Participants from county administrative boards, municipalities, universities and foundations have completed the project’s course in veteranisation. Several different methods were demonstrated, and the participants also got to try them out in practice. We are now ready to start using these methods in our project areas.
One of the methods the project will use — and that was shown to the course participants — was making a small fire at the base of a tree trunk. With some brought-along kindling and dry bark, course leader Mats Niklasson from Nordens Ark impressed everyone with his fire-making skills. The thin bark of trees such as beech makes them sensitive to fire, and early data shows that this type of action can benefit some rare wood- and bark-inhabiting fungi.
But remember that it is not allowed to make fires like this under the Right of Public Access. Only landowners — and in protected areas, the managers of the area — are allowed to burn living trees.