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Are neglect, uniformity and uninformed rewilding worse than neonics

  • Writer: Ian Baker
    Ian Baker
  • Jun 23, 2025
  • 5 min read

Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Copyright Phlips Photos - whose caption for this photo was - Unmanaged woodland. Do you get that feeling, "If I go in there I may never come out again." It's not much good for wildlife either.


Earlier this month the Woodland Trust released its authoritative “State of the UK’s Woods and Trees 2025” report and its findings are sobering:

  • although woodland area is growing, woodland condition, complexity, and biodiversity are declining sharply. Wildlife—from butterflies to birds to dormice—are in alarming decline. Amid rising threats from pests, pollution, and climate change, the report calls for “dramatic improvements” in management, restoration, policy support, and funding. Without urgent action, woodlands won’t meet their ecological or climate potential, nor benefit communities equitably.


What seems clear is that UK woodlands are becoming more uniform and it is likely that this is contributing substantially to the quite staggering losses in biodiversity. What is driving this increase in uniformity? Two main factors. Firstly, it is hard to ignore the fact that 40% of UK woods are under managed or unmanaged, this leads directly to uniformity, as undermanaged woods close canopy and lose ground flora and understorey. Secondly, a sizeable proportion of the remainder are plantation forestry which are managed for uniformity. Both can and should do much more for nature.


Is there a solution, well yes, there are several and they all relate to improving and increasing management of our woods. Looking first at "Near to nature" approaches such as "Rewilding", these should not be thought of as hands off strategies, if we are interested in woodlands achieving their ecological potential. Any management strategy needs to be properly informed and for example with new woods standing back and letting nature take its course in our very unnatural woodland landscape simply leads to even aged woodlands that are uniform in design and uniform in the way they are trashed by deer and squirrels. In the smaller and "conservation" woods, it really isn't sufficient to simply "let nature take its course".


Woodland management policy needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Without a renewed focus on management, the woodlands we are creating today in laudable efforts by Woodland Trust, UK government, private sector and others, simply risk adding to the UK's already overstocked tally of neglected woodlands. It's time to put management first in all woodlands, seeing all woods as multi-functional units that can and should deliver for nature and people, at the same time as producing timber and income, the binary choice of conservation or commercial should be seen for what it is; redundant reductionism. Until we have shifted the focus accordingly, I'm afraid it feels premature to be planting more woodlands until we have a much better framework established for their future management, so that all woodlands are on the road to being better managed and more diverse and that requires a big change in skills, capacities and focus. That includes the Forestry Commission, I was simply staggered to hear a Senior Area Manager tell me he did nothing about woodland management and allocated no staff to it, because he had no relevant targets set for him by management. If we want to know where part of the problem lies, we need look no further.


Well done to the Woodland Trust for producing this report, the data is great and tells us a story we all need to hear. The priorities for action however should be re-ordered, as the response needs to be based on informed and skilled management by everyone involved in owning and managing our woodlands. Expanding woodland cover without first addressing this fundamental issue is putting yet more carts in the way of the horse.


As to my question. Unfortunately, woodland management practice is both under-resourced and under-researched, so there is insufficient data available that demonstrates the benefits of management. However, there are enough case studies that illustrate this complex story, such as Lady Park Wood on the English/Welsh border, where long term researcher George Peterken has described non-intervention as producing a woodland that is becoming darker and more dangerous, and declining in biodiversity. In the words of George, this (non-intervention) isn't how he would run a nature reserve. More notice needs to be taken of this and related experience and more emphasis put on learning these lessons.


The main findings of the Woodland Trust report are summarised below.


📊 Key Findings

1. Woodland Cover Rising—But Condition Lagging

2. Ecosystem Complexity Decline

3. Dramatic Wildlife Decline

4. Growing Threats

5. Benefits to People & Climate

6. Woodland Creation Falling Behind

⚙️ Recommended Solutions & Actions

On‑the‑ground interventions:

Policy recommendations for UK governments:

  • Legally protect all ancient and veteran trees; modernize felling licensing; strengthen planning safeguards woodlandtrust.org.uk+1thedirt.news+1.

  • Reduce nitrogen pollution—crucial for health of sensitive woodland flora woodlandtrust.org.uk.

  • Create grants and funds for ecological woodland management and restoration .


I am grateful to ChatGPT for this summary.


 
 
 

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