SHTF Woodland area needed per person

[gm_prepper]

It may sound like a silly question but.....
I've been thinking lately whatever the SHTF, if one was to bug out to say a large woodland location not important and lets say irrespective of roads so say off the beaten track (not no passing tourists. What would be a reasonable assumed area that say two people could occupy the same woodland without crossing paths or interacting. Again assuming there was water supplies and wild life and vegetation in in good supply across the area.

This isn't my plan but it's got me curious as there are some spectacular and large woodlands all over the UK but if there are several people within say a 20 mile radius even if a couple choose to head for the woods, even with a mile square per person this starts to make all but the largest woodlands start to look small.

Just curious.

[TonyAge]

Not quite sure what your question is, but if the whole population of the UK headed for the woods, they would each have an area of wood approx 22 yards by 22 yards.

I may as well stay in my garden

[jansman]

It may sound like a silly question but.....
I've been thinking lately whatever the SHTF, if one was to bug out to say a large woodland location not important and lets say irrespective of roads so say off the beaten track (not no passing tourists. What would be a reasonable assumed area that say two people could occupy the same woodland without crossing paths or interacting. Again assuming there was water supplies and wild life and vegetation in in good supply across the area.

This isn't my plan but it's got me curious as there are some spectacular and large woodlands all over the UK but if there are several people within say a 20 mile radius even if a couple choose to head for the woods, even with a mile square per person this starts to make all but the largest woodlands start to look small.

Just curious.

If it is not your plan, what is the problem?

[ForgeCorvus]

Perhaps I'm not getting this, are you asking how small an area could you use as a 'home range' or how large must a wood be for two people living there to never meet ?

[grenfell]

Yes the question isn't as clear as it could be.
I recall reading that five acres could make anyone (or perhaps that's a small family?) self sufficient, assuming a mix of arable , pasture and woodland and that would cover all their needs for food , fuel and so on. I would therefore assume the figure to be higher as forests aren't generally the ideal place to plant crops.
On the other hand if the question is how large so that two people would never meet then you only need to look at how many people never cross paths with the person living a few feet away next door.

[the big fly in]

Hi

I would think that if the SHTF if you had a place you would be overrun!

with the UK being an island, if you can not fly out (volcano like a few years ago) or sail away, (pirates, like in the Sudan) you are stuck here with what would be thousands of hungry people!! and the people here now are not the people from world war 2!! Na they would gang up quick! ( look at the London riots), and you would be over run! so having a big 4b4 ,, where would you go exactly ?? dosent take to long to ride a bisical to Scotland.

just saying??

better to get a yacht? and sail to ??? Africa?? don't know really??

[gm_prepper]

What I was thinking out of curiousity was if you had say ten people in a piece of woodland what would the area need to be so that each person wouldn't interact with another even by chance.

Or to put it another way. How much space would a persona need to be self sufficient including growing and hunting and assuming there's a local water source.

I've been studying OS maps of the UK and although there's a fair bit of woodland I would imagine that it would take a fair acrerage to sustain at least one person without starting to serious deminish wildlife and resources after a few months.

I am actually looking into getting a boat, would be handy as I live by the sea but on the reverse high risk of flooding.

[Plymtom]

What I was thinking out of curiousity was if you had say ten people in a piece of woodland what would the area need to be so that each person wouldn't interact with another even by chance.

Not a chance put simply, back to basics we're animals, social, territorial, and logical too in a way, you'd need to know where the others were in order to avoid them.
One person could conceivably hide from lots of others given enough cover, many people managed to hide from the Germans in a forest surrounded by a bog or something during WW2 ( I saw this on a Ray Mears show) but they had to go to extraordinary lengths, the trouble is everybody has an idea of what would happen should this need arise, yet no one has come up with a long term survival solution. Who in their right mind thinks that any but a lucky few in the UK could bug out to a nice quiet isolated piece of woodland capable of sustaining them until normality returned (along with everything they left behind there?), they would have to journey unseen through one of the most densely populated counties on the planet (or be already there hoping that the hoards of other people don't stumble across them), seems to me the only pieces of kit capable of tipping the odds in favour for the bug out brigade would be a fully functional crystal ball or the power to become invisible, but curiosity in the end is the downfall, we tend to explore only a Robinson Crusoe with no Friday scenario works, in order not to find anyone else you'd need to be alone.

[grenfell]

I have to agree with plymtom .
Giving a walking speed of say 3 mph (yes I know probably less through woodland) and a walking time of 6 hours before you turn back to your " base" gives you an area of roughly 48 miles in diameter which if my maths is correct you are talking something like 1809 square miles so clearly unlikely. Perhaps another question you should be asking is WHY you would want to be so isolated. Being so alone isn't a very good long term survival plan.
A boat may be an idea to use to escape to somewhere else but again if you were planning to use it to be completely cut off from the rest of humanity there are flaws in that plan too.

edit ,my maths does need help.The 1809 square miles is for a walking time of 8 hrs not 6. If it were 6 then you could walk 18 miles not 24 so readjusted to that figure means the area needed would be 1018 square miles. Academic really as there still wouldn't be the space available.

[Cocotte]

Although I prefer the woodland, I think living off the coast is a much more stable means. Shellfish, fish traps, drift wood etc...
Everyone says to head for the woods, not many saying to head for the beach.