On target to protect our woods

The damage inflicted by wild animals on crops and woodland offers an opportunity for some very addictive pest control, says Liam Bell

- Liam Bell

There are a number of new incentives aimed at encouraging people to plant more trees: grants, the supply of free trees, stakes and guards from organisations such as the Woodland Trust and, significantly, payments for carbon off setting for the planting of new woodland.

Quite rightly, there is much discussion around the importance of planting the right trees in the right place. No one with sporting interests wants to cover a wildflower meadow with trees, nor destroy a grouse moor and the things that depend on its being by plastering it with a lot of conifers.

In lowland Britain, where most of the new planting will be deciduous or a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, I often wonder if enough thought is being given to managing them. I don’t mean as a crop when they become valuable, but in the early years when they are most at risk from browsing by rabbits, hares and deer and when the hardwoods are 15 to 30 years old and most vulnerable from attacks by grey squirrels.

Rabbits, though they are in short supply in many parts of the country, are easily catered for by planting in tree guards and fencing to control them. Hares are rarely in such numbers as to make any real difference, though they can be shot if the landowner so wishes.

Deer, on the other hand, will decimate woodland if left to their own devices and only the planted stuff. Fallow and the larger species of deer can be fenced out but, with it being so expensive to erect and maintain, fewer and fewer woods are being fenced off post-planting.

Most woodland owners are relying on keepers and amateur stalkers to control deer and to reduce damage as the trees establish and grow.