Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom concerned with the protection and sympathetic management of native woodland heritage.
History
The charity was founded in Devon in 1972 by retired farmer and agricultural machinery dealer Kenneth Watkins.[1] By 1977 it had twenty two woods in six counties. In 1978 it relocated to Grantham in Lincolnshire and announced an expansion of its activities across the United Kingdom. It has supported the National Tree Week scheme, which takes place in late November and is run by The Tree Council.
From 2005 to 2008 the Woodland Trust co-operated with the BBC for their Springwatch programme and the BBC's Breathing Places[2] series of events held at woods.
Structure and function
The Trust is now based in Grantham in Lincolnshire. It employs around 300 people at its Grantham headquarters. It 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.
The Woodland Trust publishes several books. It 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
The Trust looks after more than 1,100 woods and groups of woods covering 70 square miles. 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.
Woodland creation
It has also created new woodlands: over 10 square miles have been created, including 250 new community woods across the land. Its largest current projects include the Error: mismatched units Glen Finglas Estate in the Trossachs, Perthshire and the Heartwood Forest near St Albans in Hertfordshire, which will together cover approximately 857 acres. It owns 20 sites covering Error: mismatched units in the National Forest and has twelve sites in Community Forests in England.
Millennium woods
The Woodland Trust's "Woods on your doorstep" project created 250 "Millennium woods" to celebrate the millennium 2000/2001.[3]
Jubilee woods
The Trust has launched a Jubilee Woods project, which aims 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.[4] The largest of these, owned and managed by the Trust itself, is the Flagship Diamond Wood in Leicestershire. Situated within the National Forest, this will be planted with 300,000 trees.
Ancient Tree Hunt
The Ancient Tree Hunt is a campaign by the Woodland Trust that seeks to catalogue all veteran trees in the United Kingdom. To date over 50,000 trees have been recorded; by 2011 it is projected to have grown to at least 100,000. It is hoped that it will allow a better understanding of the number and spread of ancient trees in the UK.[5] It was started in 2004 by The Tree Register of the British Isles and the Ancient Tree Forum.[5]
The trees catalogued by the project are recorded in a database maintained by the Woodland Trust. All entries (both verified and unverified) may be viewed on the campaign's website. All recorded trees may be viewed on an interactive map, or refined listings (of only verified trees) may be generated through a form generated search of the database.
Woods
Woods which the Woodland Trust owns and looks after include:
- Angus: Backmuir Wood
- Dorset: Folke Wood
- Gloucestershire: Lineover Wood SSSI[6]
- Hertfordshire: Heartwood Forest
- Kent:
- Denge Wood
- Joyden's Wood - Kent
- Norfolk:
- Dick Buck's Burrows, Cromer[7]
- Great Wood, Felbrigg Estate[8]
- Pretty Corner Wood - Sheringham[9]
- Warren Wood[10]
- Weybourne Wood, Weybourne[11]
- West Runton, West Runton[12]
- Oxfordshire: Wychwood
- Perthshire: Glen Finglas Estate in the Trossachs
- Surrey: Oxmoor Copse
- Worcestershire: Uffmoor Wood
- Yorkshire: Skipton Woods
See also
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Woodland Trust) |
- The Woodland Trust
- Ancient Tree Hunt
- British Trees
- Native Tree Shop
- Nature Detectives
- Nature's Calendar
- Woods Under Threat
- UK Phenology Network (including Springwatch)
- The Tree Council
- Dedicate Trees - fundraising
References
- ↑ "Kenneth Watkins - Obituary". The Times: p. 25. 22 November 1996. http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F924A970D212CD8&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=0FE8B94B8C8CAAB1. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
- ↑ "Breathing Places". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
- ↑ Powell Ettinger (13 September 2010). "Wildlife Extra News - Ten years on and 250 Millennium woods transform Britain’s landscape". Wildlifeextra.com. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/millennium-woods.html#cr. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
- ↑ "Celebrate Queen Elizabeth's historic Diamond Jubilee during 2012 with the Woodland Trust". Woodlandtrust.org.uk. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/jubilee-woods/Pages/home.aspx. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Woodland Trust. "What is the Ancient Tree Hunt?". Ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk. http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/project/hunt/. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
- ↑ "Natural England - SSSIs : SSSI information". Sssi.naturalengland.org.uk. 1 November 2012. http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/Special/sssi/sssi_details.cfm?sssi_id=1002850. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
- ↑ "Dick Buck’s Burrows woodland". The Woodland trust. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/woodfile/278/management-plan.pdf?cb=c05a467e03844281aa1be381ea89d309. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- ↑ "Great Wood – Felbrigg Estate". Details of Great Wood – Felbrigg. The Woodland Trust. http://visitwoods.org.uk/en/visit-woods/Pages/wood-details.aspx?wood=26610&site=Felbrigg-Estate---Great-Wood#.U_gwLsWwLYg. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- ↑ "Pretty Corner Wood". Information Leaflet about the woodland. Woodland Trust – North Norfolk Council. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/mediafile/100047973/pretty-corner-site-leaflet.pdf. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- ↑ "Warren Wood – Cromer". Details of Warren Wood near Cromer, Norfolk. The Woodland Trust. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/24819/warren-wood/. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- ↑ "Weybourne Wood". Details of Weybourne Wood near Weybourne Norfolk. The Woodland Trust. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/10757/weybourne-wood/. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- ↑ "West Runton Wood". Details of West Runton Wood. The Woodland Trust. http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/wood/26855/west-runton/. Retrieved 23 August 2014.