Policy Work
We champion sustainable woodland management
Well over half of the UK’s small woodlands are neglected and in poor condition, overlooked and undervalued. These woods are in danger of disappearing – some of them have only recently been included on the Forestry Commission’s inventory of woodlands (in 2010), and it is these small areas of woodland that are threatened – from neglect, through development, for new roads, for agriculture, absorbed within gardens, and for industrial use.
These woods are already important – to wildlife, to the people who live nearby and to our landscapes, providing a range of benefits that help to maintain our lives – a growing green infrastructure for everyone.
And yet they have more to offer. Small Woods vision ‘is to see small woods in the UK valued for the benefits they bring to a sustainable society, and to help achieve their better management to make the most of those benefits.’
Between the current neglect of our small woodland resource and large scale commercial management in forestry plantations there is a third way: using low impact management systems such as continuous cover or coppice with standards, which suit the conditions of growth and position of many of our smaller woodlands. Taking only small amounts of timber as the woodland matures is a traditional way of managing woodlands, keeping them productive and healthy. It is also important to this sustainable management that owners and workers engage with the local community to pass on the message about well managed woodlands, and to ensure people can use them for therapy, for exercise and for education.
What we do to help
Small Woods works to promote this method of keeping small woodlands in good health as homes for wildlife, access and for timber production. We also promote the special requirements of small woodlands: they are often inaccessible, on hillsides or steep slopes, ecologically sensitive or difficult to manage. We listen to the concerns of the Coppice Sector through a project steering group and through supporting the working group of a new coppice association, and put forward to government and woodland owners the benefits of working with coppicers to maintain small woodlands.
We take these messages to government through our responses to policy documents, contributions to policy groups, engaging Defra and sometimes ministers in our topical conferences and events. We raise issues via our contacts in the Forestry Commission and Natural England.
Our projects that help to deliver this objective
Woodland Initiatives Network
National Coppice Development Project
Membership support and advice
Small woodland statistics
422,000 hectares across the UK are small woodlands, 25% of all woodland cover in the UK.*
*Total number of woodlands over 2ha in the UK: 82,829; number under 20ha in size 69,750. (Forestry Commission, National Inventory of Woodlands and Trees 2003)
Total area of woodlands between 0.5 and 2 ha is 352,550ha ( Forestry Commission, National Forest Inventory, 2009–2014, Woodland Area Reports, 2010) This new inventory has ‘found’ 282,000 ha of previously unrecorded small woodlands.
