An increased demand for real Christmas trees this year has created a bit of a headache for the Forestry Commission in the New Forest as all its trees have sold out ahead of schedule. The Forestry Commission is putting this down to families beginning to understand the environmental message and deciding to buy an ecologically friendly tree.
“We sourced the same number of trees as usual to sell from our two sites at Moors Valley Country Park and New Park in Brockenhurst,” said Forestry Commission Head Ranger, Andrew Norris. “So we know that we have had a real increase in demand.
“Some of this may have been generated by the earlier stories in the press about Christmas tree shortages this year but we are hoping that it is also due to an increasing awareness of environmental issues. Our sites are all checked to make sure our trees are sustainably grown, and this year more and more of our customers have told us that that accountability is important to them.
“We know that this early sell out will be disappointing for many of our regular customers who make buying a Forestry Commission tree a part of their family Christmas and we can only apologise to them for a situation which is entirely beyond our control. We understand that other local suppliers are experiencing similar difficulties”.
It is always difficult to predict an exact demand for quality trees in the run up to Christmas and the Forestry Commission will now be actively reviewing the number of trees sold in the New Forest area for 2010 to try to prevent any recurrence of this shortage next year.