Definitions		Ancient woodland under threat
	The importance of ancient woodland		The Woodland Trust view
	Records of ancient woodland		References

Definitions

Ancient woods are those where there is believed to have been continuous woodland cover since at least 1600 AD. Before this planting was uncommon, so a wood present in 1600 AD was likely to have developed naturally.

Ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW) is composed of native tree species that have not obviously been planted. Planted ancient woodland sites (PAWS) are ancient woods in which the former tree cover has been replaced, often with non-native trees. Important features of ancient woodland often survive in many of these woods, including characteristic flora and fauna, and archaeology¹. For a useful summary of the origin of different types of woodland see Watkins 1990².

The importance of ancient woodland

As the terrestrial habitat most representative of original, natural, stable conditions, ancient woodland is home to more threatened species than any other habitat in the UK. This is supported by the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, which identifies that broadleaved woodland supports almost twice as many species of conservation concern as any other habitat e.g. more than twice as many as chalk grassland and almost three times as many as lowland heathland³.

Long undisturbed, ancient woods are historical treasure troves. Bronze and iron age earthworks, Saxon range boundaries, ancient park boundaries, ridge and furrow, park pales and woodbanks are all preserved to give a picture of past land use. Old coppice stools and pollards point to past woodland management practices, and charcoal pits, ore furnaces and kilns are clues to local industrial history.

Last, but not least, ancient woods are timeless places of great beauty and tranquillity. The importance of woodland, and especially ancient woodland, to our quality of life should not be underestimated.

Our remaining ancient woodland covers less than 2 per cent of the UK, and is irreplaceable.

Records of ancient woodland

In England, Scotland and Wales, ancient woodland is recorded in Ancient Woodland Inventories (AWIs), map-based records compiled in the 1980s and 1990s by the Nature Conservancy Council and maintained by its successor organisations in those countries. No record of ancient woodland was produced for Northern Ireland at that time, but the Woodland Trust has since produced an inventory, launched in January 2007. The AWIs have helped increase awareness of the importance of ancient woodland and have become an important tool for policy makers and planners.

The inventories were produced in different ways in each of the four countries:

• In England and Wales⁴, 1:25,000 maps from the 1930s and the second edition 1” to the mile Ordnance Survey (OS) maps from the first half of the 19th century were used as a basis, and often woods which appeared on these maps were assumed to have a longer woodland history..
• In Scotland⁵, the “Roy” military maps, dating from around 1750, was used in conjunction with the First Edition 6” to the mile OS maps of around 1860. A distinction is made between ancient woodland (that shown as semi-natural on the Roy maps) and long-established woodland (that arising between 1750 and 1860). In practice long-established woods of semi-natural origin (shown as semi-natural on the 1860s maps) are also treated as ancient, because of uncertainties over the accuracy of the Roy maps.
• In Northern Ireland⁶, the First Edition 6” to the mile OS maps were used to produce a baseline record of long-established woodland, some of which could be ancient. Comprehensive archive research and field survey was used to distinguish ancient from long-established woods. Unlike the inventories in England, Scotland and Wales, the NI inventory includes woods under 2 ha (to a minimum of 0.5 ha) and wood pasture/parkland.

The AWIs will always be provisional, but it is increasingly recognised that in England, Scotland and Wales they could be much improved. Though some updating has taken place, none of the agencies has undertaken a comprehensive, more fundamental review of the archive information on which the inventories are founded. There are also no systems in place for updating the inventory following decisions on planning applications and felling licences. Wood pasture and parkland are not systematically included on the AWIs, and woods under 2 ha are also omitted.
 

Ancient woodland under threat

Ancient semi-natural woodland disappeared at an alarming rate during the last century. Nearly half the ancient woodland remaining in the 1930s was either cleared for agriculture or converted to plantation⁷. Recent research shows that 44 per cent of Britain’s remaining ancient woodland is now plantation, and about two-thirds of this plantation is coniferous or mixed⁸. Overlay of the AWIs with the NIWT undertaken by Oxford University’s Forestry Institute in association with Forest Research, commissioned by the Woodland Trust, reveals the following figures:

On this basis the percentage of Britain’s woodland cover that is ancient in origin is less than 19% (10.5% ancient semi-natural woodland and 8% planted ancient woodland sites). However, these figures differ significantly from those that can be derived from the AWIs alone, especially in Scotland, illustrating the need for further work to reconcile different datasets.

In Northern Ireland, the Woodland Trust’s work showed that only 0.73 per cent of the land is covered with woodland that has been continuously present since at least 1830, when the first OS maps were produced. Only 0.08 per cent of Northern Ireland (just over 1,000 ha) is woodland that can be shown with certainty to be ancient. Around a third of ancient and long-established woods is now conifer or mixed plantations.

Increasingly our ancient woods are small islands within a hostile landscape of intensive agriculture and urban sprawl. Only 617 ancient woods in GB exceed 100 hectares (one square kilometre) and only 46 ASNWs exceed 300 hectares. Of the ancient woods recorded on the AWIs in Britain, 48 per cent are smaller than five hectares⁹. Given that there is likely to be a substantial number smaller than two hectares, this means that most ancient woods may have no core area unaffected by edge effects from surrounding land use¹⁰. Most may also be too small to sustain healthy populations of many woodland species, and too isolated to allow migration, particularly given that many ancient woodland species are relatively immobile. As climate change accelerates, species that are unable to relocate to occupy suitable climate space may face local extinction¹¹.

More species have become nationally extinct in the last 100 years from broadleaved woodland than any other habitat (46 species), and it also has the most globally threatened and rapidly declining species (78 species)3. The Institute for Terrestrial Ecology’s Countryside Survey 90 showed that between 1978 and 1990 losses in species richness of woodland (14 per cent) from plots located at random exceeded that for all other semi-natural habitats. And in 2000, a pilot re-survey of 14 of the sites last looked at in 1971 revealed a range of potential issues, including a striking general decline in the variety of woodland plants, with those characteristic of ancient woods suffering most¹².

Yet ancient woods are still under threat, particularly from development. In a study commissioned by the Woodland Trust¹³, 23 per cent of organisations that responded to a questionnaire (including planning authorities, wildlife trusts, Forestry Commission and countryside campaigning bodies) were aware of ancient woods currently under threat. The responses brought to light 109 cases across Britain of ancient woods lost to or threatened by development in the last few years. Development threats associated with transport and infrastructure appeared to be the most significant (31 per cent of cases), followed by amenity and leisure developments (14 per cent), housing (10 per cent), and quarrying and mineral extraction (six per cent). Add to this the more insidious but still very real threats of degradation of our ancient woods through inappropriate use or management and repeated replanting with non-native species1, and the future looks bleak indeed.

As the last bastions of so much of our wildlife heritage, ancient woods deserve protection. Yet only 14 per cent of the UK’s ancient woodland is included within Sites of Special Scientific Interest¹⁴ and the remainder, including 14 of the 46 largest ASNWs in Great Britain, has no statutory protection. More recent national planning policies in Scotland and Wales give some cause for hope. In Scotland, NPPG14 states that ‘planning authorities should seek to protect…ancient and semi-natural woodlands [which] have the greatest value for nature conservation’ (para 51). Planning Policy Wales states ‘Ancient and semi-natural woodlands are irreplaceable habitats of high biodiversity value which should be protected from development that would result in significant damage’ (para 5.2.8). In England, PPS9 states that local authorities should “identify any areas of ancient woodland in their areas that do not have statutory protection” and normally “not grant planning permission for any development which would result in its loss or deterioration.”
 

The Woodland Trust view

The Woodland Trust firmly believes there should be no further loss of ancient woodland, and states this as one of its four key objectives. The time has come to say, “Enough is enough”.

The Woodland Trust will:

• Campaign to improve protective policies and legislation at a UK, country, regional and local level specific to ancient woodland
• Campaign against threats to individual ancient woods, especially where they illustrate generic issues that need to be addressed nationally or have the potential to increase public awareness of the threats to our ancient woodland heritage
• Continue to acquire ancient woods, which are directly threatened in ways which could lead to a reduction in their area or a diminution of their conservation value and where there is no reasonable prospect of the threats being averted by other means
• Promote ancient woodland as a key resource for enhancing people’s quality of life and focus for increasing appreciation of the importance of the environment
• Work with statutory conservation agencies to update and improve the AWIs

The Woodland Trust would like to see:

Full protection of ancient woodland through legislation and national planning guidance

• A clear statement in all local planning documents that ancient woodland should be protected from development
• The Forestry Commission to become a statutory consultee on all planning applications affecting ancient woodland
• Restoration of all PAWS threatened by non-native conifers and rhododendron
• Better guidelines and incentives to encourage owners of ancient woodland to understand its importance and manage it appropriately.
• Buffering and extension of ancient woodland sites through targeted woodland and habitat creation, particularly in areas of the country with a high density of ancient woodland, which have greatest potential to be placed on a sustainable footing9,10 and a general reduction in the intensity of surrounding land use
• The statutory conservation agencies to undertake a strategic review of the archive information underpinning the AWIs
• The statutory conservation agencies to overlay other digital datasets on the AWIs and ground check discrepancies
• An enhancement in the categorisation of ancient woods on the AWIs using the NIWT
• Inclusion of wood pasture within the AWIs
• Systems by which the inventories can be updated following decisions on planning applications and felling licences

References

1. Woodland Trust (2002) PAWS position statement (www.woodland-trust.org.uk/policy/index.htm)

2. Watkins, C. (1990) Woodland Management and Conservation (David & Charles

3. Biodiversity: the UK Steering Group Report (1995) Volume 1: Meeting the Rio challenge (HMSO)

4. Spencer, J. and Kirby, K. (1992) An inventory of ancient woodland for England and Wales. Biological Conservation 62, 77-93

5. Walker, G.J. and Kirby, K.J. (1989) Inventories of ancient, long-established and semi-natural woodland for Scotland. Nature Conservancy Council: Research and survey in nature conservation No. 22

6. Woodland Trust (2007) Back on the Map: An inventory of ancient and long-established woodland for Northern Ireland. Preliminary report (www.backonthemap.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/09F70BD6-8E68-4328-90B7-05DFE9483550/0/070115Preliminaryreport.pdf)

7. Peterken, G.F. (1993) Woodland Conservation and Management (Second Edition) Chapman & Hall

8. Pryor, S N and Smith, S (2002) The area and composition of plantations on ancient woodland sites. The Woodland Trust (http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/campaigns/index.htm)

9. The Woodland Trust (2002) Space for nature: landscape-scale action for woodland biodiversity (http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/campaigns/index.htm)

10. The Woodland Trust (2001) Woodland biodiversity: Expanding our horizons (http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/campaigns/index.htm)

11. Harrison, P.A., Berry, P.M. and Dawson, T.P. (Eds.) (2001) Climate change and nature conservation in Britain and Ireland: Modelling natural resource responses to climate change (the MONARCH project). UKCIP Technical report, Oxford

12. Smart, S.M., Bunce, R.G.H., Black, H.J., Ray, N., Bunce, F., Kirby, K., Watson, R. and Singleton, D. (2001) Measuring long-term ecological change in British woodlands (1971-2000). English Nature Research Reports No 461a/b

13. Woodland Trust and WWF-UK (2002) From wildwood to concrete jungle (www.woodland-trust.org.uk/policy/index.htm)

14. RSPB (1998) Land for life