I was listening to Nicky Campbell’s BBC Radio 5 Live call-in the other day when a comment from one of the guests stopped me in my typing tracks. The subject was whether the government should ditch the midlands/northern leg of High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) from Birmingham to Manchester, which they now have scrapped.
The rail expert said that he had ‘regrown an ancient woodland’ with acorns from a felled or cleared site during the creation of High Speed 1 (HS1), the line that runs from Kent to London St. Pancras International. There was no confirmation of which woodland the man was talking about.
Nicky Campbell did question this clearly unusual comment about ‘ancientness’, but it wasn’t final and the rail expert had the last word. Let’s look at the facts.
Ancient woodlands are wooded landscapes home to assemblages of particular species relevant to their locale (trees and wildflowers, fungi, invertebrates) that have been on maps since the year 1600. Their soils are rich in fungi and invertebrates, ecosystems that have developed over a very long time.
So is it possible to remove this landscape and put it somewhere else?
HS2 has been trying. They have been moving soil and, apparently, in some cases trees. This method says so much about our relationship with landscapes today – we can just move things around like pieces of Lego, and surely everything will be fine?
In my view, the equivalent of this is wheeling a patient out of a hospital and leaving them in the car park. ‘There you go,’ the doctors might say. ‘Consider yourself replanted.’
It’s like taking the Mona Lisa and chucking it into the sea.
To some ecologists it’s just beyond belief.
What is so problematic about this rail expert’s statement, beyond the obvious? It’s greenwashing from people, intentional or not, who profit from development of ancient woodland, or who think their expertise in one area allows them free reign elsewhere. I’m sure there are housebuilders out there lamenting environmentalists who think they are also experts in constructing properties.
This kind of greenwashing is a green light for bad planning, dodgy development and accelerated destruction of England’s already depleted wild and natural places. I think it’s important to challenge it when it does rear its head. Once an ancient woodland and all its wildlife and heritage is gone, it’s not coming back.
Thanks for reading.
Unlocking Landscapes 
This is so true, Daniel. 200 year-old oaks are cut down and replaced with saplings of a different species, on the basis that this is ‘like-for-like’. There is so much greenwashing about that we have to be on our guard for it when it crops up. The definition of an ancient woodland is one that has existed since at least 1600. A few trees do not an ancient woodland make!
Quite right – politicians and planners need to remember that our countryside is a non-renewable resource.
Would you mind if I reblog that please?
Go for it. Thanks John.
Thank you and hopefully on now.
Thanks John – which blog is it on?
On Country Ways at https://countryways569333284.wordpress.com/
Quite right – of course you can’t transplant an ancient woodland. It’s the ancientness of the old trees in that location and the fact that they’ve been like that for many, many years, which produces the valuable ecosystem within in!
It’s an absolutely ridiculous proposition. They’d need to shift everything – all or nothing.
Well said. This bloke displays a clear and total ignorance of what an ancient woodland is. I’m not an expert, but as a lover of nature and woodlands I’ve taken the trouble to read and learn as much as I can, and this twerp should have done the same before he made a fool of himself on national radio. There’s far too much ‘greenwashing’ going on now.
In some cases, it is necessary to transplanting natural trees in another place. Certainly, it is better to move the trees located in the reservoir of a dam to another place that needs it, which can be an ancient woodland or a park, instead of cutting them.
Capability Brown devised a system for transplanting mature trees 250 years ago. We are much further on in our understanding of ancient habitats. Although it is likely that excavating and moving areas of ancient woodland wood cause significant damage to roots and soil biom/structure. I don’t believe it to be impossible. Winter excavation during the deciduous dormant period would be best for the trees. However, one has to take into account hibernating fauna. This could be mitigated by a preparation and capture process of the most vulnerable and a tree by tree assessment. Although mature trees have deep roots, most of the flora inhabits quite a shallow mat of topsoil.
The question is, is it possible. I think the answer is yes, it would be an enormous task and novel equipment would likely be needed. The issue as always is cost and this is likely to be the limiting factor. It depends where your priorities lay.