High Weald campsite in Kent, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We are privileged to be using ancient woodlands for camping, and we do so only because we are committed to the restoration of the woods around us. We have already started our Ride Restoration project and hope to extend this to a wider area of the woods around us. We are investigating how we might initiate a coppicing program in the hazel woods. We always looking for what else we can do so any comments you may have are always welcome.
We are continually balancing the needs of our visitors and the needs of the environment. We have recycling facilities but would like to extend these to include composting facilities. Toilets and showers are always the challenge, and with the consent of the planners we hope to move towards more natural composting toilets and tree showers in the future.
There are number of options for water recycling and we hope to as a minimum have rainwater recycling and hope to recycle all grey water in the future. Where we construct composting units, we will also construct solar panels to provide the minimal power requirements of the site.
Generally we will seek to ensure that we have can maintain the site in way that is carbon neutral and generally positive in terms of the bio diversity of the site. WE achieve carbon neutrality by disconnecting our visitors from any direct source of power for the time that they are with us. The majority of our visitors do not travel far to reach us and many travel via public transport, thereby reducing their overall carbon uptake for the time that they stay. By increasing our use of solar power and reducing the dependence on hot water showers we hope to further reduce carbon usage.
Our woodland management plans are designed to increase bio diversity as we reintroduce birds and butterflies back into the woodland.
Community
To further our plans we hope to engage with relevant community associations to assist us with our work on the woodland restoration. Our plans are designed to increase bio diversity as we reintroduce birds and butterflies back into the woodland. This involves removing more than a 1000 conifers planted under a misguided government scheme of reforestation more than 30 years ago. This has resulted in the woodlands being totally dominated by one species which has restricted the growth of the native broad leaf trees and covered the ground in unproductive pine needles. At the same time it has adversely affected birds and butterflies who need light, low level shrub and fauna to encourage them.
We are happy to provide camping to local community associations and have had very positive feedback from a number of local youth groups who have already visited us.
We have a number of projects lined up for next year where we hope to be able to formalise a relationship with local schools to offer a real camping experience during which time our children can better understand their landscape.
The majority of neighbours are very supportive of our initiatives. Where concerns are raised we work very hard at resolving those issues. Some neighbours regard smoke as a nuisance to which end we have introduced a curfew on fires between the hours of 10.00 in the morning and 7.00 at night. We continue to experiment with other ways any nuisance might be reduced.
Landscape
We provide on site expertise should people wish to learn more about nature in the park and on the High Weald. We intend to provide courses in woodland knowledge during the coming season. We are working closely with an ecologist in determining our strategy for woodland management, as a result of which there are opportunities for the study of reptiles, dormice and badgers from which we can develop educational sessions for either visitors or members of the local community.
We work with Greencraft to provide Bushcraft courses which demonstrates how to make the most of the environment and teaches people about the natural environment. Specifically they deal with foraging, tracking, cooking, fire making, shelter building and carving. We intend to launch more educational courses next year. Please let us know if you have any other activities you would be interested in pursuing within the boundaries of Forgewood.
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