Logging a change in the landscape

Aberystwyth, Wales The larch added welcome colour, but single species planting has brought an almost industrial look to the Welsh hills

My first indication that the local landscape was about to change dramatically came after dark. In an area with only a scattering of houses and a solitary street lamp, the sudden appearance of an extra light is a significant event - and a flickering source moving through the trees certainly makes a rural observer stop and take note.

In daylight the explanation became clear. Across the valley, on the shoulder of a hill forming a buttress at the westward limit of the Cambrian mountains, a stand of mature larches was being felled. Working outwards from the old track that loops sinuously across the hillside, heavy machinery was quickly and efficiently removing the trees, leaving the profile of the hill oddly rebalanced. Within a week or so the familiar dull orange of autumn foliage was gone, leaving a briefly scarred residue from which the woodland will regenerate or be replanted.