Hi All,

I have just come across this forum and thought I might add something and hopefully join in the debates as you all sound quit committed to protecting our environment.

I run a UK project saving woods from development and too protect our diminishing wildlife, its called Woods for All and I thought that I'd ask all of you that were interested to give me your feedback. We are trying to make Woods for All the best project in the UK and the only way we will do that is to find out what people want and what they think makes a great project, so take a look at our website http://www.woodsforall.org I hope you post your thoughts and opinions and I look forward to reading them, it will give me food for thought!

Best wishes,
Treetops.
Email saves time, not printing them saves trees

Hello Treetops, welcome to the forums

I don't quite get the website, could you explain a little more? From what it looks like it is a place where people can buy small parts of woodland from you, which you use to buy more woodland. Is that correct? And do people own the woods that they buy or is it sort of a "sponsor woodland" deal.

Looks like you are doing a good job for the environment though

All power to your elbow.

One major factor with regard to woodland is the need to educate those who maintain them that "tidiness" is definitely NOT important in woodland. This obsession with clearing fallen trees and branches - cutting them up and burning them - which is especially prevalant with local authorities and some private organisations is just unnecessary except where they pose a danger or block access. I see this often in my local woodland which is owned by the Civic Association.

Also, the need to plant native species - not in straight lines!

Hello Treetops, you have a very interesting concept there. Exactly how many owners are there of the various woods? Your site states that there are a limited number of owners.

Welcome to Wildlife UK!

Kingfisher

Hello Treetops, welcome to the forums

I don't quite get the website, could you explain a little more? From what it looks like it is a place where people can buy small parts of woodland from you, which you use to buy more woodland. Is that correct? And do people own the woods that they buy or is it sort of a "sponsor woodland" deal.

Looks like you are doing a good job for the environment though

That's interesting. Have you had a good chance to read our website as we try to make it very clear but if it isn't clear can you think of a better way to put it after reading my reply below.

In a nutshell we buy freehold woodland with there hunting rights, then cancel the hunting rights on that wood. We also stop them from being built on in any way. Then we improving the biodiversity of the wood so that our indigenous wildlife has a better chance of surviving in a safe natural habitat. Them we offer shares in the freehold woods we buy to the public, which gives them (our shareholders) the power though their voting rights to stop their wood from being developed or hunted on and we give our shareholders the the right to visit and walk in their wood at any time.

With the money we get from the shares sold we buy another wood and do the same thing again in another part of the UK. We now have two woods and hopefully this is just the beginning. Our next goal is to buy another wood within the next two years

Hi Richard,

I agree with you, woods are often kept to tidy but we have always recognised the impotence of dead wood. All the timber is left in our woods and we never remove it, what we tend to do is stack it just of the paths and out of sight.

This post was last modified: 11-11-2007 11:48 AM by treetops.

Howdy Treetops and welcome.

I agree with the comments about the importance of not having 'tidy' woodland. I work as a volunteer for a local countryside conservation group and wherever we are involved in clearing footpaths, glades, viewpoints, etc. we always ensure that we leave the timber stacked off the footpaths as a wildlife habitat.

I know that there is always an argument about whether we should be taking an active involvement in managing woodland but our aims are: to restore and protect the very rare chalk grassland environment (only 1% of which remains in Surrey, 90% having been lost in the last 60 years) and to encourage people to take an involvement in the enjoyment of this rare environment (which requires the clearing and maintenance of many overgrown footpaths). Unfortunately, if the public take no interest in their local environment then nobody will object when the developers try to move in (which is one of the reasons why we have lost so much chalk grassland in the first place).

This is exactly my point. Why stack it and why out of sight. Fair enough if you need to clear a path, but a tree that has come down or been felled can be snedded to make it safe then is best left where it fell. The brashings from snedding can be left in small piles for wildlife, but otherwise there is no need to take any other action.

With us too if a tree or branch falls in the wood we also leave it where it fell but if it falls on one of the paths we move and stack it as I said.

Hi Treetops, sounds like a really good idea your group has come up with. Who looks after the woods once they're purchased - is it the local community? I know you operate more of a 'hands-off' approach, but woodland does need looking after, or eventually it becomes dense and overgrown, biodiversity can drop off, as light stops reaching the ground, and things become crowded out.

Hi Lady Kestrel,

Some of us shareholders go down to the woods on a fairly regular basses to keep the rides and the streams open but we don't go mad and we restrict most of our attention to these areas. There's an argument for coppicing woodland, thinning the trees and undergrowth but that's not our goal, our goal is more hands-off approach as you say, some people say that there's a loss of biodiversity but we think that a gentle hand is less invasive and more sustainable in the long term, Nature worked it magic long before we arrived on the seen and can we really say that we know best, normally we say that just before it all goes pair shaped.

Hi treetops, I like your website and idea, sounds like it is doing a lot of good already.

Thanks for your encouraging comment regarding our website and our project. We're not doing bad getting two freehold woods in three years and its lovely watching them grow. Every time I go down to the woods they seems to have changed. These more and more wildlife and plants each year and I'm hoping to get wood three in the next two years.