Harvesting
From Populous Wiki
Harvesting is a technique which can be very helpful. It means cutting the trees down untill it is 1 wood and then doing it again when it is back to 4.
Trees grow untill it gets to 4 peices of wood. If you harvest then you will get 3 pecies of wood plus 4 more because the tree has grown to 4 again. This can save you lots and lots of wood.
To use the technique, select 3 Braves and hold down ctrl. Now select one tree and then select part of the ground then repeat this untill the number says 8. Do this again once they have grown back.