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UK's Ancient Woodland Being Lost Faster than Amazon

guardian.co.uk — New research shows that half of all woods in the UK that are more than 400 years old have been lost in the last 80 years and more than 600 ancient woods are under threat.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 23, 2008

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  • phreak79, on 10/23/2008, -0/+12Goodness, I didn't realise that. The state of the worlds forests are a massive concern.
  • TheImaginator, on 10/23/2008, -0/+9Didn't know we had any ancient woods left - better keep them if we have.
  • cfrog7, on 10/23/2008, -0/+7Old growth forest health is a vital indicator of the earth's health.

    One solution might be mushrooms:
    http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_stamets_on ...
    a great Ted talk about how fungi can save the world, including creating old growth forest
  • zombo, on 10/23/2008, -0/+6Go and stand next to a 500yr old oak tree and say that.
  • wipis, on 10/23/2008, -1/+6now where will Robin Hood hide out?
  • fullmetalglove, on 10/23/2008, -4/+9When forest is in the UK, it's a private property.
    When forest is in Brazil, it's a common property for the humanity.
    I rarely see people who try to help the poor in Brazil, but I see many people who are all for rain forest in Amazon.
    Am I the only one to see the irony?
  • nowhereelse, on 10/23/2008, -0/+5I consider myself to be pretty green but I think this is a misleading article. Firstly, the loss of ancient woodland in the UK is only outstripping the Amazon because there was already so little of it 80 years ago that even the smallest loss registers as significant.

    Certainly, ancient woodland is declining and will continue to do so. What the article does not mention is that the percentage of the UK under forest has increased since WWII. It's true that a lot of this is softwood but there has been an increasing amount of hardwood plantation more recently.

    There is also the sentiment in this article that ecosystems and species should be preserved at all cost. This is not what has happened throughout the history of life on this planet. If evolution is a fact, then as new ecosystems are being created new subspecies and species should emerge.

    For sure, the net effect of the past 1000 years' human activity on Britain's woodland has been disastrous but it is important to acknowledge that the current trend is towards more trees and more diversity of tree species. The justifiable concern at the loss of existing forest needs to be expressed in the context of what we have achieved of late.
  • radish01001, on 10/23/2008, -0/+4nowood forest?
  • TBombadil, on 10/23/2008, -1/+5how sad
  • andytandreou, on 10/23/2008, -0/+3if you want to help. Donate some money to Greenpeace UK, if you are really troubled by this then wipp out your credit card and send a few pennies their way. (https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/donate/by-credit-car ...

    Send this as an email to your friends in the UK and ask them to donate to a charity like Greenpeace or WWF.

    Money talks! Do something about it and don't just read it say awww and go to the next Digg article.

    Thanks
  • Metyu, on 10/23/2008, -0/+3Thanks for this. One good link deserves another, you might be interested in:

    http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ ...

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOQ0VU24xw (cordyceps fungus)
  • DestroyFascism, on 10/23/2008, -0/+2Yes those prison ships of the 1600's to 1800's were worth it.
    God bless the English Lords...
  • whoreable, on 10/23/2008, -0/+2Australia won't take them anymore?
  • TheCatsPants, on 10/23/2008, -0/+2It's not about the trees, its about the ecosystem they support, the bacteria and fungi living in the soil, the insects, plants, animals, birds etc. You cut down an old wood and it would be decades for it to recover and it may never return to its previous state.
  • Metyu, on 10/23/2008, -0/+2Brazil nut trees are all less than 500 years old. It is argued that Spanish explorers chopping down parts of rainforests allowed sunlight to reach the forest floor for the first time, thus allowing one of the world's most amazing trees to grow.
  • zeebo, on 10/23/2008, -0/+2If a species that filled a specific niche dies out, then a new species will likely move in, or adapt to fill that same niche, but that can take a long time. If that niche was an important enough part of the local ecology it can lead to more species dying out and more niches openening up.
  • LingNoi, on 10/24/2008, -0/+1yes because there have been numerous demonstrations in the past in England where people have camped in trees, etc. With that being said, if it's got to go, it's got to go. You can always plant new trees, that's why they're so awesome.

    Now if only they would make a railway which is a straight line from london to scotland, go through anything in it's way then finally we might have a safer and faster rail network like the Japanese have.
  • KelticKal, on 10/24/2008, -0/+1Golly, England just can't rip off Ireland any more for its timber needs. Ireland was heavily forested until the Limeys cut down the vast majority of its trees to build the Royal Navy. This is just one minor instance of England's thousand year reign of terror and pillage of Erin.

    Tiocfaidh ar la!

  • inactive, on 10/23/2008, -0/+1So few people remember the prison ships anchored in New York harbor during the American Revolution. Atrocities were committed on both sides during the revolution, but those prison ships were a 17th century version of Guantanomo Bay.
  • zadadka, on 10/23/2008, -0/+1As I understood it, Britain was pretty much one big forest going back thousands of years.
    The decline since the 1600's, and the huge acceleration of deforestation after the 1930s has left us with roughly 15% of woodlands, both ancient and modern (post-1600).

    Proportionally, our trees are indeed being stripped faster than in the Amazon region...though of course, the impact on CO2/O2 processing is in turn only a fraction of that mighty engine.
  • WARonTREES, on 10/23/2008, -1/+1don't worry, they can take care of themselves without our help:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_Forest_Nati ...
  • Metyu, on 10/23/2008, -1/+1Go stand next to a 500 year old Brazil nut tree, which only exists because people chopped down forest.
  • BossKey, on 10/23/2008, -2/+1Oh no, then...where will Sir Robin go looking for it?
  • Junior612, on 10/23/2008, -6/+2Ancient wood? Is that when McCain gets a boner?
  • Finalreminder, on 10/23/2008, -4/+0We need to put the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers somewhere.
    The rest of the world put them in deportation camps
    Britain puts them in paid for housing and give them benefits.
  • MikeRiley, on 10/23/2008, -9/+2Aside from saving the wildlife I don't see why an ancient forest should be treated any different from a newer one. People are too afraid of change and think because something has been around so long it was supposed to be that way. Well, maybe it wasn't.

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