When it comes to landscape-scale conservation I doff my hat to the National Forest. They have been thinking about such an approach to rehabilitate a post-industrial landscape and provide biodiversity gain for two decades, along with delivering social and economic objectives. The four basic principles of landscape scale conservation are more, bigger, better and connected.
They’ve certainly achieved more more more and BIGGER – woodland cover has increased from 6% to 20%, including new woods and increasing the size of extant ones. An increasing focus on management is making all habitatsBetter and a strategic approach to the location of new habitats using Biodiversity Opportunity Mapping is C-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-n-g habitats.
To help with new woodland design and management a very interesting and informative workshop was held in the National Forest yesterday, ‘Realising the wildlife potential of new native woodland’, with speakers from ecological consultancies – Wildlife Landscapes and Peter Buckley, RSPB, Butterfly Conservation, Royal Botanic Gardens – Kew, Forestry Commission and National Forest. A new publication with the same title was launched on the day. Hopefully this will be a useful source of information for advisers and woodland managers to ensure the provision of high quality new habitat, which can be applied in Sherwood Forest Futurescape.
Willow tit – a species that has declined by 76%, the greatest decline of any resident breeding species in the last 13 years, and a 50% loss of breeding range It favours damp scrub and young woodland and so can potentially benefit from suitably designed and managed new woodland. There is still a small population in Sherwood Forest Futurescape.