What's New
Welcome to the newly refreshed Forestry Framework for the whole of the West Midlands. Supported by evidence in the baseline study "A Growing resource" and the more recent "Regional Economic Baseline for the West Midlands 2009", the Framework directly connects trees, woodland and forestry to the wider regional agenda, where there are opportunities to improve the quality of life for everyone.
Both rural and urban trees and woodland in the West Midlands are multi-purpose and multi-functional providing a multitude of different benefits and services: timber production, green infrastructure, wood energy, biodiversity, recreation, water and climate change mitigation, landscape aesthetics, employment, health & social care services.
The West Midlands is the fourth most densely wooded region in England amounting to over 100,000 hectares and 8% of the land area. Regionally the sector looks to the West Midlands Regional Forestry Framework for direction on how the region can benefit more from their tree and woodland assets and be better custodians of these assets. The Framework sets out priorities for activity across the private, public and voluntary sector.
This refreshing and updating of the Framework, aligning more closely with national and regional strategy, will result in the continuation of what has already been working well, the development of new benefits for the trees, woodland and forestry sector and local communities and an improved environment in urban and rural areas and at their interface.
Read more about the Regional Forestry Economic Baseline for the West Midlands
Trees, Woods and Forestry Manifesto for the West Midlands
With the refresh and update of the Forestry Framework completed, we took a hard look at what was needed in the years ahead to maximize the benefits provided by trees woods and forestry. The result, this Manifesto, was launched at the June 2010 Woodland & Forestry Forum.
Please see the Growing Our Future Delivery Plan 2010-2013
This Delivery Plan reflects the monitoring responses and research carried out indicating what lead partners and stakeholders think should be done with regards to Trees, Woods and Forestry benefiting those living in, working in and visiting the West Midlands. This present rolling three-year plan refreshes and updates the 2008-2011 Delivery Plan, taking into account of the WMRFF Refresh and has been designed to be reviewed annually.
Read the delivery plan (in Word format) here.
Read the delivery plan (in PDF format) here.
Growing our Future, the West Midlands Regional Forestry Framework launched the rolling three year Delivery Plan guiding actions for 2010-2013 at the end of June 2010. This set out detailed activities spread across the nine themes, each with targets and success indicators identified for monitoring performance at twelve monthly intervals.
2009-2010 Annual Report
This, the sixth monitoring exercise since 2004, has been again very encouraging with an excellent level of reponses in geographical and sectoral terms.
