Ancient pinewood restoration at Loch Arkaig, Scotland: Combining conservation and timber inventories and monitoring

approaches to develop a sustainable forest plan.

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• One of the leading UK conservation charities

• Protect ancient woodland and ancient trees in the landscape

• Restore ancient and valuable semi natural woodland

• Create more native woodland

• Act through land ownership and management, engaging in

partnerships with private and public sectors, and lobby government.

Woodland Trust…what do we do?

Ancient woodland…what is it?

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• Britain is a small island with millennia of deforestation behind us and intensive

interaction between man and forests…particularly when compared with Canada.

• Ancient woodland is native woodland that has been in existence since at least

the medieval period…often a lot longer but difficult to prove due to lack of

mapping and archive evidence.

• Definition results from it’s scarcity and our plantation based forestry

development over the last 500 years.

• Canadian equivalent would be old growth forests?

• Highest biodiversity value woodland due to the centuries/millennia of evolution

into a complex and irreplaceable ecosystem.

• These woodlands are also inextricably linked with our cultural heritage as a

nation, and contain many cultural remains from our previous connections.

Ancient woodland…what is it?

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Ancient woodland…what is the problem?

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• Millennia of deforestation accelerated over the last

500 years.

• Growth and expansion of plantation forestry since

the 19th century.

• Acute timber shortages in the two world wars

fuelled “woodland improvement”.

• Further acceleration with the advent of logging

mechanisation and herbicides in the 1950’s/60’s

• Many areas of ancient woodland were cleared or

converted to exotic coniferous plantation, or more

“productive” broadleaves.

• These plantations still contain valuable remnants of

the previous ecosystem to underpin ecological

restoration

• We are still losing these remnants and need to act

now to restore what we have left.

Arkaig restoration project

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Acquisition and restoration of two ancient woodlands on Loch Arkaig…

Coille a Ghiubhais and An t-Seann Frith

A 20 year, £4.5 M project to restore a significant area of Caledonian

pinewood

Coille a Ghiubhais (the Pine Forest)

An t-Seann Fhrith (the Old Deer Forest)

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• Remnants of caledonian pinewood with

associated broadleaved woodland types.

• Fragments of Atlantic Coastal

Rainforest…globally important.

• Ancient wood Pasture systems including

ancient trees.

• Iconic wildlife

• Rare epiphytes, lichens and mosses

How do we go about it?

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• At the base of process is an assessment system, which leads to a risk based

management method for restoring biodiversity. This process can be adapted

and used for the management and monitoring of any conservation woodland.

• Simply put it is a five step process:

• 1. Assess what of importance remains …ancient woodland remnant features

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• 2. Assess threats to their ongoing survival

• 3. Prioritise management action to negate these and make them more robust

• 4. Carry out management action, which takes into account site constraints

and market conditions.

• 5. Monitor the response of remnant features and adjust management

accordingly

Remnant Features

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• Ancient or old growth forests are incredibly complicated ecosystems

where trees, plants and fungi form a symbiotic whole.

• Most of the diversity we cannot see: hidden in the soil, within deadwood

or simply seasonally ephemeral.

• We use 4 proxy categories to measure and guide management. These

are easily observed, don’t require specialist knowledge and are suitable

for monitoring over time.

Remnant Features

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The four proxy measures are:

1. Ancient woodland specialist ground flora

2. Larger dimension deadwood

3. Pre plantation and relic trees

4. Cultural remains

Soils are also assessed in terms of any obvious damage…compaction

and erosion etc. Together with invasive species and excessive herbivore

impacts.

The pattern of remnant survival is mapped into homogenous zones that

can be effectively mapped and rediscovered.

The building blocks of a management plan

Vital for effective monitoring and contract control

flora

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cultural

remains

dead

wood

relic

trees

Threats

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Most threats are light related and the

whole process of restoration management

revolves around the management of light.

• Dense shading by exotic conifers: sitka

spruce, douglas fir, western red cedar,

western hemlock. Or invasive species

like Rhododendron ponticum

• Too much light from over thinning,

clearfell or windblow.

Excessive herbivore damage

Disease

Threats are prioritised: critical, threatened,

secure

Threats change in nature and severity

over time

Assessment process

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Assessment

form

Form basedExcel sheets

Map

Timber

assessment

Assessment process

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Assessment form

Form based

Excel sheets

MAP

Timber

assessment

Assessment process

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Form based

Excel sheets

MAP

Timber

assessment

Site constraints/opportunities…reality bites

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Access limitations for assessment

inventories, management and monitoring

Wind impact

Deer impacts….politics, policy, access

Distribution and requirements of rare and

valuable species

Planning, wrapping it all up, monitoring

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Management plan production underway at Arkaig at the moment with

inventory work contracted out.

Monitoring is crucial to the management planning process and needs to

be planned in at the start of any project.

Plans change, events WILL happen. Effective planning needs to be able

to cope with this and inventory and monitoring is key to this.

Review the AW assessment every five years along with the management

plan as a minimum. Areas where significant work has taken place should

be monitored closely as a matter of course.

Inventory/Planning/Action/Surveys/Monitoring Web

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Ecological Inventory(AW Remnants)

planning

action

monitor

review

Species inventories: raptors,

lower plant groups, inverts

especially butterflies, moths,

dragonflies, sawflies. Influence

timing of operations and scope

Initial Timber

inventory for

budgeting

purposes

Compartment specific

timber inventory for sale

and harvesting control

Roading/ bridge

condition checks for

contract control

Compartment

specific detailed

fauna /flora

assessments for

operational control

Response of AW remnants

and valuable species…plan

monitoring strategy at start!

Plan in light of

objectives and the

results of the

monitoring programme