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May 2002
Contents
Woods and the Welsh Assembly –
Keeping you in touch with Wales’ native woodland
Welcome to Woods and the Welsh Assembly, a special newsletter for Assembly Members produced by Coed Cadw (the Woodland Trust). As Wales’ leading woodland conservation charity, we are keen to play our role in helping to implement parts of the Woodlands for Wales Strategy, and to involve Assembly Members in our work, and this newsletter is one way of doing that. You may remember that last July we launched our Woodland Challenges for the Welsh Assembly1. This newsletter provides an overview of our activity since that time. Please do contact us if you have
any comments or questions on any of the articles, or if you would like further information.
Assembly Members get their hands dirty for the environment!
Coed Cadw was delighted that no less than 11 AMs were able to come along and plant trees at the special National Assembly Grove at the extension to Casehill Wood, a Coed Cadw wood near Dinas Powys, at an event which we jointly organised with the Forestry Commission and the BTCV. Like some of the newspaper columnists, we were struck by the willingness of all concerned to get stuck into some hard work! But seriously, we are grateful for the support and feel the events sent absolutely the right signals regarding the National Assembly’s commitment to sustainable development and the importance of the Woodlands for Wales Strategy.
Time to turn over a new leaf in the countryside
Clearly, the last year has been an appalling one for very many people involved in the Welsh countryside, farmers particularly, but also those involved in tourism and contracting work. Coed Cadw strongly supports the vision outlined in
Farming for the Future, for sustainable agriculture which is more economically viable but also recognises the need to protect and enhance the environment. We also believe that if foot and mouth disease has taught us nothing else, it is that the range of interests dependent on the countryside is wider than many ever imagined.
In December last year Coed Cadw published a major discussion document, Turning over a new leaf in the countryside2, which is our contribution to the debate about the future of the countryside, following foot and mouth disease. In particular, the document suggests that native woodland is in many ways a model land use to support sustainable rural development; it produces a renewable harvestable resource, it can create social benefits linked directly to communities and to the agenda for human health through the opportunities it provides for recreation and enhancement of well-being. Woodland performs crucial environmental functions in relation to soils, air and water quality, as long as it is sustainably managed. Ancient semi-natural woodland is the richest wildlife habitat in Wales.
Conservation of our native woodland requires their expansion – most surviving ancient woods too small and fragmented to retain the full range of habitats and species dependant on them. We do not need more of the kind of plantation forestry that so disfigured the Welsh uplands in the last century, rather the planting of well designed and attractive broadleaved and mixed woodlands, expanding out from existing woodlands, and providing amenity, and community benefits as well as economic
activity.
Clearly, this is an important issue for Wales and the Assembly, as by applying CAP rules in a different way, through modulating CAP payments and channelling resources into a new “broad and shallow” agri-environmental scheme accessible to all farmers, the Assembly could promote substantial environmental benefits at a limited cost. In the higher tiers of the scheme, still open to all farmers wishing to enter, this could include an option for expansion of native woodland. Opportunities for new farm woodlands for producing bio-fuel also need to be assessed. Clearly, the details of any reform are important. For example, Coed Cadw believes that, in terms of protecting woodland biodiversity, there is a need to target woodland expansion to those areas of Wales where there are concentrations of ancient woodland, as it is in these areas that woodland wildlife has the best opportunity of surviving and adapting in the face of climate change. These ideas are outlined in our recent publication
Space for nature: Landscape-scale action for woodland biodiversity, which can be downloaded from
our website - click
here - under strategic publications.
This approach has much to commend it to the farming sector. Not only would modulation bring more money into agricultural support, but some native woodland expansion can be assisted very effectively within the structure of the family farm.
One way forward – the Pontbren Rural Care Project
Coed Cadw has been interested in the work of the Pontbren Rural Care Project, a grouping of ten neighbouring farms in Montgomeryshire which are cooperating to improve their businesses and the local environment. These farmers are planning to increase the woodland cover on the farms from around 1.5 per cent to 10-15 percent, 150HA on the 1000HA total area. Not only may the project benefit wildlife and the landscape and help to prevent flooding, it should also produce a sustainable supply of wood chip, which should save the farmers over £50,000 pa on buying in straw for bedding. While this project is still in its early days, and there is still much to learn, it shows that native woodland creation can go hand in hand with profitable farming, providing an interesting demonstration of the role woodland may play in the future of more sustainable land use.
The project has been made possible because, as a one-off pilot project, the National Assembly has agreed to compensate the farmers for the loss of area payments for which they would no longer qualify, as a result of creating new woodland. While this offer is unique to Pontbren, Coed Cadw would like to see a similar option made available to all farmers in Wales, through the higher tiers of a new, simplified, broad and shallow agri-environmental scheme, funded partly through modulation of CAP payments. That way, we could all benefit from a more attractive, a more biodiverse and a more sustainable environment.
Creating broadleaved woodland can SAVE money
It is no secret that the growing of conifers has not been hugely profitable over the years. Less well known is the fact, revealed to the Assembly in an Oral Answer last year3, that the Forestry Commission spends £2.2m (effectively the National Assembly’s money) replanting trees after clear felling has taken place, on 1,400 hectares of land. 98% of these trees are conifers4.
Coed Cadw believes that, on some of this land at least, there is a strong case for not spending this money at all, but simply allowing natural regeneration, because this could improve the biodiversity and landscape value of the sites. On many of these sites, this would lead to the growth of mixed woodland, dominated by birch. Such could be the benefits of such a policy, both environ-mentally and financially, that Coed Cadw believes that this option should at least be fully investigated, and pilot projects established.
At the National Assembly plenary debate on the Woodlands for Wales Strategy last November, Cynog Dafis raised this very issue, suggesting that there should be a presumption against replanting conifers on land belonging to the National Assembly, unless there is a strong economic reason for doing so. Carwyn Jones referred the issue to the Assembly’s newly established Woodland Forum, and it is likely the issue will be discussed by the Forum’s Woodland Management or Environment Working Group in the
next few months. We will keep AMs briefed on this issue, which is becoming all the more important as a result of the internal devolution of accounts within Forest Enterprise.
Here today, gone tomorrow?
Coed Cadw sees ancient woodland as an absolutely crucial part of our natural heritage. It is the richest habitat we have in Wales, in terms of the number of rare and threatened species it supports, yet ancient semi-natural woodland covers less than 2 per cent of the land area of Wales. Between 1930 and 1980 around half of Wales’ ancient woodland was lost, and to make matters worse, about 80 per cent of Wales’ ancient woodland does not have SSSI status and therefore has no special protection under wildlife legislation.
Coed Cadw is therefore delighted that the final draft of Planning Policy
Wales, which enters into force during mid April 2002, includes, for the first time, clear guidance to Local Planning Authorities that ancient woodlands ares both hugely valuable and irreplaceable, and should be protected from developments which would damage them. By making this change, the Welsh Assembly has put Wales well ahead of England in terms of protection for ancient woodland, and we hope that England will follow the Welsh example!
In order to raise awareness of this important change amongst both planners and the wider public, Iolo Williams, the “Birdman” in the recent networked BBC series, is poised to write to all 25 Local Planning Authorities in Wales, to welcome the change, and to urge them to follow both the letter and the spirit of the new guidance.
Coed Cadw has also been impressed by the Welsh Assembly’s recent Consultation Paper on the planning system – “Delivering for Wales”. At a time when English Ministers are proposing changes which would effectively emasculate the Town and Country Planning System as we know it, it is good to see the Welsh Assembly taking a more balanced view, which emphasises the need for decisions to be made more swiftly, but which avoids jeopardising the integrity of the planning system.
Ancient woodland recovery: a race against the clock
Ancient woodland destroyed for the building of houses or roads is lost forever, but that this is not true of the approximately 59,000 hectares of Wales’ ancient woodland, equivalent to the area of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, which were planted with non-native trees, mostly conifers, in the last century. While conifers tend to smother woodland floor under their dense canopy, killing the woodland flora, it is still possible to restore planted ancient woodland sites, so long as we act in time, perhaps within the next 10-20 years.
This is just what Coed Cadw is doing at seven of our own sites, around Wales, with support from the European Union under Objective 1. The project is set to deliver important benefits, in terms of work for forestry contractors and mills, improved public access including, where possible, access for less abled users. The plan will bring 287 hectares of woodland under sustainable management, provide 3.5km managed access in the countryside, renovate 300m of hedgerows or earth banks, rebuild 200m stone walls and provide work to contractors equivalent to 12 full time jobs. Coed Cadw is glad to be working with the Welsh Assembly to help draw down European grants that will create employment in the local economy and also positively improve the local environment and support a sustainable tourism industry. We hope this will encourage other woodland owners to restore some of their coniferised ancient woodlands.
Sue Essex to speak at Coed Cadw meeting at Royal Welsh Show
The twin themes of ancient woodland protection and recovery will be the subject of a special meeting which Coed Cadw is organising at the Royal Welsh Show at 11.30am on Tuesday 23 July, a date for your diaries! Sue Essex has agreed to speak, and we hope that a number of Assembly Members will join us and an array of representatives from environmental NGOs to listen to what she and the other speakers have to say. Coed Cadw plans to use this meeting to launch our action plan outlining our
priorities and objectives in Wales over the coming five years, that will contribute to elements of the Welsh Assembly’s Woodlands for Wales strategy.
Wales and the World
The Welsh Assembly can have an impact on the world’s trees and forests in very many ways, of course, and one area where it can make a real difference, for better or for worse, is in its timber purchasing policy. This was the key issue at an important workshop at the Wales and the World Conference, which the Assembly organised with OXFAM and the WWF in the run up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
The plain fact is that since 1950, 20 per cent of the world’s ancient forests have been destroyed. This forest destruction is continuing at a rate of 10 million hectares a year, much of this to feed the international demand for wood. Much of this logging is illegal. The irony is that it is quite possible to produce wood sustainably in well managed forests, replacing trees which are felled, and providing a sustainable livelihood for local people.
Around the world, those purchasing timber have the ability to determine how their money is used, to support local communities and protect forests, or to destroy them. In practice, the way they can do this is by specifying that they will only purchase timber from sources that have been independently certified as being sustainable, by bodies such as the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC is an international organisation bringing together business interests and NGOs, whose UK office is in Llanidloes.
Carwyn Jones has already highlighted the benefits for timber producers of getting their woodland independently certified. Coed Cadw very much hope that, partly as the result of this workshop, the Assembly will take an important further step forward, to adopt a firm policy of purchasing only certified timber products, and to use its influence to encourage Local Authorities and ASPBs to do likewise.
The greatest single threat to ancient woodland – climate change
Another of the major issues which will be discussed at the Wales and the World Conference and at Johannesburg, is human-induced climate change. Coed Cadw recognises that the impacts of climate change (which is already a reality) are likely to be so all pervasive as to make it the greatest single threat to Wales’ ancient and broadleaved woodland.
Clearly, one of the key problems which world governments have in tackling emissions of green house gases, is the difficulty in making a direct link between individual actions and the global problem of climate change. Greater public engagement with the issues surrounding climate change is therefore especially necessary if Wales is to play its proper role in tackling climate change. We believe that initiatives such as the Woodland Trust’s phenology project5 in conjunction with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have much to contribute here in the spirit of the ‘think global, act local’ principle.
References
1 Can be downloaded electronically from
www.coed-cadw.org.uk/campaigns and conservation. The document was launched at a special meeting at Crickhowell House, hosted by Cynog
Dafis.
2 Can be downloaded electronically from our website -
click
here - under “publications” and them “policy publications”
3 Oral Answer given by Carwyn Jones to Eleanor Burnham on 17 May 2001 (OAQ11468).
4 Written Answer given to Peter Black on 17 May 2001 (OAQ11443).
5 This project involved recruiting volunteers to record the timing of natural phenomena in their own locality: the blossoming of particular trees, the opening of wild flowers, or perhaps most memorably, the arrival of the cuckoo. Our phenology project currently has over 720 recorders in Wales, and over 12,000 throughout the UK, making it the largest survey of its kind in the world.
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