG SALTEX 2011 (www.iogsaltex.co.uk) will be held on September 6-8 at Windsor Racecourse, Berks, and will embrace fine turf and sports surfaces, turf maintenance equipment, children’s outdoor play and safety surfacing, landscaping, contractors, commercial vehicles, outdoor leisure and facilities management, as well as software and security equipment.  The show is attended by open space management professionals and contractors – from groundsmen and greenkeepers through to play officers, architects, designers and surveyors as well as local authority and outdoor leisure facility managers.

Organised by The Institute of Groundsmanship, the first IOG exhibition was staged in 1938, the forerunner to today’s IOG SALTEX Sports, Amenity & Landscape Trade Exhibition. Held annually at Windsor Racecourse, IOG SALTEX is the annual extravaganza for everyone who cares for and/or manages open spaces – including groundsmen, greenkeepers, contractors, local authority and leisure facility managers. The Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) is the leading membership organisation representing grounds managers, groundsmen, grounds maintenance managers, greenkeepers and all others involved in the management of sports pitches, landscape and amenity facilities in the UK. As well as maintaining the IOG Performance Quality Standards and providing a consultancy service for sports grounds, lawn maintenance and amenity horticulture, the IOG’s extensive Training and Education programme includes cricket, football, tennis, horseracing, bowls, artificial surfaces, turf science and many other specialist subjects.  For more information visit www.iog.org

Source: Wildish Communications Ltd for IOG Saltex

HORTICULTURE WEEK’S IOG SALTEX PANEL WILL HELP YOU SURVIVE TOUGH MAINTENANCE BUDGETS

Leading players from the groundscare and green space sectors will take part in a ‘Horticulture Week’-hosted panel discussion at this year’s IOG SALTEX open space management show (Windsor, September 6-8).

Aimed at everyone involved in the maintenance of grounds and green space, the ‘How to Survive your Toughest Maintenance Budget Ever’ session (on Wednesday September 7) will explore practical options and positive solutions available to professionals who are having to cope with reduced maintenance budgets as a result of the tough financial climate.

The expert line-up includes Angus Lindsay, group head of assets and fleet at the Landscape Group; Richard Campey, founder and director of Campey Turf Care Systems; Dr Sidney Sullivan, green space consultant; and ‘Horticulture Week’ technical editor Sally Drury.

Topics to be covered will include cost-effective approaches to sourcing and managing machinery, refining pitch maintenance regimes to get the best from resources and how to prioritise budgets to support key facilities.

The session will include plenty of time for attendees to put questions to the panel and debate the issues.

The ‘Horticulture Week’ debate, ‘How to Survive your Toughest Maintenance Budget Ever’ is free to attend and takes place at 12.15 to 13.30 on Wednesday September 7 in Room 5, The Grandstand, IOG SALTEX, Windsor Racecourse.

Visit www.iogsaltex.co.uk for details of the full IOG SALTEX Education Programme.

IOG SALTEX 2011 (www.iogsaltex.co.uk) will be held on September 6-8 at Windsor Racecourse, Berks, and will embrace fine turf and sports surfaces, turf maintenance equipment, children’s outdoor play and safety surfacing, landscaping, contractors, commercial vehicles, outdoor leisure and facilities management, as well as software and security equipment. The show is attended by open space management professionals and contractors – from groundsmen and greenkeepers through to play officers, architects, designers and surveyors as well as local authority and outdoor leisure facility managers.

Organised by The Institute of Groundsmanship, the first IOG exhibition was staged in 1938, the forerunner to today’s IOG SALTEX Sports, Amenity & Landscape Trade Exhibition. Held annually at Windsor Racecourse, IOG SALTEX is the annual extravaganza for everyone who cares for and/or manages open spaces – including groundsmen, greenkeepers, contractors, local authority and leisure facility managers. The Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG) is the leading membership organisation representing grounds managers, groundsmen, grounds maintenance managers, greenkeepers and all others involved in the management of sports pitches, landscape and amenity facilities in the UK. As well as maintaining the IOG Performance Quality Standards and providing a consultancy service for sports grounds, lawn maintenance and amenity horticulture, the IOG’s extensive Training and Education programme includes cricket, football, tennis, horseracing, bowls, artificial surfaces, turf science and many other specialist subjects. For more information visit www.iog.org

Source: Wildish Communications Ltd for IOG Saltex

Local Parks: For People or for Wildlife?

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The municipal parks in Britain were created so that the working masses could go and get some fresh air, seeing that they lives in tenements where little light and fresh air ever got to.

Those parks (and open spaces) were created under the Public Heath Act of 1875 and the subsequent ones and made the provision of parks and open spaces a statutory requirement on local authorities, councils and parishes.

That such parks can be and are a haven to wildlife, however, is and must come secondary to the original uses.

As parks, local municipal parks, and open spaces, are predominately for people and their needs of exercise in the open air they must, therefore, be managed primarily with that goal in mind. Wildlife, thus, must come – and does so under the law even – second.

It is this that must be understood when it comes to managing such parks and that it is people and their needs that come first.

Wildlife has its place but it will have to be one lower than the needs of the people for healthy recreation, even if this is just walking in a managed natural environment or well kept gardens.

There are a number of people who think that publicly owned parks and open spaces should, first and foremost, be managed – or better not – for wildlife and that people should be controlled in where they go and when and how.

This is a total and utter misunderstanding of the way parks are to be managed under the laws under which they were brought about. Wildlife was not a consideration at all back then.

While, as I said, wildlife certainly has its place and should be given consideration, primary consideration must be given to those for which parks and open spaces were made a statutory requirement, namely people.

The priorities must be gotten right and the priority is that parks and open spaces are for people's enjoyment and recreation and that should not take second stage to anything else.

Parks and open spaces are green oases in the often grimy inner cities and were thought to provide green spaces in which the working masses could go for a walk and enjoy some fresh air, even though in those days it was much more regulated what one could do in parks, and not just the Royal Parks of London. Park Keepers had real powers then and bylaws were rigorously enforced.

Parks and open spaces, under the laws that brought them about, which are still valid to this day in the same way, are primarily for people and management should reflect this, though each park and open space will have its unique areas that can also be managed for wildlife though without hampering the enjoyment of the place by the people.

Unfortunately there are some misguided people who think that wildlife has to come first in the management of parks and open spaces and will insist that this is to be so. It can, however, not be so, and that already as a result of the laws and statutory instruments under which the great majority of parks and open spaces, which are publicly owned, were created.

Thus care must be taken and those that make the demands that wildlife must have priority must be informed of the fact as to how the cookie crumbles, so to speak, as to how parks and open spaces are meant to work.

We cannot go about excluding visitors from parks at certain times, or from certain areas at certain time, just because someone thinks that wildlife needs to be protected during the breeding or nesting season or that this or that cannot be done in ways of necessary management because it might remove cover for one or the other kind of animals.

I don't think any of us have any problems with wildlife but it all comes down to a matter of priorities much like that one might encourage cyclists in parks but also in that one lets them know in no uncertain terms that it is pedestrians in the park that have priority.

“Public” parks and open spaces are here, primarily, for the enjoyment and use of people and it was for people and their use that they have been legislated for in the Public Health Act of the 19th century and the subsequent ones.

© 2011

Is Britain becoming deforested?

By Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA

Latest national tree planting figures show a continuing decrease in the rate of woodland creation, whilst trees and woods are being lost across the UK

Tree planting figures released by the Forestry Commission show the rate of woodland creation in the UK continues to fall despite recent calls for increasing woodland cover from within and outside government. From more than 12,000 ha of new planting in 2004, levels had halved to less than 6,000 ha last year and have fallen further to 5,000 ha in the last planting season.

It should be evident to all but the most blind that the UK has been losing and is losing woodlands and hedgerows and hedgerow trees at a rate of knots with little if any replacement.

Responding to the announcement by the Forestry Commission, Sue Holden, chief executive of the Woodland Trust, the UK's leading woodland conservation charity which is now encouraging planting on other people's land, said: "These figures are truly worrying, but should be seen as a clarion call to us all to reverse the downward trend as a matter of urgency.

“Woods and trees are not a luxury but essential for our future quality of life. They are a key component in delivering a wide range of environmental benefits, such as carbon storage, air quality control, shade and shelter, surface flood water management and soil conservation, which are all the more pressing if we are to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

“They also provide vital habitat for some of Britain’s most important wildlife, produce home-grown timber and wood fuel, have a proven ability to alleviate human mental stress and specific physical health problems and enhance our landscape.

“Trees are in many ways a highly cost effective way of tackling some of the major policy challenges of this government. This is why the Trust's pre-election manifesto called for a doubling of native woodland cover in the UK over the next 50 years.”

At the election the Conservative manifesto called for a national tree planting campaign – reiterated in the coalition agreement – and also highlighted the need to create green spaces and 'plant many more trees'. The Liberal Democrats on their own went even further calling for a doubling of woodland cover.

The benefits of woodland creation already feature in the UK's Low Carbon Transition Plan published last summer and the 2009 ‘Read Report’ on the role of UK forests in combating climate change. Most recently, under Defra's Climate Change Plan a designated Woodland Carbon Task Force will work out how to encourage large scale private sector investment in woodland planting.

The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have both made far-reaching commitments to increase woodland cover.

The UK is already one of the least wooded countries in Europe, with half the European average for tree cover.

Referring to the pressures on currently forested areas, Sue Holden continued: "We fully support the Forestry Commission's policy on restoration of open habitats and the restructuring of plantations, but are concerned that with new planting rates so low the net result may be a loss of woodland cover in the UK, at a time when increasing it is essential. The Government's own figures show a loss of over 9,000 ha of woodland between 1999 and 2008 for England alone which may well be an underestimate.

"There is an urgent need to compensate for these losses with large scale woodland creation elsewhere, and we are doing our bit by supporting the planting of native woods and trees through innovative schemes such as MOREwoods (http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/plant-your-own-wood/morewoods/Pages/freewoods.aspx) and through partnerships with companies, schools and communities.

"We want to help government achieve its ambitious plans, but we need to see real commitment to support woodland creation."

Meanwhile there is evidence of significant loss of trees outside woods in hedgerows and fields, as old trees die or are felled for safety reasons, but not replaced. Forestry Commission research has shown that between 1980 and 1997 England suffered a 64% decline in individual trees.

Planting and growing trees and woodlands is one of the best ways of averting the impact of CO2 on climate change but there are many who seem to not understand this and do not appear to be getting the message.

There is a lot of conflicting material out there, sometimes claiming that only old trees store carbon. In fact it is the growing tree, the young tree in his most vigorous growth period, that absorbs most carbon as it is a prerequisite for the tree's growth.

The equation is, basically, the more trees, growing trees, more carbon is being absorbed and stored by them. Old trees, in fact, as they start to slowly decay while standing, release carbon back into the atmosphere.

It is for this very reason that forestry, managed forest and woodland use, with using trees for the many different purposes when trees have reached their proper commercial maturity and then re-afforesting, that is to say replacing the trees felled, three for one, as used to be the good practice, is actually good for the planet.

We need trees and woodlands and we need well managed woods and forests for the good of the country and the good of the Planet.

© 2011