Many farmers regard afforestation and rewilding with deep suspicion. In 1919 The Forestry Commission was established to rebuild a strategic timber reserve. Taking advantage of depressed agriculture, the commission bought cheap, marginal hill land in Wales. During the 1930s, production prioritized conifer plantations to supply pit props for the booming coal mining industry. The Forestry Commission was closed in 2013 but huge damage had already been done to the land in Cymru. A plantation of Larch trees dying with “larch disease”, Phytophthora ramorum, a highly destructive, fungus-like pathogen in central Wales.
Rhodri Jones©