Our Story
One day, a human named Al was consumed by the sheer wonder of trees and disenchanted by the state of small British woodlands. He decided to start a woodland apprenticeship programme. In hindsight, this was probably not the best decision as he had no facilities, no direct experience of running an apprenticeship or any money.
The first thing he did was board a tiny boat (it was actually a plane) and sailed away to learn from those who were doing exactly the work he aspired to. With the help of WCMT he met with his heroes and sheroes, wonderful folk at Windhorse Farm, Healing Harvest, Coed Nant Gain, Northern Forest Centre. People who were doing the hard work of making small woodlands work in the 21st century.
Together they plotted to find a way to start a ‘treenaiscance’ in his home of Dartington, South Devon. Some wonderful souls decided to help this process and in October 2016 The Woodland Presents was officially born as a community interest company. This elite band of nemophilists (tree lovers) began the process of carrying out their mission to:
Enrich and expand woodlands
Help people fall in love with woods
Make things with British timber
Teach others how to do these things
So here we are, doing this work, however most of the time we don’t know exactly what we are doing until we are doing it.