Managing for nature

[tracy]

Managing woodlands for conservation is a huge topic. This article is a terfific introduction.

http://www.chilternsaonb.org/downloads/woodland_nature_conservation.pdf

[tracy]

Patrick Roper, Ecologist says:

'Increasingly I am considering how important it is to have a primary

objective for management of a particular woodland. Large timber and coppice

wood production is a good, clear objective and there will be plenty of

associated wildlife. Conservationists, however, might manage for

pearl-bordered fritillaries and butterfly orchids - it is impossible to aim

to manage for the full range of species that might occur in a Wealden wood.

Often, I think, people (including me) quite naturally want to do a little

bit of everything and help to create a wood that resembles their vision of

the original wildwood. This, of course, is not possible as we don't know

what the wildwood was like. There is, though, something very satisfactory

about a well-managed commercial coppice or a glade full of white admirals.

What the owner has to do is to develop their own vision towards an ideal,

but be prepared to modify it if it doesn't quite seem to be working.

Different people will produce (with a little help from nature) different

kinds of wood and, at the beginning of this century, this is not such a bad

thing especially as we are unlikely to go back to the thousands of acres of

coppice with standards and wooded heaths that used to extend across the

Weald.'

Any thoughts? What are your plans for your wood? Do you manage for wildlife? for Timber? For both? which wildlife? If you manage for butterflies will they dormice suffer? or boar?

Discuss away...

oh and remember, Patrick is running a 4 day course at WoodNet on biodiversity, it will be good!

[Binz]

Hi

i am aiming at improving diversity in our wood, but am also aware that you can't have a bit of everything in a small wood else the areas of each habitat could become unsustainable island caricatures of that habitat. Probably better to have 2 or 3 good habitats than a load of little habitat pockets. So in 6 acres of neglected coppice with standards the plan is to open up a glade for wildflowers and butterflies etc on the south edge adjacent to open fields, manage part of the wood for continuous cover by controlling chestnut and giving native species a helping hand, and returning the remainder to coppice rotation half an acre at a time to provide a range of coppice ages throughout a 10 year cycle.

The location of each habitat type also has the benefit that the area we camp in will remain sheltered from the footpath by the continuous cover, while being open to the glade and sunshine. See http://ewar-woowar.blogspot.com/2007/03/biodiversity-plan.html

Binz

[Chris]

The only problem with managing for one species or habitat is that you might damage the habitat for other species that are there but that you do not know about. For instance if you manage a woodland for butterflies, you may make it a lot worse for dormice.

Binz seems to have a good idea as he is using what is there; chestnut coppice and increasing the range of tree species. If you have chestnut, you can always get standards by singling them. Are you only growing the chestnut for 10 years Binz, or will it take you 10 years to get it into rotation?

Chris W

[Binz]

Hi Chris

currently the plan is we'll spend 9 years bringing it back into rotation, year 10 removing the non-natives from the continuous cover area, then be ready to coppice the year 1 area again after that. But that's 10 years away so plans may change between now and then as we learn more and also depending on how well the trees have regrown.

binz

[Underwoodsman]

Hello Binz

Having looked at your species list I see you have sycamore (yaa Kill Kill!!! oh sorry I got carried away there :) ) you might like to consider removing these at an earlier stage as they will produce a lot of seed in 10 years. If you are short of standing dead wood you could ring bark if not coppicing on a 10 year cycle produces a supply of firewood and stops seed production. Chris has an area of high forest she runs as continuous cover that has some large sycamore, she wants to sell them but they are too big for us to move once felled. We are now looking at selling them standing with all the attendant disruption.

John W

[tracy]

We are blessed with a spring in our wood, which we have dammed up a bit and created a pond area. It went dead green with the algae bloom, then more normal. Now we have various pond weeds (we hope they are) growing in it.

Trouble is, right now the pond is getting lots of leaves in it, which makes it go manky. If we rake them out, we will mix up the soil layer and re release minerals etc which will bring back the algae stage!

Any thoughts? Leave the leaves, or rake them out? We are slowly coppicing around the area too to get more light in.

You can see some pictures here: (scroll down to get to the pond pics)

http://peplers.blogspot.com/2008/06/charcoal-kiln-test-and-stuff-thats.html

http://peplers.blogspot.com/2008/08/firewood-and-stuff.html

[The Sawyer]

Hi everyone, as Chris says managing for one species is probably one of the worst mistakes that the conservation sector makes. When at Uni (BSC conservation management) I formed the opinion which was confirmed by some of my lectures that managing the woodland habitat in the traditional way is the best course as many of the species have adapted over thousands of years to the traditional woodland management.

These are just my thoughts

ttfn Kester

[tracy]

I have been trying to write up notes from Patrick's talk 'to coppice or not to coppice' and found it impossible! I have written to ask him for the whole talk, which I hope to put on the website.

Here are his conclusions though:

To coppice? Depends on what you want, and each wood must be taken on its own merit.

Patrick argues that many creatures do not simply thrive in coppice, they would benefit even more from permanent glades, wider rides, some coppice and some high cover. He said that many woodland butterflies, for example, actually thrive on wood pasture.

If we are looking at producing local timber for this country, then coppice is a very good way of doing it, and some wildlife will benefit.

A mixed coppice with standards has better biodiversity and resilience than a mono crop.

As owners of small woodlands, we must remember to take on board what the other owners of the rest of the woodland are doing. For example, if one person has created an enormous glade, you might not need to, if you have high cover and someone else has coppice, this is an ideal situation. As Binz said in a previous post, if we try to cover everything, we will end up with nothing! We must try to see the whole woodland picture.

I haven't put all his comments here, hopefully more to follow soon.

He suggested reading

Oliver Rackham: Woodlands

Buckley: ecology and management of coppice woodland (which can be read on google books or bought from the USA for $289!!!)

I am also reading my way through ' The ecological impact of sweet chestnut coppice silviculture on former ancient broadleaved woodland sites in SE England' - an English Nature report.

Report number 627 and can be found:

http://naturalengland.communisis.com/NaturalEnglandShop/product.aspx?ProductID=9f0aa856-2766-4893-85e1-d90904e6dc24

Page 92 has a good summary!

Let us know how you get on ;-) and what you think....