BBC News: Trees cut down to protect reserve

[Seren]

I thought some of you might be interested to read this story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staf ... 398084.stm

I know the Hednesford Hills well and am not too sure what I think about this. Obviously it is important to protect wildlife habitats, but it seems to me that they are more concerned about preserving the view? And we are talking thousands of young trees here! That's a lot!

[Guardian]

From working heavily in conservation, exotics removal and habitat restoration, I can say that it becomes somewhat conflicting to do what is the right thing to do. The most important thing I've learned is that more is not always better. A grassland is an important habitat to protect, as a specific group of animals typically lives in such an area, overgrowth can be damaging to different habitats, especially in areas where there *should* be annual fires which would naturally control these areas, but due to human encroachment, do not.
And a tree where it doesn't belong can certainly be more hurtful than helpful. Melaleuka, for example, was introduced to Florida in an effort to "dry up" the everglades. While the tree is perfectly at home in Australia, it completely took over Florida, growing so thick that no animals could utilize the area where it was growing, and out-competing native habitats, like the now-extinct habitat Pond Apple Swamp, a habitat vital to the survival of the endangered snail-kite. Just because we think something is more beautiful, or appears to be "better", does not always make it so. I don't know the specifics of the area, but it is true that different species of wildlife depend just as heavily on grasslands as they do forests. Removing trees in a habitat that is historically grassland, is preserving a grassland habitat.

This is a hard, but important thing to remember.

[Corwen]

Guardian is right, sometime trees need to be cut down for the greater good.

Grassland and heathland are both precious wildlife habitats which would have been kept open in the past by fire, grazing animals and people collecting heather for roofing and animal bedding and brushwood for cooking and heating. In the absence of those things you have to keep the trees from encroaching by cutting them down.

I spent several years in my twenties doing conservation work on local heathland, must have cut down thousands of pine trees on the heath. The reward is when you see plants like dodder, marsh gentian and sundew return, along with dartford warblers, woodlarks, nightjars, mole crickets and our own New Forest Cicada which only live on heathland.

[Seren]

I feel reassured! Thanks both!

[Badger Bob]

The reward is ... dartford warblers

We had a Dartford Warbler up here a couple of years ago, it settled down on a nature reserve between Pride Park Stadium and the railway line in Derby for a few weeks before heading home. It really helped us convince the local naysayers of the importance of grassland habitats. There is a heck of a lot of woodland up here but every bit of grassland seems to be up for building, it is the most endangered habitat type after wetland locally.

[mwyalchen]

I think it's also worth remembering that in most parts of this country, what remains of our more untouched habitats is isolated and surrounded by heavily managed land, whether that's townland or farmland, and that populations of wild animals which were once part of regional ecologies are gone, or much reduced in numbers.

In a more integrated regional ecology, deer (for example) would have a large role in keeping grassland and heathland free of forest - they love to eat young trees! But we no longer have free-roaming herds of deer in most of the country; and cattle, and lowland sheep, are kept penned in fields. While in city parks, the role of sheep, deer, or rabbits is done by mechanical mowers.

Our local park (Sefton Park in Liverpool) is huge and diverse (as far as parkland habitats go) but suffers from overpopulation by brown rats. My reaction has always been "but what do you expect - we got rid of the stoats and the weasels and the wolves centuries ago!"

[Alpine]

It is hard to wrap your head around sometimes. I spent the summer living and working in Utah doing invasive species removal in Escalante national monument. We were working in backcountry river canyons to remove Russian Olive, a tree that intentionally ported over to the States for use as soil erosion control. Unfortunately it completely took over the riparian ecosystem and is turning it into a monoculture.

Everynow and then I'd get conflicted, especially when I'd pause and realize I'd cut down like 50 trees of various sizes in a few hours, but then I'd turn a bend in the river and see a 200 year old native cottonwood completely choked in by dozens of Russian Olives and I'd feel better knowing that I was doing something to improve the ecosystem and allow for its continued biodiversity.

[badgerbadger]

Thought this must have been printed in a slow week for news..it is established practise in grassland management to prevent trees growing, to protect the species of plants and animals that thrive in that grassland area..which are probably endangered. During the years I did practical conservation work, I did a lot of grassland management, a lot of the trees I took out were Sycamore..a non Native species which wrecks grasslands and Woodlands alike..At the time the one days work I totally regretted was the removal of an area of young trees of a marine species that had been planted there because some landscape 'expert' thought they looked good..but were struggling and so were being replaced with a tree more suited to the area.
I have also worked on fenland where to prevent it drying out and destroying the habitat of many rare species other trees had to be removed..
Today as a Bard, would have second thoughts about doing some of the things I did before, but I regularly visit a place where I helped clear brash from a wood that had had selective felling after been overplanted before, where no light got to the ground for ground cover plants and existing trees were in danger of illhealth and a fire risk the way they were..plants grow amongst the trees, which look[and I know now] feel better than they did before..and despite efforts of some of the locals..the wood has not burnt down!