For a couple of years I’ve maintained two woodland groups on Facebook: “Woodlanders” (1666 members) and “Woodscraft” (1032). Today I added a third: “UK Woodland Owners” which has reached 121 members in 9 hours!
I created the groups as a I saw gaps between what was already there. First Woodlanders as a crossover space for people in different communities who have common interests: “people involved in Britain’s woodlands, such as wood owners, Forest Schools, coppice workers, foresters, charcoal makers, and bodgers.” As you can imagine it quickly took off.
Then Woodscraft, which was an orphaned woodland skills group without an owner, renamed and focussed on “the skills associated with British woodlands: living out in the woods, managing them, and making use of their produce”. Bushcraft for people with billhooks and chainsaws if you like 🙂
And today, I created UK Woodland Owners after I realised that there isn’t a dedicated place for people who currently own woodlands to talk freely about them with each other: “a place to discuss the practicalities, benefits, and joys of woodland ownership with people in the same position.”
Facebook isn’t perfect by a long way, but gradually the alternatives like discussion mailing lists have fallen away in popularity, and the newer social media platforms just don’t work for discussion (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok). So people are going with what’s there and making the best of what can be done.