Big Nature Day – a triumph of diversity for biodiversity

On Sunday 27th May, two of us from the Woodland Trust attended Big Nature Day in the grounds of the Natural History Museum in London, supported by OPAL (the Open-Air Laboratory). We were there to  promote our Nature’s Calendar recording scheme to the public.

Brown-banded carder bee

I was astonished at the huge diversity and range of organisations present for the event: everything from the big familiar names like Friends of the Earth, RSPB and the Field Studies Council, to more niche organisations such as the Earthworm Society, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, dipterists (folk who identify diptera – true flies) and tachinid recorders (I had to look them up – a subset of diptera!). 

Each stall offered exciting things to do for a family audience, from making finger puppets and insect homes to wildflower identification challenges and the chance to handle ladybirds or stick insects. Worm charming was perhaps the most exotic activity on offer, although apparently the ground was a bit too dry to tempt them to appear. A group of people on stilts, dressed as insects and playing in a band completed the lineup. There was a continual steady stream of people coming from the excitement of the museum’s dinosaurs and out into the grounds to Big Nature Day.

Every organisation basically conveyed the same message: that the richness of biodiversity is amazing and there are lots of different ways to engage with it, whatever your interest and level of experience.  This is worth remembering given the recent debate on having too many natural environment NGOs.

We really enjoyed telling our enthusiastic visitors about Nature’s Calendar and how they could get involved, plus explaining the wider work of the Trust.

Our challenge was for people  to answer four questions (appended if you want to try) to win a prize.  Some of our visitors were very knowledgeable; one family of four children, all aged under 10 and working independently got all the answers right. Their father diffidently explained ‘they do a lot of reading’. This helped to give me confidence that the next generation cares as much about the natural world as we do. 

Kate Lewthwaite, Nature’s Calendar Project Manager

—————————————————
Why not try the questions here:
1. What proportion of the world population of bluebells is found in the UK?
a) 10%
b) 40%
c) 70 %

2. Swifts make a migratory journey of around 22,000 kilometres (14,000 miles) every year. What helps them to do this?
a) They hitch a lift on passing light aircraft
b) They have a special high-energy diet
c) They sleep with half their brain at a time

3. Oak: Why was the oak tree associated with the thunder god, Thor?
a) It is one of the commonest trees to be struck by lightning
b) Its dense canopy provides the best shelter from heavy storms
c) Because Thor was reputed to have climbed up one as a boy

4. Of the 46 species of UK ladybird, which one listed below is NOT a real species?
a) Harlequin
b) Jester
c) 22-spot

Click for the answers

Natural stress relief

On top of our recent post about the benefits of green space for our immune systems, researchers have now been able to show with biological tests that living near green space is associated with lower stress levels. There’s been strong evidence for some time that access to green space can probably improve both physical and mental health.  In particular, it can encourage people to build regular outdoor exercise into their daily lives, with the benefits that brings. But in the case of mental health, researchers have largely relied on people reporting how they feel to gauge whether there is a link between well-being and green space, and many studies have used artificial environments and conditions.

This latest research, published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, measured levels of cortisol, a hormone produced in response to stress, found in residents’ saliva. They found that levels of cortisol correlated with people’s own reports of feeling stressed, and with percentage of greenspace in the area. 

The findings strengthen the evidence that green environments help people cope with stress and indicate this is not just the result of physical activity, (which also has stress-reducing benefits), but that regular visits or even just views of green space are enough.

Dutton Park event day. Access to green spaces is important for everyone.

So how important is it that green space includes woods or trees? Further research in Scotland, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, could help answer this, looking at the effectiveness of the Forestry Commission’s Woods in and Around Towns (WIAT) programme at improving psychological wellbeing in deprived communities. The project will work with six communities in Scotland’s central belt.

This all adds weight to the case for Boris to deliver on his pledges to plant more trees in London, and for others to do the same elsewhere. 

 Sian Atkinson, Conservation Communications & Evidence Adviser

WuT you like to know about Tree Preservation Orders?

Every week our Woods under Threat team gets a variety of questions about Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs).  So in this post I will endeavour to answer some of the most frequently questions I’m asked.

How does a TPO protect trees and woods?

Our woodlands are precious, and vulnerable. Every day we hear from people who are concerned about losing, or are actively opposing, threats to woods and trees - even ancient trees. A TPO can keep the trees (and woods) that are important to you protected from well, the chop.
If a tree or wood is protected by a TPO or is in a conservation area, you will need to apply to the Local Planning Authority (usually the local council) to carry out any management (such as lopping and topping) on the tree, and to remove the tree. If permission is not sought from and given by the council, then they have the ability to prosecute – you could be fined between £2,500 and £20,000!

How do I get a TPO on a tree/wood?

If you are interested in placing a Tree Preservation Order on a tree or wood, one of the first things you need to do is to contact the council and ask to speak to the Tree Officer, or the person at the council who has the same powers. 

A TPO can protect your most loved trees and woods

Make sure when you talk to them about getting a TPO that they are aware why you feel that the tree needs to be protected: usually TPOs are placed on a tree or wood that’s deemed to be a local amenity. Remember though – making  a TPO is a discretionary power, therefore the council does not have to place a TPO on any tree.  However where one is made, the council do then have the duty to enforce it.

Within the first six months of a TPO it can be confirmed or terminated at any time. It can also be modified in this time period, however you can’t add more trees to the TPO in this time period.  If more trees need to be added then usually a new TPO will be created by the council.

There is a tree that already has a TPO however they want to fell it, what can I do to protect it?

If someone wants to fell a tree that’s already protected by a TPO they must submit an application to the council to do so. This application will have a consultation period attached, which is the perfect opportunity for you to contact the council and submit your objection. 

We would also recommend that you consider getting the local community involved and encourage as many people as possible in your local area to also contact the council and object to the proposed removal of the tree. 

A tree has been felled that has a TPO on it. Is another tree meant to be planted?

Yes. If a tree has been felled which is protected by a TPO the landowner is under a duty to replace the tree, this is also true if the tree is dead, dying or has become dangerous. 

The duty on the landowner is:

(1) to plant another tree,

(2) of an appropriate size and species,

(3) at the same place,

(4) as soon as he or she reasonably can.

If the land is sold before the landowner has replanted the tree, then this duty passes to the new owner.

When the tree is replaced it is covered by the original TPO no matter what the new species is.  The council should generally then update the TPO to make sure it covers any slight changes to the location or changes to the species.

Why are they allowed to fell this tree that has a TPO on it for this development?

A tree that is protected by a TPO can be felled for a development, because if planning permission is granted for a site, and the felling of a tree that is protected by a TPO is included in the application, then planning permission outweighs any protection that the TPO may have offered.  However if a tree protected by a TPO does need to be felled, there is a duty for the landowner to replace the tree.

I hope this is useful. Please look out for my next post where I will be talking about illegal felling.

Katharine Rist, Woods under Threat Assistant

Biodiversity: the meaning of…

June will see the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, at which the Convention on Biological Diversity was presented. This has driven much of the current thinking on biodiversity conservation, biodiversity action plans and targets to achieve. And yet people still do not understand what the word biodiversity means or why professional ecologists continue to use it.

There have been many hours spent, by some very large conservation brains, trying to come up with a better word. Wildlife – too fluffy animal, doesn’t include the fungi? Nature – too sweet and Victorian, does not cover bacteria and other unmentionables? Conservation – describes the activity not the object and could include Stonehenge or the local Leonardo da Vinci as well as dormice.

Hackfall (Yorkshire) is a wonderful wood crammed full of biodiversity

So it seems we are stuck with biodiversity at the moment. The complaint is that people do not understand, it is too jargony, we should converse in more user friendly language. Well, yes, we should always try to speak in terms that are understandable but the lack of comprehension of the full meaning of RAM or the difference in performance of dual core versus quad core processors has not stopped the burgeoning laptop industry. Actually, perhaps what we have to do is use it more and explain it better?

Biodiversity is actually a made up word, a contraction of the words Biological Diversity and an attempt to convey the importance of all life – be it beast or bug or plant. Use of the word biodiversity has been around for twenty years and is used to describe the variety of all life on the planet, from genetic variation within species to the large numbers of different species and the various habitats that populate the world. More than that was the recognition that biodiversity in all its myriad forms was important to the world and we should worry when we lost it.

We can use the term woodland biodiversity or the biodiversity of an upland ash wood to encompass everything that occurs in that wood, rather than having to detail the individual hover flies or fungi. The term can also include the species that we do not yet have names for but believe are a vital part of the ecosystem (ah, ecosystem, another confusing term – but one for another blog, not this one!)

All in all a very useful word and one we should make more use of.

Frances Winder, Conservation Policy Officer

Woodland Trust nominated for PoliticsHome award

The Trust received some great news this morning. An article published through the political website PoliticsHome has been nominated in the influential outlet’s first ever awards ceremony. Our round up of 2011′s year of forests, written by Alison Kirkman and myself, is nominated alongside contributions from just two other organisations – Action for Children and the British Air Transport Association.

Lord Strathclyde addreses our Jubilee Woods parliamentary reception

The awards celebrate some of the best moments from the political world reported on PoliticsHome over the last year and the winner will be announced at a ceremony in Westminster on Monday June 18. We were not expecting this nomination, although 2011 was certainly a momentous year for our woods, trees and forests!

Should you wish to vote for us to win, you’ll need to register for a free trial of the PoliticsHome e-newsletter here (remember to click on the box ‘two week free trial’). After this period you can continue to get the latest political news from PoliticsHome, or simply cancel. Once registered you will receive an email from the team at Politics Home containing a link – where you can cast your all important vote for the Woodland Trust! Voting closes this Friday so you will need to be prompt.

To keep up to date with our work at Westminster and across the UK please follow our blog!

Lee Bruce, Government Affairs Officer

Hedgepig

We have an interesting guest staying with us at the moment. As I was walking across the field the other night I met a very ill-looking hedgehog. The obvious initial sign was the large number of ticks all across the face and body (we eventually removed 28!) but closer inspection showed a nasty gash on the head, possibly from a barbed wire fence. She was lethargic, unfocused and incapable of defending herself against anything, so a safe haven was an essential requirement.

An unexpected house guest

Hedgehogs are complicated members of the UK’s fauna, instantly recognisable and famously anthropomorphised into the ‘Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’ of Beatrix Potter’s stories, but disliked for being spiny and carrying fleas. They were once one of our most common mammal species, occurring across the UK from the coast to the upland tree line. Closely associated with hedges they were most abundant where grassland was found next to woodland, eating ground living insects but also taking carrion, eggs or the like when the opportunity arose.

However in 2007 hedgehogs were added to the national list of species in need of protection. Hedgehog numbers in the UK were estimated at about 1.5 million in 1995, a massive decrease from the 30 million estimated in the 1950s.  Road casualty counts carried out between 1990 and 2001 suggest declines of 50% in that decade alone. But you will note the use of the term “estimated”; it is notoriously difficult to survey for hedgehogs. The Mammal Society are trialling a new technique which hopes to use footprint records to assess population levels.

The problem is what to recommend that will make some inroads into the alarming decrease in hedgehog numbers. Their decline is probably due to rural habitat fragmentation, and pesticide use both at the farm and garden level which reduces available prey and hedgerow loss. They need that in-between habitat - not quite woodland but not entirely grassland – that is difficult to define and poorly recognised in either grant or policy support. Putting more trees in the landscape can definitely help; there doesn’t have to be loads, just a few trees in the right place joining up suitable habitat patches, and areas of longer vegetation left to their own devices.

And Spike? (- all hedgehogs are Spike on first acquaintance, it is only if they stay around that they develop into a new identity.) She is fine; after a couple of nights without the blood-sucking ticks and now her head wound is closed, she is eating well and will be going back to her hedge this evening. I look forward to meeting her again under better circumstances. 

Frances Winder, Conservation Policy Officer (and official hedgehog rescuer)

Why urban trees matter!

Have any of you been watching the brilliant BBC programme The 70′s? A really thought provoking series that came home for me quite literally, when they featured Hyson Green’s ‘streets in the sky’ in Nottingham. Why? Well, my mum grew up there in the early 60′s just as these social experiments in housing were being built. She saw first hand its decline into the ‘ghetto’ with the highest crime rate in England.

Grim film footage held by the Media Archive for Central England (MACE) gives a fascinating insight into how society breaks down in a world without trees. With nowhere to experience nature it was a bleak and unloved place. People too scared to leave their homes because children of 10 and 11 years old ran in gangs. A conversation with the Curate of the Parish – an ex-con with a big heart for people struggling to survive – makes the valuable point: over 700 flats had no access to gardens! He explains that children were given ‘concrete to play in’. As the camera pans across the estate you spot a few dead trees – that’s it!

Digging deep into MACE’s interview archives you will discover the people forced to live there repeating the question – why are we made to live in a place with no garden?

Hyson Green, Nottingham 1978 - News Footage ATV

It is worth remembering that this was England only 40 years ago. And that it doesn’t look that different to the image I blogged about a few months ago in North Korea. We cannot be complacent when it comes to planning and the value of our green places and spaces. To climb a tree or sit beneath its branches for a natter with your mates should be a given. The recent report by RIBA (Royal Institute for British Architects) reiterates this.

20 years later this estate was razed to the ground and is now a supermarket. This final picture shows not a single space across the landscape for a tree to be planted. We must never, ever go back to this.