|
|
What is a Treescape? |
|
|
|
In the absence of visual cues, using the written word is how we make people see what we are communicating, but there has to be an openness and honesty as to its purpose. I have always found the self-serving language of the conservation industry and its adherents jarring for its appeal to our sensibilities about wild nature, while at the same time abjuring the reality that it is controlling of wild nature. I dubbed this language “conservation speak”, documenting it by compiling wince-making and patronising examples as they cropped up (1). I recognised the frequency of certain words and phrases after a few years, such as “exciting..precious..fragile..rare..traditional management..former glory..fantastic opportunity..inspiring and innovative..exciting and innovative..sensitively protected” and so I invited people to play “buzzword bingo” by picking these out of the “nonsense-speak” of the conservation industry. I felt the gravity of the distortion of language by the conservation industry merited conservation speak and nonsense-speak as allusions to “Newspeak” and “doublethink” in 1984, George Orwell’s dystopian novel about totalitarianism where Newspeak was designed to limit people’s ability to think, and doublethink was a process of indoctrination that facilitated the contradiction of a clearly false statement being accepted alongside one that was the truth (2). Orwell appended The Principles of Newspeak in an Annex to his book (3). I found an essay by Orwell that predated the book, but which presaged the distortion by seeing a connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language (4). It was his "fight against bad English", the "abuse of language" caused through "lack of precision" and the "bad habits which spread by imitation" - "no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning”. Orwell thought the process of debasement reversible - "If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration". He listed the various obfuscations deployed and which he called “swindles and perversions”: the dying or worn out metaphor, the use of which showed a lack of imagination; pretentious diction that imparted a pseudo-scientific justification; and meaningless words used to obscure the reader from seeing the point of the statement. He viewed insincerity as the “great enemy of clear language” – “When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms”. To aid the writer, Orwell offered some rules that advised, amongst other things, against reusing hackneyed metaphors or figures of speech; the use of short words rather than long ones; getting rid of unnecessary words; and not using jargon. Applying the rules I was moved to evaluate my use of terms when I came across a paper that looked at the misuse of the word habitat, which at its simplest should mean “the resources and conditions present in an area that produce occupancy, which may include survival and reproduction by a given organism. Habitat is organism-specific and is more than vegetation or vegetation structure” (5). Using reference definitions for habitat-related terms, the authors searched the literature and found that it was only used correctly about 55% of the time. They noted that some habitat terms were more likely to be misused than others, notably habitat type when really it was referring to vegetation type, and unnecessary terms like suitable habitat or unsuitable habitat that are either redundant or nonsensical by definition – thus, for example, suitable lynx habitat is just lynx habitat! Other habitat-related terms were self-contradictory or oxymorons, such as habitat heterogeneity and habitat type. Habitat patches and habitat quality were more difficult terms. Patches of woodland in a fragmented landscape may provide habitat for a number of species, but unless species-specific habitats have been identified and delineated for those woodland areas, they should be referred to as woodland patches and not habitat patches. The true test of habitat quality really implied obtaining information on the long-term persistence of a specific species in space and time, rather than just assessing whether resources for survival are available, as these could fluctuate from year-to-year. Similar concerns were attached to the term critical habitat. On the other hand, terms such as habitat structure and habitat selection were used correctly in more than 80% of articles. The authors argued that inaccurate and inconsistent use of the term held back identification and prioritization of protected areas, whereas correct usage could improve communication with scientists and non-scientists, so benefiting conservation efforts, and ecology as a science. It certainly persuaded me to be more careful in how I use that word in future. I recently castigated those who bang on in favour of natural regeneration over tree planting because they have little concept of the barriers to the dispersal of trees (5). I have another criticism to use now, as I have since found that their use of the term natural regeneration is incorrect for the situations they were advocating, and they should really be using the term natural colonisation. I came across this distinction in a number of inter-related terms explained in the Glossary to this year’s Provisional Woodland Statistics for the UK (6). Restocking is defined as the “replacement of trees on areas of woodland that have been felled; this can be done either through replanting or natural regeneration”. Thus natural regeneration was defined as the “regeneration of existing woodland by natural means, i.e. without sowing or planting”. Conversely, new planting was defined as “establishing woodland on ground that was not woodland in the recent past” and natural colonisation was defined as the “creation of new woodland by natural means, i.e. without sowing or planting”. Clearly those who bang on about natural regeneration are invariably referring to areas that have not been woodland in the recent past. Thus I refer them to an information note from the Forestry Commission that explains using natural colonisation to create new woodlands, or expand existing woodlands (7). It notes that the choice of sites where this approach can be used should be based on being close to parent trees, have suitable perches for bird dispersed species, and be down-wind from seed sources of wind-dispersed species, all considerations I looked at as barriers to the dispersal of trees on my local moor (5). They could profit from looking at the information in that guide on the seed characteristics of trees that gives the mode of dispersal, the distance travelled by wind dispersed-seeds, and the interval between good seed years (see Table 2 in (7)). I see I have at least once used natural regeneration and natural colonisation correctly, the former when bemoaning that the spread of cattle grazing through the valley at Wild Ennerdale would mean I would never see another tree naturally regenerate in the felled areas of plantation forest; and the latter when explaining the limits to its feasibility in the establishment of new woodland in the Carrifran Valley where there was a lack of seed trees so that extensive tree planting had to take place (8). There is a turn of phrase or speech that I have used once, but which I came to loathe for its triteness, but also because of an underlying implication in its use by some that goes outside of any precision in its meaning. Thus 10 years ago, I exposed the perversity of Staffordshire Wildlife Trust’s proposals to deforest a vast tract of the plantation forest on the eastern side of Gib Torr that according to priority habitat mapping had no heathland potential (9). I noted that the wildlife trust had got it wrong about Gib Torr, and that the logical solution would be to maintain at least 85% woodland cover away from the small area of designated heathland. This would have ensured a continuing presence of woodland in what is a very unwooded area. I averred that the trust should have used Ecological Site Classification analysis across the site to identify “the right tree in the right place”. As I explained last time, I used the Forestry Commission’s Ecological Site Classification Decision Support System when identifying tree species likely to grow on my local moor (5). The system matches key site factors with the ecological requirements of different tree species and woodland communities that distribute along environmental gradients of climatic and edaphic factors, such as soil type, moisture, aspect, and disturbance. This turn of phrase, however, is also used by those obsessed with the species of cultural landscapes, such as heathland, as a preventative to what they see as a threat to those landscapes from the return of trees. Thus in an article on tree planting on the Forestry Commission blog entitled Right tree, right place, right reason, Mark Broadmeadow alludes to this when he notes that he has “also come across questions and commentary about the impact that tree planting can have on existing environments, such as species rich grassland and peatland, and the wildlife it provides homes to” (10). The Wildlife Trusts’ response to the England Tree Strategy Consultation (now closed (11)) endlessly parrots “the right tree in the right place”, especially as a means to “protect open habitats” (12,13). In shrill alarmism, it exemplifies this attitude of threat by demanding that the Strategy sets out “how high-value open habitats, and areas where these habitats could potentially be restored and connected, will be protected from inappropriate tree planting” which in relation to peatlands gets labelled “disastrous”. Not only does this response transgress against terminology by asserting that “When expanding and creating new areas of woodland, natural regeneration of woodland should be the preferred method for increasing tree cover” but it also describes peatland as a “critical habitat”. Well, Andy McMullen, in a guest blog for Reforesting Scotland, questions the anti-tree orthodoxy of peatland conservationists and their simplistic, and false, dichotomy of “trees = bad” (14). He notes that comparisons with Scandinavia suggest that wooded bogs and transitions are unusually rare or absent habitats in Scotland, as they also are in England and Wales (15,16). Furthermore, McMullen noted that in other countries, restoration of peatlands was now being efficiently integrated with additional vegetation types, including woodland, through recognition of their interconnections (14). Future of UK Treescapes There is a funding call announced for research on the Future of UK Treescapes, backed jointly by three research councils (Natural Environment, Arts and Humanities, and Economic and Social)(17). The research has to be undertaken through an interdisciplinary approach on a theme chosen from these three: Form, function and values; Opportunities, barriers and pathways for expansion; and Resilience to global change. The premise of the research is to significantly improve the “environmental, socio-economic and cultural understanding of the functions and services provided by UK treescapes” so as to inform choices on the “expansion of future treescapes for the benefits of the environment and society”. It promises to help get the most out of the resilience of both mature forests and new planting by securing UK forest forms, functions and ecosystem services against “21st Century pressures”. The latter include “climate change, water scarcity or excess, biodiversity decline, pests and pathogens, air pollution and changes in rates of nutrient deposition, as well as economic, cultural and societal drivers from the development of the built environment for a growing population (e.g. housing) and the demand of the materials industry (e.g. timber)”. In terms of expansion, at least for England, there is a mapping system that ostensibly shows the low risk/least sensitive areas for woodland creation provided by the Forestry Commission (18). For the obvious, dogmatic reasons of avoiding sensitive areas, such as the open landscape species in culturally derived landscapes epitomised in the Priority Habitat Inventory (see above) it misses out many of the crucial areas where trees should colonise, as it also excludes National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, areas that have agri-environment agreements like my local moor, and high value farmland (see Annex 2,3 in (19)). The exclusion of the whole of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and not just the sensitive areas within them, is a bit puzzling when Question 16 in the section on expanding and connecting our trees and woodlands in the England Tree Strategy Consultation asked “What role could the nation’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) play in increasing woodland cover?” (11). Nevertheless, despite these various exclusions, the low risk areas identified for woodland creation does extend to a potential 3.2m hectares or about 24.5% of England (20). This would treble the current coverage of 10% (21) if all that land was put to woodland, taking England into the realms of the median cover across Europe (22).
My big problem is trying to envisage what a
treescape means in a contemporary UK context, whether in scientific, artistic
or cultural terms, since it is not a term I’m familiar with. A dictionary
definition has that it is a landscape that has many trees, or groups of trees
(23). Leaving aside the connections to art and
painting, landscape is defined as being the land that can be viewed at one
time from one place, seascape is defined as being a view of the sea. However,
that definition of treescape could suggest density of tree coverage without
saying anything about the extent of the treescape. Thus it may not just be
about a view that is dominated by trees, something I have seen when looking
over the vast expanse of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire
that left me teary (24,25) but which is an unlikely sight in Britain. The
funding call document has this in explanation for treescapes that confirms it
is not just about a view (17):
Like the use and misuse of habitat, trees as a
vegetation type deserve to have a clarity of nomenclature. The use of forest
for that vegetation type, such as in that explanation above, has bothered me
ever since I discovered that we have forests marked on maps today that have no
trees (26). These are an anachronistic reference to the Royal hunting grounds
for wild deer of our Norman conquerors. Other areas marked as Forest on our
maps do have trees, but often these are plantations of non-native conifer.
Thus, in terms of contemporary usage, “forest to plantation” in the
explanation above would appear to be tautology. Woods are marked on our maps,
denoting the more familiar term for the vegetation type of trees, and this is
a term used later in the call document in relation to what is seen as the
different types of treescape. It comes in a passage that talks about the
enhancement and expansion of treescapes emphasised in policies, such as the 25
Year Environment Plan for England (27) that address climate change and
biodiversity goals, noting that there was a need to “recognise the multiple
environmental, social, economic, and cultural benefits that improved
treescapes can deliver”. It notes as well that these treescapes also have
the “potential to drive innovation and delivery of a bio-economy based on
energy production, food security, material science, public health, and
community assets that include heritage preservation, and recreation” Here
is the follow-on sentence for you to parse (17): What I see is more than a linear spectrum. It is a complex matrix that has multiple axes, the simplest being from urban to rural, but then we have the single trees lining a road, or in a farm field, to the multiple trees of urban woods and rural/riparian woodlands and forests; from areas of native, mixed to non-native trees; and from undisturbed through managed to logged. I think it is pretty much a given that the treescape type of production forests and woodlands are an omnipresence in Britain. Thus, unsurprisingly, management practices figure heavily in examples of research questions given under the different themes in the document, very much tying treescapes to the functions, services, products and social benefits they are expected to deliver, but also by the assertion in one question that “treescapes in the UK have been historically shaped by people”. A looming threat to the totality of human modification in the UK is raised by pondering in that question how increased tree planting could “impact or maintain cultural identity associated with landscapes?”. My questions would be: do our treescapes always have to be multipurpose so that we can instead see past them being cellulose factories; and does our native woodland always have to come with cultural baggage? Furthermore, I don’t see anything that directly addresses ownership or accessibility in the research themes. Nor is there any reflection that treescapes are home for a range of native and former native species, and that expansion could benefit those species. Instead, we are given the utilitarian blandness that “trees and treescapes have a critical role to play in promoting biodiversity, recovering nature and meeting biodiversity targets in the post-2020 biodiversity framework” Getting a fix on treescapes I doubt if data on street trees is held nationally, nor trees in public parks, on farms, or in hedgerows, but there is a National Forest Inventory for Britain, and which makes a start in locating some of those elements of the treescape. The Inventory holds over 600,000 records, and provides information about the size, distribution, and composition of our forests and woodlands based on criteria of an area at least 0.5ha that has a minimum width of 20m, and which has at least 20% tree canopy cover (28). These records can be downloaded as a data set (29) as well as viewed on digital mapping (30). The classification into different woodland types is based on interpretation of remote sensing and aerial imagery into four main categories: broadleaved; conifer; Mixed Predominantly broadleaved; and Mixed Predominantly conifer (28). This approach does not distinguish between native and non-native trees, and so records for the three of those that include conifers are unreliable if you are seeking to find woodland with high natural potential. For instance, the Mixed Predominantly broadleaved is less than 80% broadleaved and could have up to 50% conifer. Even then, classification of broadleaved does not rule out the presence of non-native trees like sycamore and sweet chestnut that we have planted everywhere, or a native tree like beech that through our planting has broken the bounds of what may have been its natural distribution (31). One last caveat: this spatial inventory does not indicate anything about the use of these woodland areas, whether they are productive, managed or undisturbed, although the assumption could be that all woodland owned or managed by the public forestry bodies is harvested, and no one in the private sector plants a conifer plantation just to watch it grow. This suggests that at a very minimum, at least 1,696,000ha or 55% of woodland in Britain is logged (see table 1 in (6)). I have separated out the records for the different woodland types to see how much we have of each, and what the range of size is. Broadleaved woodland constitutes about half of the records of the Inventory, and totals 1,115,276ha, or about 5.3% of the area of Britain (29). The largest broadleaved woodland at 1,267ha is in England (32) while the largest in Wales is 275ha (33) and that in Scotland is 394ha (34). There are 1,023,580ha of conifer woodland (4.9%) with 59 areas greater than 1,000ha in Britain (29) the largest at 3,882ha is found in Scotland along with eight more of the ten largest areas (34). This is perhaps is indicative of the much larger proportion of coniferous woodland in Scotland compared to England or Wales (6). The two mixed woodlands categories each contribute around 50,000ha (29). Other classifications, such as areas of young trees, felled areas, and scrub, as well as non-woodland areas like roads, rivers, grassland, agriculture and open water, bring the total area of the Inventory up to 3,144,086ha. Given the caveat about conifer trees above, I thought it unlikely that any of those large areas of conifer woodland in Scotland would be of native Scots pine. However, there is an inventory of Caledonian Pinewood in Scotland that has records for 84 core areas where the balance of probability suggests that they are genuinely native, that is, descended from one generation to another by natural seeding (35). Records are based on criteria of a minimum of 30 individual trees at a density of no less than four pine trees per hectare. The largest is 2,452ha at Abernethy in the Cairngorms, a size that does put it into the ten largest conifer woodlands in Britain (36). There are six more of the 10 largest areas of Caledonian Pinewood also in the Cairngorms, ranging from Rothiemurchus at 1,744ha to Glen Quoich at 418ha. The three others are Glen Affric at 1,532ha, and Glen Strathfarrar at 642ha, both in the western Highlands, and the Black Wood of Rannoch at 1,011ha in Highland Perthshire. An anagram of treescape is treespace Treespace has far more resonance with me than treescapes, because it implies, when covered with native trees, a vegetation type for woodland species, a habitat rather than just a collection of vertical sticks. I am very fortunate in having a series of publicly-owned, ancient, broadleaved woodlands to walk that are within easy distance of my home. They range in size from 10 to 22ha. Each has a significant woodland interior under a mostly unbroken tree canopy that has few sycamore or beech. The woodland interiors exist by virtue of the shape and size of the woodlands, as it ensures sufficient internal distancing so that the core areas are relatively untouched by external influences and by edge effects (see in (37,38)). Those influences and edge effects are increased in smaller woodlands resulting from fragmentation, as the surrounding area has a proportionally greater influence on the internal core of the woodland. While this is intuitive, it is uncommon to come across any commentary on woodland interior in Britain, as it is antithetical to a prevailing view of a woodland matrix dominated by destructive events that create openings in the canopy. Openings happen naturally by senescence, natural disturbance or physical conditions, but they are short term. However, that natural process has been co-opted by mainstream conservation dogma to justify its excessive intervention and management of woodland. The woodland interior of those local woods is comprised of an understorey of smaller trees, as well as deciduous and evergreen shrubs and herbaceous and evergreen plants, the trees and components of the understorey associated in communities that signify the biophysical properties of the location. Woodland interior is what makes a woodland ecosystem a habitat that supports the occupancy and perpetuation of other woodland species, these species drawn from across all domains of cellular life. Thus it’s not just the mammals, birds, and insects, but also the fungi, lichens, mosses, liverworts, and the microbial communities of the soil. Continuity is defining of the ecosystem of these broadleaved woodland interiors, from the constancy of shade and humidity over space and time, to the turnover associated with the life history and afterlife of trees that constantly replenishes resources relied on by other species, from their leaves, seeds, and the associations with microbial and fungal communities, to the decay that creates refuge and further nourishment. While many of these considerations apply to Caledonian pinewoods, I wonder if constancy of shade is a characteristic because of the lower density of trees (see above). Thus edge effects in terms of light may not be so significant, and the greater overall light within the woodland means there is considerably less suppression of the growth of open landscape species in favour of woodland species. When I walked the Black Wood of Rannoch, it was notable that its acid heath shrub layer of heather, bilberry and crowberry was indistinguishable from surrounding moorland (39). I didn’t realise how fortunate I was in having those woodlands of size nearby until I looked at the National Forestry Inventory for Britain and saw how poorly represented they were in the Inventory. I suppose I should have been expecting it, given the highly fragmented pattern that broadleaved woodland exhibits across Britain, but as much as 38% of the woodland records are less than 1ha (29). Simple geometry tells me these are just too small to offer any meaningful hope of woodland interior. The proportion of woodland records for areas less than 10ha rises to 93%, and which all together constitute nearly half (48.3%) of the total area of broadleaved woodland in Britain. I picked that cut-off as it is the low end of the local woodlands I walk, but also because the potential for significant woodland interior increases markedly as woodland size increases past 10ha. There are around 20,000 woodland areas greater than 10ha but less than 100ha. Based on between 25-50m distancing from a circular edge, the lowest boundary-to-area ratio, the woodland interior would be 52-74% at 10ha, but increases to 83-91% at 100ha. We also have 623 areas of broadleaved woodland greater than 100ha (9.5% of total woodland area) but only 12 of those are greater than 500ha (0.7%) all in England (32) and only one is larger than 1,000ha at 1,267ha. While 74% of the broadleaved woodland in England is privately owned (see table 1 in (6)) it is the Forestry Commission that owns or leases most of the 10 largest areas of broadleaved woodland, and which has Forest Plans for their harvesting. This includes Charlton Forest to the E of Cocking in Sussex (1,267ha, (40)) Savernake Forest south of Marlborough in Wiltshire (831ha,(41,42)) Friston Forest to the W of Eastbourne in Sussex (702ha,(43)) Wyre Forest to W of Bewdley in Worcestershire (613ha,(44,45)) Whitbarrow Forest to the SW of Kendal in Cumbria (560ha,(46,47)) and two groups of Inclosures below Lyndhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire (561 and 548ha (48)). The list of 10 is completed by the Blean Woods NW of Canterbury in Kent (732ha) a substantial part of which is coppiced by the RSPB (see the maps in (49)) Great Ridge Wood just N of Chicklade in Wiltshire (585ha) that is part of the forestry operations of the privately owned Fonthill Estate (50); and Wychwood Forest near Charlbury in Oxfordshire (537ha) that is part of Cornbury Park, a private estate owned by Lord Rotherwick (51). Broadleaved woodland areas that are sufficient in size to have significant woodland interior could be important treespaces for our woodland ecosystem, and should be recognised as such. However, this relies on the woodland being undisturbed by human agency, and which does not appear to be the case at least for the 10 largest areas of broadleaved woodland. I cannot hope to review the many thousands more in the Inventory in what may be a vain search for undisturbed woodland, but what I can do is provide some examples that could inspire emulation. I have been looking at a couple of new woodland National Parks in Europe as examples, the Nationalpark Hunsrück-Hochwald in Germany and the Parc national de forêts in France. Both Parks have high diversity because of their composition of native trees – they are strongholds for wildcat – but they differ in whether they will be worked or not. They are points on opposite ends of an axis for treescapes, albeit that they have public access in common, an issue that I think is under considered here. There is also an element of treescapes happening in Europe that through small scale urban tree planting projects, engages communities, children and individuals in trees. You will have to come back and read about these and the National Parks. Mark Fisher 24 September 2020 (1) The nonsense of conservation speak, Self-willed land http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/skcollob.htm (2) Orwell, G. (1949) 1984, Secker and Warburg https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kotPYEqx7kMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false (3) Appendix: THE PRINCIPLES OF NEWSPEAK, George Orwell: ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ https://orwell.ru/lit?a=e&doc=/library/novels/1984/english/en_app (4) Orwell, G. (1946) Politics and the English Language. Horizon 13(76): 252–265 https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit (5) Kirk, D.A., Park, A.C., Smith, A.C., Howes, B.J., Prouse, B.K., Kyssa, N.G., Fairhurst, E.N. and Prior, K.A., 2018. Our use, misuse, and abandonment of a concept: Whither habitat? Ecology and Evolution, 8(8): 4197-4208 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.3812 (5) Where have all the woodland flowers gone?, Self-willed land August 2020 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/woodland_grazing.htm (6) Provisional Woodland Statistics 2020, First Release 11 June 2020, Forest Research, Forestry Commission https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/documents/7647/PWS_2020_ggXAYhv.pdf (7) Using Natural Colonisation to Create or Expand New Woodlands, Information Note FCIN03, Forestry Commission June 1999 https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/documents/6783/FCIN023.pdf (8) Watching the naturalness return to the Carrifran Valley, Self-willed land April 2015 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/carrifran_naturalness.htm (9) The defence of woodland – Forest Neighbours and Gib Torr, Self-willed land January 2010 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/gib_torr.htm (10) Right tree, right place, right reason, Mark Broadmeadow, Forestry Commission Blog 7 July 2020 https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2020/07/17/right-tree-right-place-right-reason/ (11) England Tree Strategy Consultation, DEFRA June 2020 (12) The Wildlife Trusts’ response to the England Tree Strategy, Barnaby Coupe, Wildlife Trusts 11 September 2020 https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/barnaby-coupe/wildlife-trusts-response-england-tree-strategy (13) The Wildlife Trusts’ Response to Defra’s England Tree Strategy Consultation Document, Barnaby Coupe, Wildlife Trusts September 2020 (14) Trees or Peatlands: A False Dichotomy? Andy McMullen, Reforesting Scotland 6 September 2020 https://reforestingscotland.org/trees-or-peatlands-a-false-dichotomy/ (15) The free for all of trophic rewilding, Self-willed land January 2016 http://self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/free_for_all.htm (16) Conservation status assessment for Habitat: H91D0 - Bog woodland - UK. European Community Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora (92/43/EEC) Fourth Report by the United Kingdom under Article 17 on the implementation of the Directive from January 2013 to December 2018, JNCC 2019 https://jncc.gov.uk/jncc-assets/Art17/H91D0-UK-Habitats-Directive-Art17-2019.pdf (17) Future of UK Treescapes grants: Announcement of Opportunity, UKRI 2 September 2020 (18) Low risk areas for woodland creation, Targeting and Scoring, Forestry Commission Map Browser https://www.forestergis.com/Apps/MapBrowser/ (19) Supplementary guidance: Afforestation projects seeking an EIA opinion/assessment in England, Forestry Commission England (20) Update to Low Risk map, Assess environmental impact before you create new woodland, Forestry Commission Guidance 13 December 2019 (21) Woodland Statistics, Forest Research (22) Forest cover: international comparisons, Forest Research (23) treescape, Merriam Webster Dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treescape (24) White Mountain National Forest - lessons in landscape, October 2005 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/sandwich_ridge.htm (25) The challenge of Lost Island - making ourselves wilder, September 2014 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/lost_island.htm (26) Forests with no trees, Self-willed land http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/no_trees.htm (27) A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment, HM Government 2018 (28) National Forest Inventory Woodland GB 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/d3d7bfba1cba4a3b83a948f33c5777c0_0 (29) Spreadsheet, National Forest Inventory Woodland GB 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data (30) National Forest Inventory Woodland GB 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data, My Map - ArcGIS (31) The natural vegetation of England, Self-willed land August 2014 www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/natural_veg_england.htm (32) National Forest Inventory Woodland England 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/295e0278dc2641e2935c411d28908be9_0 (33) National Forest Inventory Woodland Wales 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/30b6db49333548bdb0154226036276a4_0 (34) National Forest Inventory Woodland Scotland 2018, Forestry Commission Open Data https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/b71da2b45dde4d0595b6270a87f67ea9_0 (35) Caledonian Pinewood Inventory, Scottish Forestry Open Data (36) Spreadsheet, Caledonian Pinewood Inventory, Scottish Forestry Open Data (37) D4.1 Woodland habitats, Woodland habitat action plan, A Biodiversity Action Plan for Hertfordshire http://www.hef.org.uk/nature/biodiversity_vision/chapter_04_woodland.pdf (38) CONSERVING THE FOREST INTERIOR: A THREATENED WILDLIFE HABITAT, Extension Note, LandOwner Resource Centre, Ontario http://www.lrconline.com/Extension_Notes_English/pdf/forInterior.pdf (39) Lack of natural control mechanisms - the missing lynx, Self-willed land June 2014 http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/missing_lynx.htm (40) South Downs Phase 2 Forest Plan, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/forest-planning/south-downs-phase-2-forest-plan (41) Savernake Forest, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/savernake-forest (42) Forestry England needs local views on the future management of Savernake Forest, Tony Millett, Marlborough News 1 January 2020 (43) Friston Forest, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/friston-forest (44) Wyre Forest, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/wyre-forest (45) WYRE Forest and NNR management plan, Forestry Commission https://consult.forestryengland.uk/forest-districts/wyre-forest-and-nnr-management-plan/ (46) Whitbarrow Forest, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/whitbarrow-forest (47) Whitbarrow Forest Plan, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/forest-planning/whitbarrow-forest-plan (48) New Forest Inclosures Forest Plan, 2019-2029, Forestry England https://www.forestryengland.uk/forest-planning/new-forest-inclosures-forest-plan-2019-2029 (49) Coppice survey, Blean Woods and Seasalter Levels volunteer Spring-Summer 2017 update, Blean Woods Blog, RSPB 19 August 2017 (50) FORESTRY, Fonthill Estate https://www.fonthill.co.uk/forestry/ (51) The Cornbury Estate https://www.cornburypark.co.uk/the-estate/ url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/treespaces.htm www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk |
