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Biography
Graham Garratt is a chartered forester with 30 years of professional experience, working mainly in the English lowlands for private land owners, managing woods of high private and public value. Graham's work focuses on ancient woodland, wooded Sites of Special Scientific Interest and woods of heritage value within registered parks. Over recent years, Graham has also led a large private estate wilding project in Northamptonshire through conceptualizations, feasibly and master planning, grant funding and now implementation.
Graham's work is heavily regulated and requires a close working relationship with organizations such as Forestry Commission England, Natural England and Historic England, and increasingly involves wider stakeholder engagement.
Graham's professional interests include the expanding interpretation of forestry - the application of land, trees and people - as an economically rational tool for delivering environmental land use policy priorities in England, notably those in relation to ecosystem services and natural capital. This, and a complementary interest in forest resilience, economic land and risk management, has led Graham to develop an interest in low input forestry and the use of 'rewilding' type land management for deliberate and incidental forestry purposes.
Expertise Summary
- Forestry in England
- Lowland forest management and silviculture
- Environmental forestry
- Forestry administration and regulation
- Woodland creation
- Forestry and rewilding
Research Summary
Graham is currently a PhD researcher exploring the potential opportunities for applying rewilding practices in pursuit of current and evolving forestry policy in England. This involves defining… read more
Current Research
Graham is currently a PhD researcher exploring the potential opportunities for applying rewilding practices in pursuit of current and evolving forestry policy in England. This involves defining rewilding within an English context and relating the outcomes of its application to forestry policy objectives, notably with regard to protecting, enhancing and expanding desired elements of natural capital and ecosystem services. It also involves engaging with the land owning and managing community and third party influencers such as rural landscape grant givers, regulators, advisors and commentators to gain an insight into their understanding of the related issues.
Graham's research seeks to explore to what degree participating in forestry, primarily afforestation, might offer some appeal, while looking to identify the barriers to wider take up. Within this context, the question being asked is when and where would applying forms of rewilding be considered an appealing and rational strategy to follow for land holders and forestry policy makers, and why?
Current research is focused on the Rockingham Forest (Northamptonshire) and the National Forest (Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire) and is centered around a programme of in-person interviews, transcript coding and theme building using Nvivo 12 to assist with data management.