As Rob Yorke previewed yesterday, we will have a stand this weekend, as usual, at the CLA Game Fair - this year held at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire.   I'm there today and am looking forward to it - especially as I am taking part in a GWCT debate on game shooting's contribution to conservation.   

While I am taking part in the debate, my boss, Mike Clarke, will be hosting a reception on our stand, showcasing our work on woodland management.  Mike will be arguing that it is possible to achieve sustainable game management, nature conservation and boost local rural economies through sound woodland management.   A pilot project, begun in the East Midlands in 2009, has been exploring how this might work on the ground, with some startling success.  RSPB, the Forestry Commission, and forestry agents have been working together to encourage and advise woodland owners to take up English Woodland Grant Scheme options to help declining woodland wildlife by improving woodland structure - which also suits pheasants, and helps to stimulate local timber and woodfuel production. The East Midlands is a useful area to carry out a pilot like this as woodland birds, butterflies, and other wildlife in trouble are still present, so its efficacy can be tested before expanding it to other woodland wildlife hotspots in future.

 The Forestry Commission and RSPB jointly developed prescriptions for a specific, targeted Woodland Improvement Grant to address identified biodiversity declines, which contributes 80% of standard costs for delivering prescriptions like: uneconomic thinning to open the tree canopy to let light into the wood and encourage native understory and ground layer vegetation; as well as coppice, ride and edge enhancement. We now jointly employ a Woodland Biodiversity Adviser, Jacqui, who works with forestry agents and owners to target grants and advice. She also works with organisations like Butterfly Conservation, the Bat Conservation Trust and Plantlife to ensure that what works for birds works for other wildlife too, and pleasingly it generally does! This is not about providing a short term fix, but is aimed at stimulating appropriate woodland management into the future by restoring under-managed woodland so that it can pay for itself going forward, benefiting both wildlife and the local economy.

Woodlands across Britain were managed for thousands of years for timber, firewood, charcoal and other products, but changed dramatically as cheaper imports drove down prices over recent decades. They became more uniform, crowded and dark, and native understory and ground flora were suppressed; a process exacerbated by a burgeoning deer population. The woodland chapter in the State of Nature report makes depressing reading, but this pilot gives me real hope that woodland managers now have the opportunity to make a huge difference. Since 2009, the East Midlands pilot work has secured grant support to more than 8,000 ha of woodland, producing almost ½ million tonnes of wood, which is worth over £12 million as wood fuel, and is being harvested by local contractors and sold into local markets. In the 3 year period preceding the pilot scheme, just 120,000 tonnes of wood was harvested in the area, which illustrates the catalytic power of a good grant scheme!

This type of project has highlighted lessons that are applicable right across the country. It shows what can be achieved with collaboration. It shows that, with the right incentives in place, it is possible to improve management for wildlife while running a commercial enterprise: doing for woods what Hope Farm has done for wildlife on conventional arable farms. 

Next week I'll give you a flavour of the GWCT debate and will also return to the topic of public forests and their future.  In the meantime, enjoy the heat and don't forget your factor 50 sunblock.   

  • Sorry to comment again, but I wanted to pick up redkite's point. Fc foresters are acutely aware of the issues around felling- and other forest operations -  in the breeding season. Forestry is a big industry, with huge investment and the breeding season from the first Crossbill to the last Honey buzzard is at least 6 months. FC  has thought through what it does very carefully: wherever possible, the nests of protected species are identified and avoided - a 400 metre exclusion zone for Goshawk, for example. Yes, nests of smaller birds are damaged - but many (eg Song thrush) are adapted to predation and may have further broods - whilst individuals inevitably suffer, FC is very concerned to ensure the population does not - and one year on there is likely to be little or no effect from spring harvesting.  It's ironic that the silent neglect od our woodlands - especially native woodland - is doing far more harm than the obvious damage of harvesting. Quite simply, Nightingales don't nest in 30 year old coppice and if you add deer into the equation, further wiping out the understorey, many migrants are quietly, insidiously losing their homes - and every time you throw a log on the fire you are doing something to help woodland birds !

  • Martin - this a really great post - congratulations to you and Mike (and Nick Phillips). Following the panel, we need urgently to shift the emphasis onto real action - I'm very concerned Defra is disappearing into a mire (and not a Ramsar one !) of politicking & organisational debate whilst birds are out there decliging at an alarming  rate. The amazing thing with where forestry is, is that everything can work together - green energy from woodland harvesting, bringing woods back into management, lighter woods are good for butterflies AND pheasants, and, of course people. Here is a huge win-win for people, wildlife and the economy.

    My only complaint is that up till now RSPB and FC have underplayed the inspiring work they are doing - and I'd just add that (next to FC, which are the best !) RSPB's practical wooldland management is exemplary - I've recently been to both the Blean and Highnham, as well as Nagshead, managed jointly with FC (where I saw lesser Spotted Woodpecker, a real red letter day !) and your vigorous and intelligent management is really producing results - especially iconic  Nightingales - brilliant ! Lets have more and lets have RSPB really intervening in the forestry debate not for politics and point scoring, but for what we all want - the birds.

  • Just one point about woodland management without getting into details. We recently had an example locally, a year or so ago, of major felling and timber extraction being carried out in a Forestry Commission woodland area right in the  middle of May that is at the height of the nesting period. The timing of timber operations in woodlands is important for wildlife but to avoid the Spring/early Summer time is something woodland owners don't always consider or appreciate.

  • Great initiative Martin.  Next up, what do we do about the burgeoning deer population (particularly the 4 non-native species) and let's not forget the very destructive non-native grey squirrel while we are about it, and block planting of non-native conifers etc etc.  Sound woodland management demands we address all of these challenges, urgently, as well.