Sylva Foundation

Take part in our Woodworking and Gender Equality 2024 Survey Are you part of the UK’s Woodworking or Furniture-making industry? If so, we want to hear from you, whether you are an employer, worker, teacher or student. You are invited to take part in our national survey exploring gender equality. Take the Survey: https://lnkd.in/eTjN_-4a The survey is part of the Woodworking and Gender Project which aims to empower people of marginalised genders to pursue sustainable careers in woodworking, revitalising a shrinking industry and supporting education to build a more inclusive and skilled future. We’re reaching out to people of every gender in the woodworking and furniture industry—whether you’re a sole trader, a joiner, a cabinet maker, or part of a larger company, or work or study in education—because your experiences and opinions matter. We want to understand your career journey so far, and perspectives on your future career: *What opportunities and challenges have you encountered while building a meaningful and satisfying career? *How do workshop and company culture or education influence your job satisfaction, sense of safety, and feeling of being valued? *Has gender identity shaped your experiences in the industry or education? Our Woodworking and Gender Equality 2024 Survey is your chance to share your voice and help us identify ways to create more inclusive and supportive workplaces across the industry. Please take part in the survey. Thank you #gender #equality #diversity #woodworking #furniture #industry

We are delighted to welcome Dr Eleanor Tew MICFor to our trustee board. Eleanor is currently Head of Forest Planning at Forestry England. She studied Biological Sciences at the Department of Zoology, Oxford University followed by a PhD in the Conservation Science Group at Cambridge University. In 2022, she was awarded the Hugh Miller Award for Excellence by the Institute of Chartered Foresters for her Professional Membership Entry application and was shortlisted for the institute’s Professional Forester of the Year 2024. Last year she led a horizon scanning exercise with diverse contributors from across the forestry sector. She was lead author of the resulting research paper (co-authored with our CEO) which highlights opportunities for the next 50 years but also warns of multiple emerging threats to woodlands, including tree disease and extreme weather. Eleanor has technical knowledge and experience in natural capital and ecosystem services, forest resilience and sustainability, and forest planning, and will bring her innovative approaches and strategic thinking to the charity’s Environmental programme. Her academic research credentials will also support Sylva Foundation’s Science programme. Commenting on her appointment, Eleanor Tew said: “I am delighted to be joining Sylva Foundation’s trustee board. Sylva Foundation is a charity that I have long admired and had the pleasure to work alongside, and I am excited to now be more formally involved in the charity’s work. I hope that my experiences bridging academic research and practical forest management will be valuable. I am also particularly interested in supporting our future generations and promoting gender equality, which is central to the Sylva Foundation.” #trustees #forestry #environment

Sylva is now on Bluesky! We abandoned the other place long ago and have been waiting to jump aboard the next good platform. Join us there! Looking forward to sharing news, views and activities as we continue our work nurturing a wood culture, growing a future. #forestry #wood #environment #bsky https://lnkd.in/eDxA3Bi6

We won! We are delighted to announce that our Ebworth Stools collection, designed and manufactured in collaboration with the National Trust, has won the Furniture Production category at this years Wood Awards. The elegant, limited-edition Ebworth stools have been created using trees felled on the Ebworth Estate due to ash dieback – a disease which could kill up to 80% of ash trees across the UK, according to The Woodland Trust. The collection entails three different designs – each inspired by a stool in the National Trust’s collection – and has been produced in small batches by students at Sylva Foundation’s wood school. “From their elegant design and sustainable nature, through to the story which these wooden furniture items tell – charting their journey from woodland to workshop and on to the end user – the Ebworth Stools embody the principles of the Wood Awards” Sebastian Cox, lead judge of Furniture and Objects. By creating beautiful, high-quality products from certified Grown in Britain, the Sylva Foundation and National Trust are bridging the gap between education and practice – while illustrating the importance of active forest management. The Wood School team share this award with three cohorts of Professional Course students who have year on year produced such fantastic quality work, and we thank our client and collaborator, the National Trust, for having faith in our unique furniture making course. Joseph Bray (Head of Wood School) collected the award on behalf of the Sylva Foundation, accompanied by Senior Tutor Phil Gullam. Read more on our blog: https://lnkd.in/eFvyY5H3

We are delighted to announce our Carving Change: Woodworking and Marginalised Genders Seminar. All the details are below. Come join us for Carving Change, where together, we’re shaping an inclusive future for woodworking!

The myForest team were delighted to speak in the ConFor tent at #APF2024. The exhibition is the UK’s largest forestry, woodland, arboriculture, firewood, fencing, trees and timber trade show. It attracts over 320 exhibitors and 23000 visitors. The talk was titled ‘Linking the wood-chain through collaboration and technology’. Paul Orsi (Director of Operations at Sylva Foundation) spoke alongside Rossanna Cunningham from the Northwoods Woodland Management Innovation Programme and Hester Robertston from CloudForest. Together Paul, Rosanna and Hester talked about how their work separately on innovation was supporting more woodlands into management, but more importantly how their collaboration across technology was bigger than the sum of the parts. Paul highlighted the work that the myForest team had done over the last year to support woodland owners and managers to collect and calculate woodland inventory information in myForest. He also highlighted some of the development work that is ongoing at the moment including trialling a direct link from myForest to create a sale listing in the CloudForest marketplace to allow owners and managers to market their timber more easily and effectively. Watch this space over the coming months and release new functionality in myForest based on some fantastic collaboration. #woodlandmanagement #innovation #collaboration Confor: Confederation of Forest Industries (UK)

We're pleased that a paper featuring the outcomes of the 2021 British Woodlands Survey exploring attitudes to oak tree health has been published in an academic journal. See: https://lnkd.in/e7msbBm2 Co-authored by our team with researchers from Forest Research and Bangor University. Huge thanks to all those who supported the survey, either by promoting it among land managers or completing it. Abstract The values of forests have been extensively researched by focusing on general public perspectives with different frameworks used to categorise them. Studies have also explored forest manager values; however, there is limited evidence on the values they associate with specific tree species. Understanding more about managers’ values regarding a particular species is important when considering how they make decisions and might respond to tree pests and disease threats. In this study, we explored forest managers’ values regarding oak trees and the effects of a particular pest and disease risk known as Acute Oak Decline on these. This paper outlines the results from interviews with forest managers in England and a survey of private forest managers in Britain to capture the ways in which they value the oak trees they own, manage, or influence. Forest manager types included private owners of single or multiple properties, forestry professionals, businesses, and tenants. The results show that oaks were highly valued by forest managers as an iconic cultural species in the landscape and for their timber. Veteran and ancient oak trees were considered very important, and managers were more likely to spend time and resources attempting to conserve these oaks due to their perceived cultural value. Those who had trees that were suffering from Acute Oak Decline were also more likely to spend resources on them to save the trees or try to reduce the impact of the disease. Gaining a better understanding of forest managers’ attitudes towards protecting species they value is important as it has implications for their decision-making and management behaviours. It can also help to provide relevant bodies with information on how best to develop and communicate guidance and advice on monitoring and reporting disease symptoms, as well as managing oak tree health. #research #land #trees #resilience #culture #forestry

We are delighted to welcome Cathrin (Cat) Poppensieker to the Sylva team. Cat will lead our new Woodworking and Gender Project, funded by The National Heritage Lottery Fund and other generous supporters. The project aims to address the significant gender imbalance in the heritage woodworking sector. The project envisions a transformed woodworking industry, driven by the creativity and innovation of women and non-binary individuals, revitalising endangered crafts while promoting sustainable practices. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2014) and more than 12 years of project management experience across corporate, academic, and charity sectors, Cat specialises in delivering impactful projects for under-represented groups. Her work is devoted to social justice, community cohesion, and enhancing wellbeing. Cat has a passion for furniture making and woodworking. She has developed a wide range of hands-on skills, while working as a workshop technician at a furniture school, where she supported students in honing their craftsmanship. As a hardwood specialist and machinist, she gained in-depth knowledge of timber properties and machining techniques. Additionally, her experience as a freelance carpenter has allowed her to navigate and overcome the unique challenges of being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated trade. Speaking about her appointment, Cat commented: “Leading the ‘Woodworking and Gender’ project at Sylva is a dream come true! I’m really excited to collaborate with incredible female and non-binary makers, alongside educators and the furniture industry, to make woodworking/heritage craft more inclusive, innovative, and inspiring for future generations.” See more on the project here: https://lnkd.in/en4pWqPg #NationalLotteryHeritageFund Acknowledgement statement The Woodworking and Gender project is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Conran Foundation, The Mila Charitable Trust, Benchmark Furniture Ltd, Vastern Timber Ltd. Thanks to their generous support and National Lottery players, together we will ensure future generations of skilled and resilient women and non-binary woodworkers are able to support the woodworking heritage of this country for years to come.

Wood School stools shortlisted for prestigious Wood Awards We are very proud and excited that the Ebworth stools have been shortlisted for the Production Made Furniture category of this year's Wood Awards. Praise must go to the makers from our Professional Furniture Making course, who have skillfully made the Ebworth stools in batches over the past three years. Made from home-grown ash, this collection of hand-crafted stools connects education, heritage and sustainable woodland management. Resulting from a collaboration between Sylva Foundation and The National Trust, these elegant limited-edition stools have been created using trees felled on the Ebworth Estate due to ash dieback disease. The collection entails three different designs (each inspired by a stool in The National Trust’s collection) and has been produced in small batches by students at Sylva Foundation’s Wood School and sold via The National Trust's online shop. Supporting the educational aims of the school, each of the stools incorporates a specific set of making processes and techniques but are unified with a common design language. Creating beautiful, high-quality products from certified Grown in Britain ash, this project helps bridge the gap between education and practice while illustrating the importance of active forest management. Read more on the Wood Awards website: https://lnkd.in/eUupCxHk

Early Warning System Development Working Group Sylva Foundation is working on a new Defra-funded project, in collaboration with Forest Research and the Plant Health Forestry team of the Forestry Commission to explore the potential to development of an Early Warning System which could be built within the myForest platform. There is potential for such a system to help government officials to reach out to landowners with specific tree species when threatened by a particular pest/pathogen, in a defined location, with a view to managing pest/pathogen outbreaks. We want to explore the potential of such a system from all angles; legal, ethical and practical. Can you help us by joining a small working group? Ideally you will be a woodland owner or manager, and also have some knowledge of our myForest service. Please consider supporting this important work. Find out more and apply here: https://lnkd.in/eSpwDGju