Links

• Arboricultural Information Exchange - Privately run website with loads of useful info., articles, adverts and contributions.
• Association of Pole Lathe Turners & Greenwood Workers - What it says on the box! It started as a dozen bodgers meeting to keep the old skills going and now has over 500 members worldwide. Many of the local members are friends of mine and quite a few are also in the Coppice Association NW since bodgers and coppice workers have much in common.
• Coppice Association North West - Members share an interest in the growing and use of coppice wood and products. Also provide training in traditional skills including apprenticeships.
• Coppice Products - Useful resource site run by The Green Wood Centre, Coalbrookdale, with other public bodies.
• Cumbria Woodlands. - Grant-funded agency co-ordinating woodland interests in the Lake District.
• Forestry Commission GB - Public body whose mission has changed from mass timber production to taking the lead in the development and promotion of sustainable forest management nationally.
• Friends of the Lake District. - Charitable Trust complimenting the work of the National Park Authority and the National Trust. 75 years old in 2009, it predates the former. Organise lots of volunteering & conservation, grants, campaigns and lobbying. Runs regular hedge-laying and dry-stone walling competitions.
• Green West Lancs - Anything green goes here. Loads of links, opinions, information sources. Privately managed so not subject to political control.
• Lancashire Woodland Project - A point of contact for anyone interested in trees and wood.
• National Hedgelaying Society. - National body co-ordinating regional and local societies. In the NorthWest of England we have the Lancashire and Westmoreland Grand Prix, a series of competitions laying in our distinctive local style.
• National Trust - A charity working to preserve and protect the coastline, countryside and buildings of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• North West Ecological Trust - The Trust owns and manages the Gorse Hill Nature Reserve at Aughton, on the outskirts of Ormskirk, where about 100 acres of former farm land is being progressively restored to something near its condition in Medieval times, with woodland, orchard, rough grazing and organically managed hay meadows.
• North West Organic Centre - A collaboration between The Soil Asociation, Food North West and the Northwest Regional Development Agency ( with links to their respective websites ), This site contains a comprehensive directory of organic farmers and food processors in Cheshire, Cumbria, and Lancashire region, as well as a noticeboard where goods and stock can be advertised for sale or as wanted.
• Royal Forestry Society - Highly reputed National society whose members share a wide spectrum of forestry-related interests. Regular outdoor meetings, publish the Quarterly Journal of Forestry and fortnightly e-news.
• The Tree Council - The lead UK tree campaigning partnership, an umbrella body for 150 organisations working together for trees.
• The Woodland Trust. - Charitable body caring for woodland in the UK.
• Waste & Resources Action Programme - A not-for-profit body encouraging businesses and the general public to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. Good links for recycling.
• Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside - Conservation charity working to protect wildlife in town, countryside and in the rivers and seas throughout our region.
• WWT Martin Mere. - My local centre of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Burscough, winter home to tens of thousands of geese, and the odd beaver.