 Planted
ancient woodland sites
The
conservation and restoration of plantations on ancient woodland
sites
-
New Woodland Trust guide on the management of plantations on ancient
woodland sites for woodland owners and managers.
This concise guide, sponsored by UPM Tilhill, has been produced to give
advice on how to conserve and restore these valuable sites. It is based
on research commissioned by the Trust, and the Trust’s own experience of
putting its recommendations into practice. You can either download the
guide from the link below or, to obtain a free hard copy, phone
01476 581135. A bilingual version for Wales will be available shortly.
Download PDF here (1.2MB)
11 January 2006 - Follow the link
here for a
copy of the PAWS assessment form developed for woodland trust sites as
referenced in the above guide. You can also find an example of a PAWS
assessment and restoration strategy using an annotated sketch map
through
this link
Ancient
woodland is our richest wildlife habitat and is scarce, covering less
than 2% of the UK’s land area. The need to protect what is left is
paramount, yet unless urgent action is taken now, vast areas of
ancient woodland are in danger of losing their wildlife
value forever.
Between the 1930s and 1980s, hundreds of thousands of hectares of
ancient woodland were replanted, mostly with commercial conifers or a
mixture of conifers and broadleaved trees. The communities of
plants and animals that depend upon the stable environment that
ancient woodland provides were devastated if not by felling and
clearance using heavy machinery, then by chemicals used to prevent regrowth, by the dense shade cast by closely planted new trees, or
smothering from deep layers of conifer needles.
Research shows that in the next ten
years most of the conifers planted on ancient woodland sites will
reach maturity (see below). If they are felled and replaced with more conifers
then the wildlife dependent on ancient woodland will not survive. More
than a quarter of ancient woods are now covered by conifer or mixed
plantation.
The Woodland Trust wants to see sensitive and appropriate restoration
of all ancient woods planted with conifers that are not native to the
site. Restoration must begin within the next ten years, but needs to
be carried out sensitively and gradually to avoid causing further
damage to the wildlife that is clinging precariously
to life in isolated pockets within the plantations. We are calling for
a series of policy changes which would enable restoration (see
Reclaiming our forgotten inheritance for more details). We are also committed to restoring all
planted ancient woodland sites in our ownership.
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