I’m usually up early; I have an eight-month-old and a two-year-old, so lie-ins are a thing of the past. I make a cup of tea and have breakfast with the kids, getting covered in porridge by the baby while my son practises his dinosaur roars, then set off in the car to one of the woodlands I manage.
The area I work in covers more than 1,000 acres of ancient and secondary woodland, plantations, grassland and wood pasture in Devon and Somerset. The number one priority of what we do is to protect the wildlife in our woodlands, but we also want them to be places for people to enjoy. Spending time in nature has so many benefits to our mental and physical health, and I feel incredibly lucky that my work lets me do it on a daily basis – even when it’s lashing with rain and I’m soaked to the bone.
My friends call me the tree hugger because I’ve been obsessed with woods since I was a child growing up in Bristol – I blame the Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which made the forest seem like a place of great adventure and romance. My mate and I would make bows and arrows out of sticks and bits of string and run around the woods pretending to be the Merry Men. I believe our connection to woodlands is deep in our DNA – they’re where we evolved.
Only 13% of the UK is wooded today, a fraction of what it would have been, making it one of the least densely forested countries in Europe. We want to get that number up to at least 20%, because trees are important for so many reasons, from creating vital ecosystems and giving us the air we breathe to storing carbon (trees store carbon in their trunks, leaves, roots and in the soil), and preventing floods.
Ancient woodland makes up only 2% of total land cover, and around half of that is planted for timber or crops, which don’t have any real connection to the biodiversity that evolved here. It’s my job to try to protect, restore and increase the ancient and veteran trees, which we identify through certain features, including Ganoderma brackets (the saucer-shaped fungi that clings to tree trunks), epiphytic plants and hollows. On an average day, I’m out in places such as Northcote & Upcott Woods in Devon and Beacon Hill Wood in Somerset, surveying and tagging these trees and logging them on our mapping systems with GPS.
For a forest to be considered ancient, it has to have been continuously wooded since at least 1600, or 1750 in Scotland – planting was uncommon at that time and reliable maps are only available from these dates – to establish the intricate network of fungi and plants that the insects depend on; the birds depend on the insects, and so on through the food chain. Often, our ancient trees, such as oaks and yews, are planted alongside non-native trees that are competing with them, leaving the ancient trees in poor condition and the ecosystem depleted. So as I’m walking through the woods, I’m thinking about how we can make sure each 400-year-old tree is still there in 400, or even 600 years’ time. I find it amazing to think about what they’ve witnessed in their lifetimes.
I’ll mark some down for pruning to remove dead branches so they won’t become dangerous to a pathway, making sure the rest of the tree is preserved; sometimes, we’ll move the footpath instead. I’ll check out trees along the edges of roads to make sure they’re safe, and visit riverbanks to assess erosion after flooding from all the rain we’ve had.
In the afternoon, I might go and sit in another woodland looking at the canopy of the biggest trees and think: are there enough species there? Is it healthy? Then I’ll look at the sub-canopy of smaller trees such as elm trees and field maples, and the next layer, made up of shrubs, and below that, flowers such as bluebells and yellow archangels, and I’ll work out if there are enough of each – and, if not, what’s wrong?
Perhaps an invasive species, such as rhododendron, has overtaken the entire shrub layer and turned the soil acidic, so it might be as simple as removing it. Sometimes we’ll do what we call halo thinning – which is carried out around a desirable feature such as an ancient tree or patch of ground flora – and take out some of the huge conifers that were planted at the end of the second world war. This is a way to create the dappled light in which the entire system thrives. As woodland managers, we say our job isn’t always managing trees – often it’s managing light levels, to try to get the ecosystem functioning as well as possible.
We’re also becoming increasingly aware of the importance of what’s happening beneath the ground, in the soil. Underneath our feet, there’s a complex network of mycelium, or fungal strands, like millions of interconnected bootlaces, that help trees communicate with each other. So we’re always trying to minimise the damage to that when we intervene.
I love piecing together the history of a woodland, thinking: are those stumps from trees cut down during the war, or since? I’ll pore over Royal Air Force maps from 1945, or OS maps from the 19th century, to work out what’s happened in the area over time. If no maps exist, I’ll go out and talk to local people to learn from their memories. You can never learn everything about a woodland, because they’re constantly evolving, which makes them fascinating places.
When I see fly-tipping, dog mess and other antisocial behaviour in the woods, my heart sinks, but the flipside is the joy I feel when I see families going for adventures there. Children, in particular, seem to be able to tap into their connection to nature so easily – put them in woodland and they know what to do. It’s great to feel that I’m encouraging that passion in the next generation.
Back at home in the evenings, I spend time with my family and watch TV before bed. All the fresh air means that, if the kids don’t wake me, I sleep very soundly.
Find out more about the work of the Woodland Trust and how you can become a member from just £4 a month