Woodland Management and Biochar Workshop
Woodland Management and Biochar Workshop
Northwoods is exploring the opportunities biochar could present for land managers to bring more woods into better management.
This event has now occurred. A summary of the event can be found below.
The 2nd of May 2024 saw Northwoods’ Woodland Management and Biochar event take place at Hexham Auction Mart. This highly anticipated event saw over 50 individuals attend to discuss Biochar and the opportunities it could provide to landowners and woodland managers when managing their woodlands. The day was divided in two as the morning saw a range of speakers explain and contextualise biochar and the opportunities it presents before the afternoon provided space for further conversation through structured table discussions.
Introductions
The beginning of the event saw Rosanna Curtis, Northwoods Project Manager, and Martin Glynn, Independent Chartered Forester, provide context on the unmanaged woodland resource in the region. According to the Managed Woodlands dataset from Forestry Commission, 50% of privately owned woodland in England is managed. Within the Yorkshire and North East region this drops to 37% which leaves around 76,000ha of unmanaged woodland available. Generally, these unmanaged woodlands tend to be:
- small in extent
- primarily broadleaf
- consist of low-quality timber
- have poor access - internal and external
- be owned by farmers and other ‘non-professional woodland owners’.
The audience were reminded that if just 10% of these unmanaged woodlands were bought into management, they could release value in excess of £1m per annum to rural economies as well as increasing the flow of environmental and social benefits from woodlands. With this in mind, the event explored if and how Biochar can support land managers achieve their woodland objectives and support bring more woodlands into management.
Morning Session One
Genevieve Hodgins, The Biochar Demonstrator, kicked us off to explain the ‘What’ ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Biochar, introducing the topic to the audience and laying the foundations for discussions later in the day. Genevieve highlighted the importance of greenhouse gas removal technologies and biochar’s place in the Net Zero landscape whilst also touching on the range of biochar feedstocks, application, and current state of research.
Hamish Creber PhD, Black Bull Biochar, presented on biochar in forest establishment: opportunities and barriers to biochar adoption. Hamish’s research and industry experience helped the audience to understand how biochar influences tree establishment, the current research gaps, and also the current biochar on the market and how this needs to develop to support tree establishment. Highlighting that not all biochar’s are created equal, Hamish spoke of the challenges for industrial biochar producers and also the challenges for smaller landowners looking to access the biochar market.
Stuart Dainton spoke enthusiastically and motivationally with regards to how the National Forest have grown a forest economy through landscape regeneration in the midlands, increasing woodland cover from 6% to 23% with over 80% of their woodlands in management. Looking for opportunities to add value to woodland products and also improve the condition of temperate woodland soils, the National Forest has a number of biochar projects underway. Working with the Biochar Demonstrator, the National Forest has provided a number of field test sites to research how industrially produced biochar impacts soil compositions in different areas depending on the application method. At the smaller end of the scale Stuart highlighted how Heartwood, a community woodfuel group based in the National Forest, are exploring how the production of biochar can complement and add value to their product range which currently includes woodfuel and charcoal. Members of Heartwood attended the event, and it was great to hear about their experience firsthand during the discussions.
Morning Session Two
Adam Samuel from CapChar discussed developing biochar markets including agricultural, heating and cooling, construction, carbon credits and refined chemicals and liquids and reminded us that pyrolysis (the biochar production process) has other valuable products. Touching on how biochar contributes to Net Zero targets, Adam discussed business models for on-farm production and application of biochar and what needs to happen to grow the biochar market.
Lizzy Read, True Capture, provided insights into biochar markets for small scale production touching on case studies she has been involved with. An engaging presentation that got the audience thinking about which type of biochar kiln they might be, Lizzie focused on the types of kiln options available depending on your objectives and products.
Neil Harrison, Reheat, finished the morning by providing an overview of woodland markets that those with woodlands could access as innovation and investment increases demand for woody fibres across a range of products. A useful presentation that provided food for thought around strategic level direction, decision making, and investment at a National and Regional level.
Speaker Question and Answer Panel
After each session, the floor was opened to allow the audience to ask questions of the speakers. Questions included:
- Quality assurance of biochar
- How smaller scale biochar producers and buyers could know and advertise the quality of biochar produced
- Impact of biochar on National Forest
- What needs to happen to grow biochar markets
- How can we get regional governing stakeholders, such as North East Combined Authority, to take interest and action in the opportunities forestry provides
The audience questions stimulated wide-ranging discussions between the speakers and provided food for thought and conversations over lunch which were then picked up again during the afternoon.
Conclusions from the morning
Biochar as a topic is complex and diverse - just as it is as a product! There are opportunities for land and woodland managers, but currently they generally rely on existing woodland operations, passion, time, knowledge, and capital investment to realize these in the short term with little guarantee currently of long-term opportunities.
The biochar market in the UK has yet to emerge fully and to date, biochar has failed to scale commercially. There are several barriers and outstanding questions that are inhibiting biochar production and market development and growth. These include:
- Legislation and governance
- High capital costs
- Commercially available technology
- Feedstock availability and market
- Knowledge, understanding and skills around biochar production
- Variable biochar quality
- Quality assurance of biochar products and byproducts (e.g. carbon credits)
- Research gaps
There is an increasing number of parties interested in biochar as a product. This has seen an increase in research, conversation, and businesses operating in this space many of which have been funded through innovation and net zero support.
Small scale biochar production appears to be the most suitable opportunity for unmanaged woodlands as the unmanaged woodland resource typically provides a diverse and non-standard product in (age, form, species) in small quantities which does not appear to lend itself to producing a standardized biochar product without significant feedstock management.
The complexity and variability of biochar quality has the potential to undermine consumer and producer confidence. The cost of testing and verifying the chemical and physical properties may put smaller producers off, especially if the consumer does not understand the benefit or information provided.
Biochar cannot overcome bad silvicultural and land management practices.
Afternoon workshop
The afternoon workshop saw attendees dive into five key topics:
- Opportunities for improving woodland management through biochar
- Regulations and standards
- Barriers to realising opportunities
- Markets for biochar products
- Communicating biochar; its opportunities and challenges
The Northwoods team is currently compiling the report of the afternoon discussions which will be published here shortly. If you would like to be notified of the publication, please sign up to our newsletter below.
Thank you
The Northwoods team would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our speakers who travelled from far and wide to present their experience and expertise. This contributed hugely to the success of the event. Particular thanks goes to:
Martin Glynn, Chartered Forester
Genevieve Hodgins, The Biochar Demonstrator
Hamish Creber PhD, Black Bull Biochar
Stuart Dainton, National Forest
Adam Samuel, CapChar
Lizzy Read, True Capture
Neil Harrison, Reheat
The event was organised following a desire from Ruth Thompson at Sylvan Skills to get people in a room talking about biochar and the opportunities it presents for woodland management. The Northwoods Innovation Programme worked with Ruth to develop an event that would be informative and useful to those that work and own woodlands and who are interested in biochar. Thank you to Ruth for trusting Northwoods to realise her idea.
Hexham Auction Mart was a great venue for keeping our attendees well fed and watered.
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