native woodland: restoration and creation

17 EAST OF EDEN

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 40 (2004)

NATIVE WOODLAND: RESTORATION AND CREATION

STEVE SCOTT

Introduction This paper is a brief overview of current policy and practice for the restoration and creation of native woodland in the East of England.

Inevitably, it is impossible to do justice to this subject in a short space, and the author is acutely aware of walking in the steps of many eminently more qualified commentators.

Our native woodland is a hugely valuable environmental and cultural asset. More rare and endangered species rely on woodland than any other terrestrial habitat. Some of our ancient woodland may have been continuously tree covered since the last ice age and have been sustainably managed for millennia.

Many of our native woods are in poor condition, however, and they face a number of threats from man, beast and bug. If we are to maintain and enhance our native woodland assets for future generations then we need concerted and targeted action.

Definitions A few definitions are probably warranted in potted form:

“Ancient” Woodland is that has been continuously under tree cover since 1600 (approximately the date of the first reliable maps). “Native” woodland is comprised of tree species indigenous to the site. “Ancient semi-natural woodland” has been continuously tree covered since 1600 with species indigenous to the site. “Other semi-natural woodland” is of more recent origin. A “Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site” (PAWS) is a continuously wooded site on which the native tree cover has been replaced with non (site) native trees, whether broadleaved or coniferous.

In practise, of course, there are degrees of grey in site realities.

Distribution At the regional level the relevant proportions of woodland types over two hectares are:

Total woodland area

Ancient semi-natural

woodland

Plantation on ancient

woodland sites

Plantation

113,300 18800 8200 86300

Woodland (over two hectares) in the East of England (hectares)

Although ancient woodland is scattered throughout the region, the majority is to be found in Hertfordshire, Essex and South Suffolk. The region contains some of the most important ancient woodland in the country, with Staverton Thicks near Woodbridge in Suffolk and Epping Forest being prime examples.


Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 40 18

Figure 1. Proportions of woodland types over two ha in the East of England

ASNW

17%

PAWS

7%

Plantation

76%

Figure 2. Ancient woodland sites and ancient semi-natural woodland in the East of England

Based upon the Ordnance Survey map with the permission of the Controller of

HMSO.

Crown Copyright Reserved.

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Protection Woodland benefits from a reasonable degree of legal protection. The 1985 Broadleaved Policy made it clear that Government works on the assumption that broadleaved woodland cannot be converted to conifer.

The Forestry Commission has statutory responsibility for some key legislative elements. Under the Forestry Act of 1967 it is illegal to remove trees without a licence from the Forestry Commission. The more recent Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations for Forestry, dating from 1999, require woodland owners to seek a determination from the Forestry Commission to change woodland to another land use (e.g. agricultural land), even if no felling licence is required.

The Town & County Planning Act provides for District Councils to serve Tree Preservation Orders on “at risk” trees or woodland. The Wildlife and Countryside Act protects many species and the more recent Countryside and Rights of Way Act increases the importance of S.S.S.I. and Biodiversity Action Plans. Regional and local planning guidance increasingly recognises the value of trees and woodland and offer some form of protection from development.

So our ancient and native woodland is important and much of it is irreplaceable. It benefits from a reasonable degree of protection and it’s value is promoted. One might be tempted to think that the “job is done” and we can relax. Not quite!

The changing value of woodland The world is ever changing and we need to ensure that our native woodland is seen to be relevant to the dynamic (political) environment.

Figure 3. Woodland cover in the East of England over time

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

% cover



Woodlands provide many benefits, most of these to wider public benefit than necessarily to those who own or manage these woodlands. The traditional benefits are, of course, timber and other woodland products. These remain important assets, but declining as a source of financial revenue. However, other economic benefits include: positive influences on inward investment, increased property values, reduced energy costs, regeneration of derelict and damaged land, and tourism. Thetford Forest is the third most visited attraction in the East of England, with over 2 million annual day visits.

The social benefits of trees relate to improved physical and mental health, enhanced living environments, increased community pride, recreation, education and community engagement. The environmental benefits chiefly comprise biodiversity, pollution abatement, soil conservation and protection of water resources.

In a nutshell, trees and woodland are all about people. Trees and woodlands provide some £680 million to the annual GDP of the region plus a host of unqualified social and environmental benefits1. And there’s a lot more of it about. Since 1980, woodland cover in the region has grown by 25%. But to make the most of these benefits, and to increase these benefits, we need to be more focussed, more targeted, in our approach.

The Regional Woodland Strategy Hence the development of “Woodland for Life, the Regional Woodland Strategy for the East of England”2. Published in November 2003 the Strategy has at it’s heart a vision of a region in which trees and woodland are widely recognised as bringing high quality sustainable benefits to those who live and work in the East of England.

The Strategy is a regional expression of the Government’s England Forestry Strategy, sitting as one of a suite of strategies within the Regional Sustainable Development Framework3 that will be increasingly brought together under the “Integrated Regional Strategy”.

The Strategy is structured into six themes:

Quality of life including recreation, health and community engagement

Spatial planning the spaces in which we live and work Economic development including timber and tourism

Renewable energy wood for heat Education and learning lifelong learning

Natural Environment

Natural Environment incorporates:

Biodiversity Carbon sequestration Soils Water quality and supply Biodiversity

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Habitat Maintain Restore by 2010 Create by 2010

Lowland mixed

deciduous woodland

100% of existing 1250 ha 1250 ha

Wet woodland 100% of existing 200 ha 150 ha Woodland pasture and

parkland 100% of existing 250 ha Expand 18 key

sites

The biodiversity section of the Regional Woodland Strategy include aspects of Biodiversity Action Plans, issues of heathland and wet woodland, deer, climate change, and ancient woodland.

Biodiversity, the all-encompassing phrase for the variety of life on earth, is declining both globally and locally so a number of international, national and local initiatives have been taken to help arrest this decline. The international process originated at the Rio “Earth Summit” in 1992 to which the UK government responded in 1994 by publishing the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP).

A series of UK Habitat and Species Action Plans (HAPs and SAPs) have been agreed for nationally important habitats and species. A large number of these are relevant to woodland (40% of habitats and 30% of species). Over 390 UK Species Action Plans (SAPs) have been agreed, of which over 100 are directly relevant to woodland in England. Targets in these plans are increasingly being dispersed to regional level to give Local Biodiversity Action Plans guidance to allow them to play their part in delivering the UKBAP.

Currently there are three Habitat Action Plans (HAPs) for woodland relevant to East England. These are:

Wet woodland Lowland beech and yew woods Lowland Mixed Deciduous Woods

There are also HAPs for Lowland Wood Pasture and Parkland and for Hedges, both of which may have implications for woodland management.

The Regional Biodiversity Habitat Action Plan targets are incorporated into the Strategy:

Figure 4. Regional Biodiversity Habitat Action Plan targets

Two elements are of particular note. First is the absence of the Lowland Beech/Yew Woodland HAP targets. Research into the effects of climate change on the region indicates that beech will not thrive in the region within the foreseeable future, so the decision has been made not to pursue any related target.

The second element to note are the wet woodland targets. Given there are only so many places in which wet woodland can exist the targets are challenging enough. The problem is that we are losing significant areas of



native wet woodland. Since 1997, over 190 ha of wet woodland has been removed to restore reed bed or fen, and is perfectly valid in terms of these habitats. Nevertheless we must face that we are going backwards on this target and few conservation organisations are coming forward with plans to create vast expanses of alder carr.

Case studies Strategies and targets are all very well, but if they achieve no change in practice then they are for nought. Luckily we are blessed with excellent practitioners in the region and two examples will serve to illustrate, one involving the restoration of a PAWS site and the other of creating new native woodland.

The latter involves six hectares of land at Milden in Suffolk (Fig. 5). The innovative plan (by enthusiastic landowners Juliet and Christopher Hawkins) includes the planting of site native species in clumped groups with variable spacing, as well as considerable areas of (planned for) natural regeneration. Deadwood from the adjoining S.S.S.I. ancient woodland has been dragged into shade in the newly planted areas to encourage the spread of invertebrates. The scheme was funded through the Forestry Commission’s “JIGSAW” Challenge and the first trees were put in the ground in the spring of 2003. Children and adults from the local community have been actively engaged in the project which, to date, has spawned three scrapbooks of (what will become) important cultural heritage!

Figure 5. The plan for new native woodland at Milden, Suffolk

Based upon the Ordnance Survey map with the permission of the Controller of HMSO.

© Crown Copyright Reserved.

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The existing woodland example highlights the work of Simon Leatherdale, who has been busy working away for Forest Enterprise on the Essex/Suffolk border since the 1980s and is now, in my personal opinion, the best practitioner of ancient woodland restoration in the land. Aerial photographs of Broaks Wood near Halstead illustrate the fate of many a lowland wood. The first photograph was taken by the Luftwaffe in 1940, planning a bombing run that was to later and tragically result in some local deaths (and a number of interesting holes in Broaks).

The photograph (Fig. 6) shows the woodland covered with worked coppice-with-standards, as well as a section of broadleaved high forest in the bottom left hand corner (which was in different ownership). Skip to 1990 (Fig. 7) and the impact of the post-war drive for timber self-sufficiency is clear to see. Wall to wall conifers abound, with the thinning rows of first rotation crops clearly evident. Note the pond (arrowed), around which the then shooting tenant had begun to clear in hope of attracting some duck.

The same pond is visible in the aerial photograph of 2002, by which time Simon had slowly removed much of the conifer (Fig. 8). Some blocks and rows of conifers are still present, but much of the site has been converted back to broadleaved woodland of considerable conservation value, “simply” by judicious removal of conifers. Within a period of fifty years or so, the pendulum of policy has swung one way and then completely back the other. Luckily, the woodland in this case appears to be sufficiently robust to forgive us!

Figure 6. Broaks Wood, Suffolk 1940



Figure 7. Broaks Wood 1990

Figure 8. Broaks Wood 2002

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Challenges Although much has been achieved, a number of challenges lay ahead for native woodland in the region.

Climate change Putting aside the challenge posed by conservation bodies wanting to fell wet woodland (!), the most global of these challenges is the effects of climate change. There is clear and compelling evidence that the global climate is changing as a result of the activities of mankind. Changes to the climate of the UK have also become evident. The models predict that the East of England will experience considerable changes with significant effects on woodland composition and condition.

Because of the long-term nature of forestry and woodland management, debate on a number of issues is needed now so that any decisions made can become effective over the coming century. Although woodland in the region is threatened by climate change it also presents a number of opportunities for woodland enhancement. Forest Research have compiled a report on the effects of climate change on trees and woodland the region, which makes sobering reading.4

Development Losses of (native) woodland to development (housing, roads, runways etc) is the only material threat to the existence (rather than condition) of this important habitat. The East of England is likely to experience an unprecedented increase in house building, potentially 750,000 by 2030. The building of a second runway at Stansted could result in the loss of large areas of ancient woodland. The threat to any semi-natural habitat or open space is, of course, of great concern. To balance this pessimistic picture, however, it should be noted that the cases of woodland loss to development in recent history have been extremely rare, and then extremely contentious.

The value of woodland (and other open space) is increasingly recognised by planners and developers in successive revisions of Planning Guidance, local plans and the use of Section 106 agreements strengthening the protection. More to the point, trees and woodland are increasingly valued as a tool in (true) sustainable development. A study undertaken by the University of Gloucestershire has demonstrated that the presence of trees can raise the value of residential property, save heating bills, improve community enjoyment and perhaps ever raise worker productivity1! The challenge is to ensure that these potential benefits are widely recognised and widely practised.

Funding With the timber market in a continued depressed state, the importance grows of grant funding to carry out woodland creation and management. Traditional sources of Forestry Commission grant pots are in a static (or declining) state with little serious expectation of a step change. An increasing number of other potential funding sources do exist, however, from lottery funding through to the Sustainable Community Plans. The Forest of Marston Vale has, for example received £2·6 million from the Office of Deputy Prime Minister to



purchase land south of Bedford to created woodland greenspace (compare that to the total annual FC grant budget in the region of approximately £2·5 million!)

The challenge to us all is to have good, rational and widely agreed plans to “dust off” when funding opportunities arise and the capacity to realise these opportunities when they arise.

Deer Without doubt the greatest threat to native woodland condition in the East of England is deer. A recent study by the University of York, identifies a deer population of up to 120,000 in number (composed of four main species) and a total cost to the region (from losses in agriculture, road traffic accidents, human health costs and the direct costs to nature conservation) in the order of £10 million per annum (plus the non-market values of loss to biodiversity).

The only solution to deer damage is to manage the populations at a landscape scale. This requires the co-operation of landowners, land managers, public and private sector alike. The role of conservation NGO’s is critical. Although there is an undeniable “Bambi” factor with deer, all our good effort in getting the right policies, strategies and practice in place will be wasted if we do not markedly reduce deer populations in the very near future.

In his rather pessimistic conclusion to the wonderful “Ancient Woodland5”, Oliver Rackham paints a picture the majority of our ancient woods having the “guts eaten out of them by deer…”.

It behoves us all to prove him wrong!

Notes 1Woodland Wealth Appraisal for the East of England. University of Gloucestershire

2003.

http://www.woodlandforlife.net/wfl-woodbank

2http://www.woodlandforlife.net/wfl-rep

3 h t t p : / /w w w . e a s t o f e n g la n d o b s e r va t o r y . o r g . u k / o b s e r va t o r y / r e p o r t s /

SustainableDFsum.pdf

4http://www.woodlandforlife.net/wfl-woodbank/displayarticle.asp?id=2347

5Rackham, O. (2003). Ancient Woodland. Castlepoint Press.

Steve Scott Conservator, Forestry Commission, East of England Santon Downham Brandon Suffolk IP27 0TJ The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forestry Commission.

native woodland: restoration and creation

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