Trees Beyond the Wood

An exploration of concepts of woods, forests and trees

5th to 7th September 2012

 The Biodiversity and Landscape History Research Institute together with partners including the Ancient Tree Forum, International Oak Society, Tomasz Samojlik (Bialowieza Institute, Poland) and Mauro Agnoletti (IUFRO) are organising the conference to celebrate twenty years of work since our first major conference on the theme of ancient trees and woodlands. It is also almost ten years since our 2003 Working and Walking in the Footsteps of Ghosts event which started to raise issues and challenge assumptions about what is ‘ancient’ or ‘natural’ and what is meant by the terms ‘wood’ or ‘woodland’. Since then on-going work in a range of disciplines across ecology, biology, landscape history, archaeology, forestry and nature conservation has continued the process of research and evaluation across the subject area.

 Our 2012 event will bring together key speakers in the debate and give the opportunity for others to present shorter papers or posters to explore themes and issues which will move the discussion forward and allow for a greater level of understanding between disciplines. We will include people from a variety of backgrounds (academic, NGOs, local authorities, conservation trusts, businesses and voluntary sector); and countries (principally UK and Europe). Speakers already confirmed include George Peterken, Charles Watkins, Paul Warde, Graham Bathe, Keith Alexander, Peter Szabo, Della Hooke, Brian Muelaner, Carol Wiiliams, Melvyn Jones and Ian Rotherham.

 Partners for the European Oak theme already include Vikki Bengtsson and Nicklas Jansson of Pro Natura in Sweden (European Oak Society), and Ted Green and Jill Butler of the Ancient Tree Forum.

Oliver Rackham will be one of the keynote speakers and Donald Pigott (our keynote in 1992), will be one of our conference guests talking about his long-awaited book on the genus Tilia.

We are still inviting submission of poster presentations which focus on specific case study areas, individual species and genera, or suites of species as well as those which address the issues at habitat and landscape levels. The core theme of the event will be to raise and discuss issues around the concept of a ‘wood’, and to address issues of trees outside ‘woods’. There will be a poster presentation session on the Thursday afternoon of the conference.

 The conference will begin late-morning Wednesday (5^th); after the opening presentations there will be a field visit to the Chatsworth Estate on the edge of the Peak District which will demonstrate several of the conference themes. There will be a conference dinner on the following evening.

A programme for the conference will be available shortly.

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For more information, offers of papers or support, and to be added to the mailing list for this major event, please get in touch via the Contact Us page of this website.

Click on the link below to view the first call for papers:

First call for papers flier for the Trees Beyond the Wood 2012 conference

 or here for the flier and booking form with early bird discount available until the end of January 2012.