Scottish Forestry Trust Seeks Entries for Dr Cyril Hart Award 2022
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Having announced Dr Vanessa Burton, of Forest Research, as the winner of its Scottish Woodlands Student Excellence Award in September 2021 The Scottish Forestry Trust is announcing that its Dr Cyril Hart Memorial Award is now open for entries. The Award will be presented to the best practice note, article or paper, based on SFT funded research, published between January 2020 and December 2021. Any project which has received funding from the Trust is eligible to submit one or more entries for consideration as long as the submission was published during the two year period specified.
To apply a copy of the published paper, article or practice note should be emailed to Amanda Bryan, Director of the Scottish Forestry Trust (Director@scottishforestrytrust.org.uk) along with details of the date of publication and the name and contact details of the lead researcher. All applications must be received by no later than 31 January 2022. Each of the entries will be scored against a range of criteria including quality, contribution to the forestry sector and fit to the Trust’s aims. The entries will be assessed by Members of the Trust’s Projects and Research Committee with a recommendation for the winning submission made to the Board of Trustees at its April meeting. The Award winner will be announced in May 2022.
The winner of the Award will receive £400 and a striking trophy created by Angus Clyne of Perthshire. This living trophy, based on a black three-legged cast iron cooking pot, will be held by the recipient for two years before being returned in advance of the 2024 Award being presented. They will also be asked to add their paper to the USB stick in the vessel and to contribute to the found objects contained within the trophy.
The Award is presented in memory of Dr Cyril Hart (1913 -2009), known to many of us through his invaluable book Practical Forestry for the Agent and Surveyor due to be reprinted in 2022, and other publications. Cyril Hart was born and lived his entire life in the Forest of Dean. Having left school to work for a Gloucestershire estate owner he became passionate about forestry and used his spare time to qualify as a Land Agent and as a Chartered Surveyor. He also found time to gain forestry related degrees from Bristol, Oxford and Leicester Universities. During his career, Cyril Hart consulted on forestry issues for clients throughout the UK, however the Forest of Dean was his overriding preoccupation. In 1952 he was elected by the freeholders of Gloucestershire as one of its four Verderers. Subsequently he became Her Majesty’s Senior Verderer and went on to become the Forest of Dean’s longest ever serving Verderer. Services to Dean and to forestry contributed to Cyril Hart being honoured with an OBE in 1981. Amongst his other proud professional moments was his receipt of Gold Medals from the Royal Forestry Society and from the Institute of Chartered Foresters. Anthony Hart, Cyril’s son, recently told us that his father “believed in careful research, publishing and thereby imparting knowledge of practical benefit to the widest possible forestry community”. This Award aims to recognise just that and the Scottish Forestry Trust are proud to offer this Award in Dr Cyril Hart’s name.