Big Ambitions for National Park Woodland

As well as being beautiful natural structures, trees provide many environmental benefits. Capturing carbon, improving water quality, they’re a sustainable building material and tool for flood management.

Storm Damage Recovery Work

The significant damage and disruption Storm Darragh caused to Exmoor woodland has further intensified the need to manage, rejuvenate and expand the treescape, in line with government plans to increase tree cover to 16.5 per cent by 2050.

Graeme McVittie, Senior Woodland Officer at ENPA is overseeing the delivery of ENPA’s woodland ambitions. The clear up operation following Storm Darragh created a huge amount of work for ENPA, their partners and local landowners. Amongst the sad sight of fallen giants, however, Graeme says there is a silver lining:

“We’ve learnt so much over the last few decades about the potential nature benefits of dead wood. It’s proved useful, not only re-purposed for local, sustainable timber, but for nature colonisation by invertebrates and dead wood-boring insects; there’s a whole ecosystem that can move in and take advantage of dead wood. Standing columns of damaged trees can be great habitats for birds like woodpeckers. In fact, the ENPA woodland team, with the help of specialist contractors, are working on the ‘veteranisation’ of certain trees to help support bats, birds and butterflies. Veteranisationinvolves strategic cutting of trees, to encourage fungi growth and to host insects, which in turn feed bats and birds like woodpeckers and pied flycatchers.

With extreme weather events on the rise, it’s vital we factor climate adaption into our approach. Woodland management is not just about increasing the number of trees it’s about resilience of the species we plant, flood management, supporting the migration of species live in our woodland, creating refuge for rare lichens. “

Culver Cliff wood and Hawkcombe Wood

ENPA are engaged in a long-term work in Culver Cliff wood and Hawkcombe Wood National Nature Reserve, to restore oak coppice. This will support the recovery of the rare Heath Fritillary butterfly, also traditionally known as the “Woodman’s follower". because of its habit of occupying recently coppiced areas. It has been breeding successfully in Hawkcombe for several years now. In 2023 they bred in particularly large numbers which resulted in a “super-dispersal” which helped establish new colonies up to 10km away.

Graeme explains: “Coppicing is an ancient system of woodland management where trees are cut close to the ground on a regular cycle. They regrow from dormant buds at the base of the stump (known as the ‘stool’) to create dense stands of multi-stemmed trees. The new stems grow back faster to provide a sustainable timber supply, rather than harvesting more mature, thicker branches. Oak is coppiced on 30-year cycle, willow might be coppiced every year or two, hazel every 7 years. Coppicing results in a woodland mosaic of different ages, heights and densities and is an incredibly rich habitat for birds, insects and plants.”

Ada Lovelace ‘Picturesque’ restoration

ENPA is supporting a heritage woodland project that is part of a wider campaign to celebrate the pioneer of modern computing, Ada Lovelace and her influence on the Exmoor landscape. In the 1830s and 1840s, Ada spent her summer months each year at Ashley Combe, above Porlock Weir. Whilst on Exmoor, continuing her scientific work, she and her husband developed one of the South West’s first arboretums in the woods towards Culbone. Volunteers have been recruited to work on woodland clearance, to help rediscover the historic ‘Picturesque’ landscape that Ada helped to create.

Here more on ENPA woodland  projects in Graeme's Exmoor Woodland Diaries