The Village Wood Balance: A Deficit Settlement, Its Growing Collection Radius, and the Year the Walk Reaches Forty-Five Minutes

A settlement that burns more wood each year than its land regrows must take the difference from standing stock, and the place it takes it from moves steadily outward. This paper computes that process for a stated village of 800 households burning 4.0 kilograms of wood per household per day, a total demand of 1,168.0 tonnes per year, against regrowth of 260.0 tonnes per year from 400 hectares of commons woodland regenerating at 0.65 tonnes per hectare per year. The village is in deficit by 908.0 tonnes per year, which is 77.7 per cent of its demand. Mining the deficit from standing stock of 15 tonnes per hectare clears 60.53 hectares per year, so the cleared radius grows from 1.2 kilometres at the start to 1.83 kilometres after ten years and 3.33 kilometres after fifty years, and the one-way gathering walk reaches forty-five minutes, at a stated walking speed of 4 kilometres per hour, in the year 2065. Holding the ring fixed would require cutting demand by 908.0 tonnes per year, or planting 1,396.9 hectares at the same regrowth rate, or 174.6 hectares at an improved growth rate of 5.2 tonnes per hectare per year. Even a village-wide move to high-efficiency stoves leaves a deficit of 90.4 tonnes per year in this case, so stoves alone do not close this balance. All results are computed from the stated assumptions, and the study is simulated, not measured.