The felling of trees and scrub is a contentious issue on nature reserves; whether it be plantation pine to restore heathlands or willows and alder on a wetland. Since time immemorial people have had an affinity for trees as they have provided us with shelter, fuel and myriad other benefits.
Nowadays trees are quite rightly appreciated for their aesthetic qualities and their recreational value when they gang together to form woodlands. That they produce oxygen and remove atmospheric carbon is also a notable boon.
Quite apart from the above, trees provide food and homes for our wildlife, so naturally the sight of them being felled in the name of nature conservation can appear somewhat paradoxical.
There are several reasons why we carry out scrub and tree management on Radipole and Lodmoor but chief among them is to preserve reedbeds. The arrival of willows and alder in a reedbed sound the first chimes of their death knell as trees represent ‘successional’ vegetation. Reedbeds by their very nature dry out as each year new stems grow then die back, which over time accumulates as an organic layer - added to by silt deposited by floods. The dryer it gets the better the conditions become for scrub which, if left, hastens the drying through their thirsty roots and leaf drop.
Between 1973 and 1987 scrub cover on Radipole increased from 1ha to 5.5ha due to the processes listed above and who knows what that figure would have risen to if left unchecked?
Reedbeds are a priority habitat because the vast majority of our once vast reedy wetlands have disappeared over the past 200 years due to drainage and reclamation, primarily for agriculture, or have gone unmanaged and become overwhelmed by scrub.
Scrub clearance added to reed cutting and raised summer water levels are, in effect, a means of holding back the sands of time which is of enormous importance to the species of bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian and invertebrate that depend on reed partially or entirely for their survival.
Our policy however, is not of all out tree eradication. We manage scrub along the reed margins and have isolated patches of low scrub within dry reed which is of importance to harvest mice and provides singing perches for Cetti’s and sedge warbler, reed bunting and stone chat. Additionally we have extensive willow carr at the top of Radipole and a diverse thorny copse known as the Secret Garden, which add to the varied mosaic of habitats and add to the biodiversity of the reserve.
Above: As well as degrading reedbeds scrub can act as a predator perch - bad news for fellows like the bearded tit (below) and reed warbler (bottom).