Bushcraft is a long-term extension of survival skills. A popular term for wilderness skills in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term was popularised in the northern hemisphere by Mors Kochanski and recently gained considerable currency in the United Kingdom due to the popularity of Ray Mears and his bushcraft and survival television programmes.
Bushcraft is about surviving and thriving in the natural environment, and the acquisition of skills and knowledge to do so. Bushcraft skills include; firecraft, tracking, hunting, shelter building, the use of tools such as knives and axes, foraging, hand-carving wood, container construction from natural materials, rope and twine-making, and many others.
This modern form of Bushcraft encompasses much more than just a collection of survival skills though. Primitive skills and technologies which are often thought of as crude or backward in the modern world can be of great importance and are seen in Bushcraft as great achievements.
The respect gained for our unknown ancestors in the acquisition of these skills can be an important part of Bushcraft. With regards to respect and understanding, one thread of Bushcraft is also concerned with respect and understanding of the natural world, its flora and fauna and the way these elements interact.
Great gun, ballistics, recoil, etc....
