ONE of my hobbies is cabinet making. I really enjoy designing and making a piece of furniture.

I find that planing a piece of wood and seeing the beauty of its grain revealed is very satisfying indeed.

For the most part in my woodwork I use timber from old furniture or from trees that people have cut down in their gardens. In this way I feel that I am recycling one of nature's finest resources. Sometimes I do use new wood, but I always try to buy it from a dealer who guarantees that it comes from a sustainable forest source.

Just recently I read about the logging of forests in the Far East, simply to provide us with woodpulp for paper. Many of the world's virgin forests are being cut down just to provide us with the mountain of paper we use.

To someone who loves to see the grain of wood being revealed, it seems to me a crying shame that so much timber is cut down merely for pulping. Surely much more recycling of paper products could save some of the forests.

Many of the users of paper simply do not bother where it comes from. Governments and Local Authorities are major users. Do they have a policy on paper resources?

The trouble is that, even where public and private organisations do subscribe to voluntary codes of good practice, they are not strong enough to prevent de-forestation. It is for this reason that I am strongly in favour of legally binding rules for the use of our primary resources. International law ought to prevent countries using this timber in this way. The indiscriminate loggers would then find their profit slashed.

Timber pulping is more than just a practical issue, it is a spiritual issue. To see the grain in a piece of wood being revealed by a craftsman is a moving experience. Watching a piece of wood being sawn and planed is like opening a treasure chest for the first time. It is like being let into a secret that has been growing and maturing for 50, a hundred, or several hundred years. It makes me feel small in comparison and it helps me to know my place in creation.

All of us need to find ways in which we can live in harmony with nature. For me, woodwork helps. Others will have different means. What matters is that we don't destroy ourselves by destroying nature.

Michael Williams

Vicar of Bolton Parish Church.