Healthy woodlands 'need quality not quantity'

Dan Smith

This article by Mark Kinver, as made obvious by the title, is about how healthy woodlands are all about quality instead of quantity. What this means is that woodlands need to have healthier management rather than focusing on the number of trees being planted in the woodlands. This is more in relation to England than anywhere else because although there are more woodlands in England, they have become overgrown due to poor management. An example of this poor management would be trees being overgrown to the point where no light can reach down to smaller plant life. There is a solution to this problem that a conservation group suggested called coppicing. Coppicing is basically cutting or leveling down a tree or shrub to ground level in order for new growth to occur. This would eliminate the lack of light getting to ground level plant life.
The main problems that are facing woodlands today (I mentioned one previously) are the fact that the woodlands are too dark, too overgrown, and too silent. Coppicing could be used as a solution to the first problem but grazing stock is a solution to the second problem as more diversity would flow to the woodland areas. In terms of the silence, which refers to the lack of wildlife, creating certain management systems would help manage certain food chains leading to increased wildlife. The biggest point to take away from these major problems is that planting a large amount of trees isn't going to be the solution that is ultimately going to be successful. A large percentage of woodlands are these full forests with canopy's being too in the way of the light trying to get to small plants. This can result in the overall color of the forests become darker leading to a negative effect of insects and other wildlife.
I've never really thought about this topic too intensively. I always hear different “green initiatives” and different methods to help the environment but I've never really thought about woodlands being an issue like it's being discussed in this article. In theory it definitely makes sense because if we don't properly manage these woodlands, it can become too much to manage in terms of physical size. Letting woodlands grow into these full forests and not letting smaller plant life get enough light is something that shouldn't be overlooked. Not only that, but reading that the overall darkness (due to the lack of light getting through) can affect the color, or existence, of certain flowers is an issue because that can lead to having an effect on other wildlife. It's not something that you would ordinarily think could happen but it becomes a cycle of there not being enough flowers to satisfy certain insects/other wildlife which in turn leads to impacting larger wildlife. This article is definitely something that shouldn't be overlooked as woodland management is important to us all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15870782