Bridgewood's Aims

Most of the pages and weblog posts on the Bridgewood website concentrate on the BDSM uses of the wood, and I do have a set of aims relating to them. However there are parallel sets of forestry and wildlife objectives which I usually only mention in passing.

Forestry Aims

The forestry aims and management plan have been developed in consultation with Forestry Commission and local council officers, and using general advice from British woodland organisations. These aims are intended to be worth doing for their own sake, but they also provide a more interesting and more suitable backdrop for BDSM.

When I visited the wood before completion day it felt almost like exploring virgin forest: no tracks and no signs of human intervention (until you remember the trees were mostly planted ;) ) So the first job was to improve the access by establishing crushed stone and grassed rides. This made it easier to get equipment, people and timber products on and off the site, and to move around within it.

The large trees are mostly non-native poplars, with a mixture of planted ash and oak, and naturally regenerating hazel coming up between them. The poplars have no commercial or conservation value, and so I intend to gradually remove them as the opportunities arise. However, the ash and especially oak have great long term value as timber (and habitats) so I'm going well out of my way to leave them untouched. In the medium term, the abundant hazel has great potential for coppice products, and it needs little encouragement beyond the gradual increase in light as the poplars are removed.

Wildlife Aims

The forestry aims also promote biodiversity and native wildlife species, which again also makes the wood a more interesting backdrop for BDSM days.

Establishing the rides and open spaces provides a range of habitats from the existing deep-shade to full sunlight, with some variation in the depth and density of the undergrowth. Rotting wood also encourages invertebrates, and so I'm not making any attempt to clear away fallen branches in areas off the tracks. Inverterbrates themselves support small mammals and birds, all the way up the food chain to the foxes and birds of prey that hunt in the wood. One of the most immediate results has been that buzzards (as shown perching on a stump in the picture) now fly along the open rides below the height of the tree tops, whereas before they were only able to patrol the surrounding fields.

Since I own, retain and leave unused Bridgewood's "sporting rights" (ie the shooting of animals), I'm able to ensure that the birds and mammals are left alone. In principle, it would be better to remove rabbits and squirrels, however I'm not managing the wood intensively for timber or planting saplings myself, so I don't see any need to intervene.

BDSM Aims

All of the BDSM aims have been co-ordinated with the forestry and wildlife aims, and a big part of the reason for chosing Bridgewood was that managing it properly would also be compatible with BDSM uses. For example, having areas of undergrowth and open grassed rides (ie tracks) rather than just rows of mature trees is part of that diversity and provides cover for wildlife, but it also serves BDSM purposes by providing privacy for people using the wood, with visually and audially isolated spaces.

The central BDSM aims are to provide a variety of areas from narrow paths to wide open spaces, places for equipment, access, and basic services like a picnic area and a toilet. The semi-permanent installations (eg picnic tables) have been chosen to have dual use: for example, as facilities for volunteers working on the forestry objectives.

The events page describes the types of BDSM events I'm aiming to have, and the description of the wood shows many of the kinds of BDSM facilities which I've been able to provide.