The wildlife trust is rather hyping it. It’s a collection of over 20 disjoint parcels of land scattered from Brean Down to Wells, most of which was already nature reserves of one form or another. They’ve done the same merger trick with Purbuck Heaths and Somerset Wetlands,
Mendip National Nature Reserve No 01 Declaration (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Devon: ‘Horrified’: Devon village in shock at felling of 100 ancient beech trees | Trees and forests | The Guardian
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“ located in a special conservation area and site of special scientific interest, ”.
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My recent reading of the the National Planning Policy Framework does not allow this; I am surprised the Forestry Commission, a branch of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, don’t have a copy of this on their shelves to inform their Standards. .
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Saw this last night - disgusting action.
It is described as a grown-out hedge on an ancient Devon bank. It may be that the felling, effectively coppicing, is beneficial to both the trees and the bank. The lack of consultation sounds callous but you can’t imagine it would have got the popular vote if there had been consultation.
Alan Pearce, a tree warden from the area, said: “It certainly ought to be a fairly wide consultation because it’s part of our heritage, grown-out hedges that go back hundreds of years. Once they’re gone you’re talking about 200 years to regrow."
No, those stems are about 50 years old. The rootstocks may be ancient but the individual stems are relatively young. Maybe next time round, someone will remember to coppice them before they get to an age where they might blow over and destroy the hedgebank.
Yes, maintenance is the word:
https://devonhedges.org/
According to the Telegraph via MSN regrowth of the Sycamore Gap sycamore has now been spotted. Someone finds this astonishing.
Sycamore Gap stump shows ‘astonishing’ signs of life 10 months after felling (msn.com)
I am surprised it isn’t shooting from the main stump. Nice rabbit-proof fence. I wonder how much money has been wasted on this issue that could have been spent on something beneficial to wildlife. I read somewhere that tissue culture from the cut branches is being attempted. If it really is important to replace an invasive alien at that spot, a few seeds would have done the job.
Maybethe « shoots » are just germinated seeds.
I agree, a waste of resources.
We can be on the lookout for this…
Woodland managers, landowners and the forestry industry are encouraged to remain vigilant after the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) was found on Sitka spruce trees in the UK for the first time.
Following extensive surveillance, further outbreaks have been found in the Demarcated Area in Kent and West Sussex, adding to the number of outbreak sites detected this year.
You can see recorded outbreaks on the Ips typographus confirmed outbreak sites map.
For information, see our Ips typographus guidance on GOV.UK.
Good news or bad news?
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so Good news for Ips typographus ?
I was thinking it could be good news that something attacks Sitka spruce. But bad news if it prompts the forestry industry to throw more insecticides at woods.
Svante Arrhenius calculated the greenhouse effect in 1896. In 1908 (Worlds in the Making) he was sanguine about its effects, suggesting that CO2 emissions might save us from the next ice age, and make more land available for agriculture. I suspect that the author of the above note took his lead from the latter.
Non-quantitative recognition of the greenhouse effect goes back another century more or less.
The Wikpedia article for Arrhenius reports that Ångström committed the saturation fallacy in 1900. (The saturation fallacy is implicitly based on modelling the atmosphere as a single layer; when I first encountered it 30 years ago I thought it “obviously” wrong, but set up a multi-layed 1-dimensional model of the atmosphere in Excel to confirm that my intuition was valid.
Also linked to from Wikipedia is a 1902 prediction of human extinction from global warming from The Selma Times of Selma, Alabama. (The journalist doesn’t understand the physics, referring to refraction.)
“From the very beginning it was clear what people wanted us to do in response to the tragedy. They wanted us to help nature thrive, provide space for reflection and work with artists.”.
Really?
It would be funny if it wasn’t indicative of how out of touch people and supposed conservation organisations are with real wildlife. I wonder how many volunteer days are spent on National Trust properties getting rid of sycamores. By the way, those look like suckers rather than saplings so it will be interesting to see how they dig them up.
A Fungus of Hope?
Sooty bark disease is caused by a fungus called Cryptostroma corticale . The disease almost exclusively affects Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, but can affect other maples.
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Caveat user.
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Yes saw this story a few months ago.
A couple of weeks ago I was walking in the woods and a random person came over and asked me if I had seen any chanterelles as they clearly wanted to pick some - obviously I looked like the kind of person who would know what a chanterelle was!
This might have been the first time I’d had such a direct question from someone clearly out just to find mushrooms to eat. Although certainly not the first time I had seen people out foraging who talked in general about finding mushrooms.
