Enviromental Action

The tree project is currently in it's first phase, which continues until March 2013

We are continuing to deliver limited support for forest developement in Environmental areas through the online training and innovation needs analyses (CINA process) and provide feedback on training provision for needs identified.

We no longer offer financial support, through our forest grant scheme as we are looking to develop partnerships with the private sector businesses and public sector providers that own forests.

Some pests can cause great damage to our beautiful trees, either by destroying the bark and the branches, or (in the case of moles), destroying the tree by destroying the roots underneath. If you're trees are being destroyed by pests, visit this website to contact a local pest controller from a national firm, who will have the knowledge, experience and equipment to deal with your pest problem and protect your beautiful tree.

The tree aren't creating a framework for development of sector skills through delivery mechanisms that are "demand" (business led) as opposed to "supplier" driven through a study of best practice (to be commissioned). This will particularly, but not exclusively, address skills for innovation at HE level.

We are identifying environmental/land use management and environmental technology opportunities for 'end user' groups through dialogue with the emerging Sector Skills Councils, identifying market development opportunities for the sector and enabling SSCs to identify skills development issues relating to implementation of these sustainable technologies for their sectors .

The number of available environmental technologies within the agriculture industry is expanding every year. As further research goes into understanding the advantages of these technologies the uses and outcomes of them interest more people.

We will promote Environmental Technology careers and woodland employment.

SOME ENVIRONMENTAL TERMS

Before going any farther, let's take a look at a few words. Some of them may be new familiar ones may be viewed in a new light.

Biodegradability. Man has created a large number of substances which were not previously found in the natural world, and he produces others in such quantities as never occurred before. Those which break down rapidly on their own, or through the action of organisms, are termed biodegradable. Others are so unnatural that the organisms which live on this planet have no way of chewing them up. Such long-lasting, non-biodegradable products as DDT and plastics present problems when they interact adversely with living things, or accumulate to the point that they disrupt biological cycles.

Ecology. Ecology has been around for a long time as a science, a science that has examined the ways in which plants and animals relate to each other and to their physical environments. However, =it is no, longer possible to view ecology as being concerned only with Venus' fly-traps and flies, or with frogs and lily pads, because suddenly man has realized that he, too, is a part of the ecological system.
The activities of man influence every part of the biosphere and the destruction of any part of it ultimately affects the  chances of survival for man. Thus it is vital to understand the ecological impact of man's activities and to reduce their adverse consequences wherever possible.

Ecological Cycles. Natural systems tend to order themselves so that the wastes of one member are the food for another. In this way the resources of the system are conserved and made available again to each new generation of plants and animals. Thus, plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, which in turn is used by animals to burn .up their food, a process which regenerates the carbon dioxide. The other natural cycles of   water nitrogen, phosphorus, etc, are also given the term biogeochemical cycles.

Ecosystems. Living things that relate to each, other as predators or by sharing food or living space, are said to be part of an ecosystem. In stable ecosystems, interrelationships among the different members work out so that each mutually supports the continued existence of the other members, as well as the continuity of the system itself. A woodland meadow, a puddle of rainwater, and our own digestive tracts, are all ecosystems. The ultimate ecosystem man is likely to deal with is the solar system.

Energy. For the Earth as a whole the main source of energy is the sun. The life-support system that has evolved on this planet, with its cycles and interdependent ecosystems, provides the mechanisms by which the energy in sunlight is trapped (by photosynthesis) and distributed throughout the system. Man needs this energy to make his muscles move, to generate heat to keep him warm and cook his food, to transport him from place to place, and to run his industries.          

                              
The chemical energy stored in plant or animal tissues may accumulate in the environment instead of decomposing. This generally occurs under water where insufficient oxygen is present to break down the tissues. Thus peat can be seen accumulating under fresh water swamps and in Carboniferous times tropical forest swamps built up dead plant tissue in huge quantities and now supply us with coal and lignite. Our sources of petroleum come from the remains of dead fish and it is thought that the tar sand deposits were accumulated when volatile plant oils evaporated from the world's tropical forest zones and the atmospheric circulation brought them down over the desert regions where water was evaporated off but the organic oils seeped into the sands. The other main non-solar sources of energy are geothermal energy from the interior heat of the Earth and radioactive elements which give off rays of energy as they decay.

Environment. Generally speaking, environment is everything physical and otherwise — that surrounds us. It falls into two main parts the socio cultural environment which is man-oriented and includes our social systems, family units and behaviour relations to each other, and the biophysical which includes all other living things and the natural elements such as water, air, minerals, etc. Both interrelate to form the total environment which surrounds every living thing.

Eutrophication. This is an ageing process which normally happens very slowly, on a time scale of many tens of thousands of years.. But since the appearance of technological man, the process has been accelerated enormously. An estimate has been made that Lake Erie  a large lake in the USA that has been the recipient of tons of industrial, waste — has aged 15,000 years since 1920!

Eutrophication begins when there is an excess of all the nutrients that algae and aquatic plants need to grow. The plants then grow to excess, die, and rot. This process is repeated until the lake becomes a bog, and eventually, dry land. Phosphorus, from detergents and other forms of municipal waste, is a big factor in accelerating the eutrophication process.

Pollution. In a broad sense, pollution is anything that interferes with the proper functioning of the ecosystem. It can be caused by many naturally occurring materials as well as such unnatural substances as DDT and nuclear fallout. Phosphates and nitrates, essential in low concentrations as nutrients, pollute lakes and rivers in the high concentrations that sewage treatment plants and agricultural run-off can produce. Many other things which occur in concentrations higher than they are found naturally become pollutants which disrupt or destroy biological systems. Noise, sustained at more than 80 decibels, can cause physiological as well as psychological effects and may thus be a pollutant.

Recycling. When natural mechanisms for bringing one of man's waste products back into an ecological cycle do not exist, man must devise a way of recycling it — or ultimately forgo further use of that resource. Man chops down trees to ,make fibre, out of which he makes paper. Unless used paper is repulped and made into new paper, more trees have to be cut down. By recovering scrap metal from junk piles man can reduce the amount of ore he takes out of the Earth.

Resources: renewable and non-renewable. Resources are materials that we consider useful. The usefulness of materials is determined by the culture and society we are living in. For instance we do not consider dogs as a food resource but the Chinese probably do. The usefulness of materials also changes with time. Stone-age man did not consider uranium as a resource and large flint pieces for making axe-heads .are not valued as resources by us now.

Resources are either renewable or non-renewable. Renewable resources are the plants and animals which grow and reproduce indefinitely. Limitations on the supply of renewable resources depend on the availability of water and nutrients for the plants, the land area for plants to grow and animals to graze, the condition< of the soil, the presence of sufficient numbers of the species to breed and the rate at which they reproduce. If the population of an animal species is so low that breeding is difficult or cannot take place, then that species may die out The genetic resources of plants and animals, although they are capable of being reproduced millions of times, are basically non-renewable in the sense that once they are extinct the species can never be created again.

Non-renewable resources are those which occur in fixed quantities on the planet some of these resources are abundant compounds such as water and others, such as osmium, are extremely rare. For non-renewable resources, difficulty in extraction and 'processing, the vast amounts of energy needed in exploitation or the impossibility of recovery once it has been used are often more important factors limiting supply than the fact that only fixed quantities occur on the planet.