Woodland Trust

Last updated

Woodland Trust
Formation1972
Legal status Non-profit company and registered charity
PurposeWoodland conservation
Location
Region served
UK
Membership
300,000 [1]
Chief Executive
Darren Moorcroft [2]
Main organ
Board of Trustees [3]
Budget
£82.5 million [1]
Website www.woodlandtrust.org.uk OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland heritage. It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972. [4]

Contents

The Woodland Trust has three aims: to protect ancient woodland which is rare, unique and irreplaceable, to promote the restoration of damaged ancient woodland, and to plant native trees and woods to benefit people and wildlife. [5]

The Woodland Trust maintains ownership of over 1,000 sites covering over 24,700 hectares (247 km2). Of this, 8,070ha (33%) is ancient woodland. [6] It ensures public access to its woods. [7]

History

Trust Sign in Ireland Wood, West Yorkshire Ireland Wood welcome sign.jpg
Trust Sign in Ireland Wood, West Yorkshire

The charity was founded in Devon, England in 1972 by retired farmer and agricultural machinery dealer Kenneth Watkins. [8]

The Trust's first purchase was part of the Avon Valley Woods, near Kingsbridge, Devon. [9] By 1977 it had 22 woods in six counties. In 1978 it relocated to Grantham in Lincolnshire and announced an expansion of its activities across the UK. In 1984, Balmacaan Wood next to Loch Ness became the Trust's first Scottish acquisition. [10]

From 2005 to 2008 it co-operated with the BBC for their Springwatch programme and the BBC's Breathing Places [11] series of events held at woods. It continues to work with Springwatch and Autumnwatch, most recently in 2015 as part of the Big Spring Watch, which encouraged viewers to record the signs of nature (phenology) through the Trust's Nature's Calendar project.

Sites

As of 2016, the Woodland Trust had over 80 woods in Scotland, covering 21,000 acres (8,500 ha). [12]

In Wales, it acquired the 94 acres (38 ha) Coed Lletywalter in Snowdonia National Park in 1980. In 2016, it had over 100 woods in Wales. [13]

Work started in Northern Ireland in 1996 when the charity received a grant from the Millennium Commission to set up over 50 community woods in a scheme called Woods on Your Doorstep.[ citation needed ]

Headquarters

Its first employee and director, John James, came from Lincolnshire and was living in Nottingham at the time. [14] It had a small office in Grantham, Lincolnshire. James was chief executive from 1992 to 1997, and then Michael Townsend from 1997 to 2004, Sue Holden from 2004 to 2014 and Beccy Speight from 2014 to 2019. The current chief executive is Darren Moorcroft. [2]

A new eco-friendly headquarters, adjacent to the former offices, was completed in 2010 at a cost of £5.1million. [15] The building, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios as architect and Atelier One as structural engineer, [16] incorporates light shelves to distribute natural daylight around the 200 workstations, and concrete panels to absorb daytime heat, to provide the thermal mass that the lightweight wooden structure would otherwise lack. [17] It is estimated that compared to a concrete framed construction, the timber structure saved the equivalent in carbon production as nine years of the building's operation. [15]

Structure

The Woodland Trust's Head Office is located in Grantham in South Kesteven, south Lincolnshire, with regional offices across the UK. [18] It employs around 300 people at its Grantham headquarters. Its current president is Clive Anderson since 2003. In 2016 Barbara Young, Baroness Young of Old Scone became the charity's Chair.

Funding

The Woodland Trust receives funding from a wide range of sources including membership, legacies, donations and appeals, corporate supporters, grants and charitable trusts including lottery funding, other organisations and landfill tax. [19]

Function

The Woodland Trust uses its experience and authority in conservation to influence others who are in a position to improve the future of native woodland. This includes government, other landowners, and like-minded organisations. It also campaigns to protect and save ancient woodland from destructive development. Its projects also include the Nature Detectives youth programme, a project for schools learning about the seasonal effect on woodlands – phenology – and the Ancient Tree Hunt campaign.

Woodland protection

It looks after more than 1,000 woods [20] and groups of woods covering 190 square kilometres (73 sq mi). Nearly 350 of its sites contain ancient woodland of which 70 per cent is semi-natural ancient woodland – land which has been under tree cover since at least 1600. It also manages over 110 Sites of Special Scientific Interest. There are currently over 600 ancient woods under threat across the UK.

Woodland creation

The trust has also created new woodlands: over 32 km2 (12 sq mi) have been created, including 250 new community woods in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its largest current projects include the 41.7 km2 (16.1 sq mi) Glen Finglas Estate in the Trossachs, Scotland and the Heartwood Forest near St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, which will cover approximately 347 ha (860 acres). It owns 20 sites covering 4.3 km2 (1.7 sq mi) in the National Forest and has twelve sites in Community Forests in England.

The Woodland Trust also provides free trees to communities or places of education in order to facilitate the creation of new woodland. [21] [22]

Completed projects

Millennium woods

The Woodland Trust's Woods on Your Doorstep project created 250 "Millennium woods" to celebrate the millennium. [23]

Trafalgar Woods

As part of the trust's 'Tree For All' campaign, new woods were planted to mark the 2005 anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, [24] notably Victory Wood in Kent. [25]

Jubilee Woods

Oxmoor Copse in Surrey Oxmoorcopse.jpg
Oxmoor Copse in Surrey

The Trust ran the Jubilee Woods project, which aimed to plant 6 million trees and create 60 commemorative 'Diamond' woods across the UK as part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. [26] The largest of these, owned and managed by the Trust itself, is the Flagship Diamond Wood within the National Forest in Leicestershire, which will be planted with 300,000 trees. [27]

First World War Centenary Woods

Beginning in 2014, a project commemorating the First World War involved tree planting and the establishment of new woodland sites across the UK. The planned sites were Langley Vale Wood (England), Dreghorn Woods (Scotland), Coed Ffos Las (Wales), and Brackfield Wood (Northern Ireland). [28]

As part of the project, the Woodland Trust entered a partnership with the National Football Museum to create team groves to commemorate all the professional football players involved in the First World War, giving supporters the chance to dedicate trees at the English Centenary Wood, Langley Vale in Epsom. [29]

Ongoing initiatives

Nature's Calendar

This citizen science project encourages members of the public to record the signs of the seasons near to them in order to show and assess the impact of climate change on the UK's wildlife. [30] Thousands of volunteers send in their sightings, providing evidence about how wildlife is responding to the changing climate.

The Trust's records date back to 1736, making it the longest written biological record of its kind. [31] It has become a powerful tool in assessing the impact of climate change and is valued by research scientists.[ citation needed ]

Ancient Tree Inventory

The Ancient Tree Inventory is a project run by the Woodland Trust in partnership with the Tree Register and the Ancient Tree Forum, which aims to record ancient, veteran and notable trees in the United Kingdom. As of 2022, over 180,000 trees have been recorded by members of the public on the project's website, which provides a map of the trees. [32]

Woods

Woodland near South Ockendon in Essex Thames Chase at Belhus - geograph.org.uk - 35419.jpg
Woodland near South Ockendon in Essex
Lineover Wood SSSI in Gloucestershire Cotswolds Lineover Woods - geograph.org.uk - 43919.jpg
Lineover Wood SSSI in Gloucestershire Cotswolds

Woods that the trust owns and looks after include:

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major Oak</span> Tree in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

The Major Oak is a large English oak near the village of Edwinstowe in the midst of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. According to local folklore, it was Robin Hood's shelter where he and his merry men slept. It weighs an estimated 23 tons, has a girth of 33 feet, a canopy of 92 feet, and is about 800–1,000 years old. In 2014, it was voted 'England's Tree of the Year' by a public poll by the Woodland Trust, receiving 18% of the votes. Its name originates from Major Hayman Rooke's description of it in 1790.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient woodland</span> Type of woodland in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, ancient woodland is that which has existed continuously since 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 1600 is likely to have developed naturally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felbrigg Hall</span> Country house in Norfolk, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wenallt Hill</span> Hill in Cardiff, Wales

Wenallt Hill is located to the north of Cardiff, Wales. The name is Welsh and translates to 'white wooded slope'. Ordnance Survey mapping shows the highest point as 229 m (751 ft), although another source suggests a height of 232 m (761 ft).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skipton Wood</span> Woodland in North Yorkshire, England

Skipton Wood is a 36-acre (15 ha) wood following the valley of Eller Beck to the north of Skipton behind Skipton Castle in North Yorkshire, England. The wood is owned by Skipton Castle but has been leased to the Woodland Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bisham Woods</span>

Bisham Woods is an 86-hectare (210-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) west of Cookham in Berkshire. The site is also a Local Nature Reserve and part of Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation. The SSSI is part of a 153.2-hectare (379-acre) site, also called Bisham Woods, which has been owned and managed by the Woodland Trust since 1990.

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Heartwood Forest is a planned forest in Hertfordshire, England. The site covers 347 hectares, the largest continuous new native forest in England.

Coed y Bedw is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in near Gwaelod-y-Garth, within the boundaries of Cardiff in south Wales, it is 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) to the northwest of the city. It comprises 16.6 hectares of deciduous woodland and contains many rare plants which were purchased from the Forestry Commission by the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales in 1984 and is their nature reserve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frithy and Chadacre Woods</span> Site of Special Scientific Interest in Suffolk, England

Frithy and Chadacre Woods is a 28.7-hectare (71-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in the parishes of Lawshall and Shimpling in Suffolk, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallt Llanerch - Coed Gelli-deg</span>

Gallt Llanerch - Coed Gelli-deg is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Gwaun Valley, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. It has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest since January 1954 in an attempt to protect its fragile biological elements. The site has an area of 30.47 hectares and is managed by Natural Resources Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felbrigg Woods</span>

Felbrigg Woods is a 164.6-hectare (407-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-west of Cromer in Norfolk. It is the main part of the grounds of Felbrigg Hall, a National Trust property which is listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and it is in the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hack Fall Wood</span> Site of Special Scientific Interest in North Yorkshire, England

Hack Fall Wood, otherwise known as Hackfall, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, or SSSI, of 44.8687 hectares, lying north-east of the village of Grewelthorpe, North Yorkshire, England. During the 18th century it was landscaped in the picturesque style by landowner William Aislabie, who created views by engineering streams and pools, planting trees and building follies. J. M. W. Turner and William Sawrey Gilpin painted it, and pictures of it featured on Catherine the Great's 1773 Wedgwood dinner service. Some 19th century writers called it "one of the most beautiful woods in the country."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scoska Wood</span> National Nature Reserve in North Yorkshire, England

Scoska Wood is an IUCN Category IV – habitat or species management area, a British national nature reserve (NNR), and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Littondale, North Yorkshire, England. It is a managed ancient woodland, known for its ash trees, grasses and moths. It was designated as an SSSI in 1975, and was awarded its IUCN status in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celtic rainforests in Wales</span> Temperate rainforests in Wales

There are various areas of temperate rainforests in Wales, also termed a "Celtic rainforest". They are located largely in river valleys, adjacent to the sea, on Wales' western coasts, particularly in Snowdonia (Eryri), Powys and Ceredigion.

References

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  2. 1 2 "Our Chief Executive".
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