Ben Law on the way of the woodsman
Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. Often when we think about agroforestry we think first about food. Orchards of fruit and nut crops are certainly an important aspect of agroforestry, but so is the responsible harvesting and care for woodlands for building materials and fuel. For a long time now I\u2019ve admired the work of Ben Law who\u2019s a woodsman, permaculture practitioner, and author of many books on developing, tending, and using the products that come from the woods.\n\n\n\nBen is a wealth of practical knowledge and is a founding member of the Forest Stewardship Council. He also has worked for Oxfam as a permaculture consultant. He\u2019s also the author of The Woodland Way: A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland Management.\n\n\n\nBen\u2019s woodland house has been featured on The World\u2019s Greenest Homes, a series of the Discovery Channel\u2019s Planet Green and his latest book, Roundwood Timber Framing, is a full color guide to his beautiful and traditional building techniques.\n\n\n\nThis is a special episode today, because it comes from the archives of one of my favorite podcasts, one that helped to inspire me to begin my own back in the early days. Since I can hardly hope to improve on my friend Scott Mann\u2019s exceptional interviewing style in the Permaculture Podcast, I reached out to him to ask if he would allow me to rebroadcast his interview with Ben and he generously said yes.\n\n\n\nScott and I, along with our friend and colleague Jill Cloutier from Sustainable World Radio have teamed up to form the Regenerative Media Alliance, a union of independent media producers working to broadcast regenerative solutions across the world.\n\n\n\nBe sure to stick around until the end where I\u2019ll share more information about this alliance and give you the early signup information for the RMA\u2019s professional development conference.\n\n\n\nIn this interview, Ben and Scott discuss a wide range of woodland management ideas and options like coppicing and pollarding. Ben describes some of the valuable skills and products that can be central to profitable forest management or forest based businesses. Overall I really love this conversation for the mindset that comes through from Ben as he describes his deep relationship with the woodland that he stewards and I hope that it helps you to look at the forest in a deeper way as well.\n\n\n\nJoin the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community\n\n\n\nLinks:\n\n\n\n\nhttps://ben-law.co.uk/\n\n\n\n\nhttps://ben-law.co.uk/product-category/books-dvds/\n\n\n\nhttps://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/web/\n\n\n\n\nhttps://regenerativemediaalliance.com/