The main drivers of deforestation over the past 100 years have been intensive agriculture, logging, infrastructure, and mining. The demand for food, and particularly our meat consumption, has contributed to 65% of the UK to be farmland – largely treeless landscapes, with only 3.3% of farms under agroforestry – where tree cover is often restricted to hedgerows or single, open-grown trees. This combined with the felling of native woodland for non-native plantations, mining operation, and to build roads, railway lines, and houses, has left us in a pretty poor situation.  

Another massive issue is deer. Both native and non-native species proliferate largely unchecked across the UK, currently standing at an estimated two million individuals, and will rapidly browse any woody regeneration (as well as lots of other vegetation too). Our lack of natural predators combined with only a small amount of culling, leads to several problems including tree and crop damage, spreading of ticks, road traffic accidents, and a huge decline in woodland species diversity and abundance where there is overgrazing.

A need to import wood from other countries, combined with a warming climate, has added new challenges in our woodlands, and added pressure on the speed at which we need to protect and expand our tree cover. Diseases have become common, with ash dieback and Dutch elm disease having both wiped out huge areas of woodland at great speed – much quicker than we can plant resistant replacements. Invertebrates unintentionally introduced into the country, including processionary moths and leaf miners, are rapidly defoliating trees and leaving them exposed.

From Atlantic rainforest along the west coast, to Caledonian forest and native pine forest in the North, and broadleaved woodland across the UK, we should be looking to restore a huge array of woodland types across the whole country. Ancient woodlands that have been felled need to be regrown, our orchards should be replanted, and we need a big shift into extensive management and creation of wood pasture in our wider landscape.

It’s widely known that trees are great at capturing carbon – albeit not the best way, with habitats including wetland and seagrass restoration better at this – and definitely play an important role in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to sequestering carbon into themselves and the soil, trees stabilise and aerate the soil with their roots, reducing compaction, and increasing water filtration. This combined with their leaves and branches intercepting precipitation, trees and woodlands are some of the best methods for flood prevention we can have in a landscape.

As global temperatures rise, strategic planting of trees in urban areas could be vital in temperature regulation, with studies showing a decrease of up to 8’c when there is adequate tree cover in towns and cities. This use of planting is also beneficial to livestock farmers, with reduced deaths of animals when there is suitable tree cover available in fields and along hedgerows.

Woodlands are particularly rich in fractals – repetitive patterns, recurring on a progressively finer scale to create shapes of enormous complexity e.g. fern leaves, pine cones, seashells. Fractal patterns in nature are widespread, and exposure to them have been shown to reduce stress by 60%. This fits in with the wider benefits of spending time in nature for both our mental and physical wellbeing. Further to alleviating stress, being in nature stabilises blood pressure and can help towards improving anxiety and depression.

Woodlands of course also hold a huge amount of biodiversity, with 1000’s of species supported by them. Oak trees alone support 2,300 species – 326 of which are entirely dependent on oak for their survival.

Our woodland creation and tree planting at Dorset Wildlife Trust is mainly focussed across three sites. At West Holme we are connecting two existing blocks of isolated woodland by planting a 2.4-hectare, mixed broadleaved woodland and will be planting small pockets of trees for seed dispersal across the rest of the site. At Lyscombe we will be planting specific species of tree that are currently missing from the landscape e.g. elm and black poplar, and at Happy Bottom we will be thickening out the hedgerows with trees.

The best time of year to plant a tree is when the roots are dormant, and therefore are less easily disturbed by the moving process – typically from mid-November to late March.

Once planted, saplings take root and begin to establish throughout an area. The emerging vegetation amongst the trees provides a home for small mammals such as woodmice to increase in number, with kestrels and barn owls tempted back by the bounty of food now available. Foxes skulk through the fields, and bats use existing hedgerows to hawk along.

Fast forward 50 years and smaller trees including rowan, hazel, and elder have reached maturity, their branches providing perfect perches for spotted flycatcher to flit from and catch insects during the day, and for tawny owls to roost in at night. Purple hairstreak shimmer around the still expanding canopy of oaks in summer, and bats now use the woodland edge for their foraging. Redwing and fieldfare feed on the abundance of berries and fruits still around in late autumn, and dormice now nest in the thick hedges, feeding on hazelnuts.

At 200 years on, all trees have reached maturity. Large oaks have buzzards nesting in them and badgers have created setts beneath; goat moth larvae have burrowed into their trunks and have created sap-runs. Some trees have dropped branches, and the deadwood has been taken over by fungi, as stag beetle larvae are feeding on it underground. Silver-washed fritillary glide along rides, nectaring on bramble along the woodland edge. Lichens and epiphytes grow long over the outstretched branches of several trees, softening the view through this old woodland.