Sam at Shuttleworth House
Yesterday, I completed the ‘Responsible Forest Management and Sustainable Forest Product Supply Chains Course’ provided by Soil Association Certification Limited between 25th March – 5th April, 2019 in the UK.
Certificate presentation
This training course has been funded by the Richard Shuttleworth Remembrance Trust. I must say that this stands as the best out-of-school training experience that I have ever got.
The diversity of experience and nationalities represented in the course remains one of the major highlights of the course. We had 2 directors from Kenya Forest Service, 1 staff from Ghana Forestry Commission, staff from Forestry and Land Scotland, staff from WWF Thailand, Director from Tree Aid UK, staff from South African Legislative Procurement office, British Researcher based in Italy and 2 Independent Consultants/ CEOs from Cameroon & Namibia.
The Group
The in classroom sessions was blended with presentations from Mr Clive Thomas and other trainers from the Soil Association, plenty of group work, many case studies and sharing of ideas from various countries and perspectives. In addition, we had to site visits to Howarth Timber Group – a group of five companies which has being in business for over 175 years. The Company owns a chain of custody certificates (8 certificates including 4 FSC & PEFC). I enjoyed Mr Peter Kelly’s (Chain of Custody Manager for the company) presentation on chain of custody certification from the certified company point of view as well as the tour of the facility.
At Howarth Timber Group
We also visited the National Forest (NF) and the Woodland Trust (WT) where heard presentations from Mr Sam Lattaway and Andrew Sharkey of NF and WT respectively. The National Forest is an environmental project which has created a new, forested landscape and destination across 200 square miles of central England with about 200, 000 people living within the forest while the Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the UK and has a forest estate of over 26,979 ha which are all certified. I am particularly intrigued by the organizations rationale for embracing certification. We also visited the Martinshaw Wood and Pear Tree Wood of the Woodland Trust in Leicester.
At Martinshaw Wood, Woodland Trust
I have learnt some new keyconcept around Due diligence systems, stakeholder consultation, forest governance, ‘PESTLE tool’, sustainable supply chains, chain of custody certification, FSC International Generic Indicators, FSC National Forest Stewardship Standard setting process, PEFC Standard Benchmark, FSC Controlled Wood, UKWAS – FSC Endorsed SFM standard etc.
Indoor training sessions
Based on the knowledge acquired from these 2 weeks training course, I am better positioned to work in environmental consulting and environmental NGOs working on and/or promoting responsible forest management as well as logging companies with an FM and /or CoC certificate including those interested in pursuing certification.
As I graduate in few months, please if you have any contacts in any organisation that fits the descriptions above. Kindly recommend me or put me in touch.
I look forward to sharing my experience with students in my lab and at UBC Forestry later this spring.
Thank you to the Soil Association training team especially Mr Clive Thomas for staying with us all through to the end and being so kind.
If you would like to participate in the next course which is in November, you can register here.
Walk in the Shuttleworth Woods
Drink in the Pub
Participants from Africa