Careers | Climate Emergency | Resilience | Silviculture

A Geographer’s Career In Forestry: How I Got Here

Director of Isis Forestry Ltd, Graham V Garratt, answers our questions about his career so far and his perspective of forestry as a vocation, not just a job.

By Elle McAllister · July 22, 2024

Photography credit (above left to right): REG Conant, A Glover, & REG Conant.

What’s your current role?

I’m the Director of Isis Forestry Limited, which is a small consultancy based in the English East Midlands.  I work mainly as an outsourced forestry manager for large private estates, covering everything from creating new woodland, for example to landscape a new village, to felling mature trees for their timber.  The woods I manage have a wide range of values to their owners, but they are all important for conservation, which is important to me.  On one estate I am leading, along with the owner, a large on-farm conservation (‘rewilding-lite’) project, which is really fulfilling in practicing conservation at an integrated landscape scale.

Did you always want to work in the forestry sector?

No, although I grew up in the countryside, I don’t think I had any awareness of forestry as a younger person, it was something that came to me through my under-graduate studies.  As a teenager, I had been a mad keen army cadet, going on all the camps and representing the army at interservice shooting etc.  I had planned to join the army as an officer cadet but had issues with asthma and so life took me in a different direction.

What did you first study?

Going to university was not high on my agenda, partly because I thought I was joining the army and partly because it was not a route my school or my family had really identified for me.  I only gave university some thought when I was in the upper sixth form, at which point I got a conditional offer to study history at Lancaster.  In the event, I peaked in my mocks and crashed in my actual A-levels.  I had the option of taking a year out and retaking my exams, but had done this with difficulty with my English O-levels, so decided to make the best of what I had.  I went through clearing and ended up at the Polytechnic of North London studying Geography, which worked well, as my dad worked on the other side of London so I could get a lift home at weekends to see my girlfriend, now wife.

Physical geography was my preference, but in my second and third years I took all the ecological and biogeography options that became the core of a new environmental sciences degree when I left.  It was at this point, possibly on a natural resources module that I encountered forestry, which I saw as a form of applied environmentalism, in both creating and enhancing new wildlife habitats, and producing a sustainable timber resource in substitution for synthetic materials and fossil fuels.

Next Steps?

I decided to study for an MSc in Forestry at Oxford, but the course required a year’s work experience in forestry, so my first job was for a woodland management company in the Chilterns as a student forester, working mainly with the planting teams on projects such as the landscaping of the newly extended M40 motorway around Oxford.  I also volunteered one day a week with the Forestry Trust for Conservation and Education, to broaden my CV.

Then came Oxford, which was an intensely incredible 12-month experience at this ancient university, studying with forestry students from many different countries, a number of whom also had first degrees in geography.  Oxford was followed by a three-month research appointment through the university, mostly on my own in the remote mountains of Sri Lanka, which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Starting into forestry?

I left Oxford with a fantastic education, but little practical knowledge of how to actually go about forestry operations, so in effect I put myself on an unofficial apprenticeship, working for a small contracting firm in the Cotswolds.  For two years I spent most days working with a chain saw or a knapsack sprayer, which I loved and learnt a huge amount from, while at the same time being acutely aware that I was clearly the physical weak link in the team.

It was during this time, now working in the forestry sector and mostly on private estates, that my future career started to take shape.  My next step was to get professionally qualified as a chartered forester, as back then neither my geography degree or my masters were recognised by the Institute of Chartered Foresters, so I had to prepare for and sit the entrance exams in my own time.  This was really hard work but it plugged many of the technical gaps in my understanding.  From the Cotswolds, I moved to the Welsh Marches before settling in the East Midlands, which at that time was a culture shock, being the least afforested region of the UK.

What do you love about your current role?

Forestry for me is a vocation, an opportunity and a responsibility to make a difference in lessening our collective footprint on the Earth – and occasionally to even make things a little better.  I love working in and beyond the woods, working with people that share my interests in and love for the natural environment.  However, the best jobs in the world can lose their shine after many years, and so to keep things interesting and evolving, I am now working towards a PhD in forestry and rewilding at the School of Geography, Nottingham, and hope this will open up academic opportunities for me in the future.

What one thing would you tell your younger self starting out?

For most of my career, forestry, at least where I have worked in the English lowlands, was in the doldrums.  It struggled financially to be a viable activity for landowners or to remain relevant to a wider society that in part wanted more from it.  Today, however, I’m delighted to see that forestry is resurgent, again recognised for what it offers, not just sustainably produced timber, but for the full social and environmental benefits it can bring, from improving people’s health and wellbeing to protecting our natural resources of water, soil, air and wildlife and leading the fight to secure our futures in tackling climate change.  The one thing I would tell my younger self is ‘stick with it’.

Photography credit (above): REG Conant.