Long-lost IT bigwig found in Surrey forest Dimension Data's former long serving EMEA CEO Russell Bolan has ditched the corporate lifestyle to hang out in the woods. The channel bigwig quit the rat race at the end of 2009 and has spent the time managing a 73 acre forest on the Surrey and Hampshire border but he is not, as it turns out, single-handedly trying to tackle …
..they are called managed forests and have been around for ooooo thousand years+
Unless of course you think all wood products are the result of people randomly going around going, oooo that one looks good, we'll take it.
Godd for him, doing something he enjoys instead of keeping up with the Jones'
Nothing in the article suggests good or bad management.
I'd only be concerned that it's a rather small corner to live off, so if it's not hobbyism then ravenous overharvesting seems to be a necessity? It's about 350 x 1000 yards (280x1000 metres) --- more of a large garden than a forest. A good oak harvests about once per 150years, and needs at least say 5x5m for itself (initially less, but you thin out by harvesting over the years) --- this leaves about 150 trees per acre [conveniently =O] or 73 mature trees harvested per year at varying values, worth say £500 but costing a lot in transport, cutting down and processing [processing cost taken on by his own sawmill].
So you're looking at a £50k turnover (including the smaller trees), with a lot of costs (labour & insurance), or are my sums off?
If firewood is the product rather than fine hardwoods, then coppicing will give a harvest every 10-15 years per tree with no replanting costs. He could even set up a charcoaling scheme for the barbecue market using his coppiced timber to raise the value of the harvest.
I've got a feeling he knows what he is doing.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
