North East mayor candidate Guy Renner-Thompson recently spent a day replanting a wood that was decimated by Storm Arwen.
He worked alongside Nathalie Petronelli-Stone from Northumbria Forestry on the woodland at Kyloe Forest, near Belford.
Guy said: “I had been keen for a while to arrange a day to accompany her and learn more about a subject we hear lots about but in reality don’t really understand the bigger picture.”
“I've known Kezz and Nathalie for years. They've always done things differently, never afraid to not tow the line, like their house, it’s absolutely stunning and completely unique. At a time when we're seeing more and more of our woods clear felled post storms, Nathalie isn't doing that."
Nathalie and her musician husband Kezz built an off-grid timber and straw bale house in woodland near Chatton and have featured in Ben Fogel’s TV series New Lives In The Wild.
Nathalie explained that not all sites are the same. The timber may be of low commercial quality but is high in habitat value.
"The wildlife still needs somewhere to live or we just won't have any,” she says.
"Then there's the future trees. Everyone wants to save the planet and plant trees everywhere, but there's hardly a mass of people lining up to do the work.
"So I like to be mindful of what I'm taking when I send a harvester or chainsaw team in to work a wood.
"We face a genuine risk of having no commercial forestry left in this country due to over zealous agents clearing not just the storm blown trees but healthy crops around them.”
