In the past our forebears used bushcraft in a way that allowed them to live very close to the land, much closer than you or I do today.  These days many of us are heading to wild places equipped with a combination of bushcraft skills and modern equipment.  In this way, we use our bushcraft skills as part of our modern-day outdoor life.  Many of us also recognize that bushcraft skills would be very useful should a survival situation occur in a wilderness setting.

If you are serious about being able to employ your bushcraft skills efficiently in a survival situation, it’s necessary to think about your bushcraft skills in very objective and practical terms.  A suitable framework for your skills in this context is the way that military survival is often taught.

According to this doctrine, in a survival situation you should address your needs, which are protection, location, acquisition, navigation and medical.  This can be remembered using the acronym M-PLAN

Medical treatment, using your first-aid knowledge in combination with available materials.

Protection means protection from the environment by employing your clothing correctly, finding or building shelter, and lighting fire;

Location means being seen and being able to signal;

Acquisition means getting hold of sustenance – water and food – as well as other resources.  This may mean making tools or sourcing materials to fix your equipment;

Navigation by whatever means are available;

Using M-PLAN as a checklist of skills, you can easily conclude that for an environment you are preparing to travel to or through, you should be able to do the following:

– Perform first aid, both general and for specifics of the environment;

– Understand the environmental hazards and how to dress correctly;

– Light a fire;

– Construct a shelter;

– Signal for help;

– Find and purify water;

– Find food (plant, fungi, animal); 

– Make tools;

– Navigate the terrain, by natural means as well as modern;

In common with our ancestors, skill and knowledge are more important than equipment.  These can be carried with you wherever you go.  In a survival situation, you should treat any piece of equipment you have as a bonus. Be positive about what you have. 

A positive mental attitude and an unwillingness to give up are, above all else, the most important qualities of survivors. 

Some bushcraft skills can take many years to master, yet only a few hours of survival training have saved lives.  Hence, you shouldn’t concentrate on one area of bushcraft to the exclusion of others.  You should have a solid grounding in all the fundamental building blocks of the subject.  You will no doubt find having such a rounded knowledge rewarding in itself.  It also means you are less likely to have a weak link in your skill-set if you really do need to rely on your skills for survival. 

Remember M-PLAN.  Before heading out, get some first aid training and PLAN your skills for survival.

Related Articles on Paul Kirtley’s Blog:

STOP What you are Doing!

How to Build a Survival Kit on Bushcraft Principles

Essential Wilderness Equipment – 7 Items I Never Leave Home Without.

Creeping Death – Hypothermia and How to Avoid it

Recommended Books for Further Reading: