How our activities will effect wildlife

The activities of project will ultimately increase opportunities for wildlife in the woods. We will be encouraging nature regeneration and planting trees when necessary, so that the woodland will revert to a mixed, native broadleaf woodland. Trees such as oak and birch have a high associated insect count, and therefore supply a larger wildlife food chain than the present plantation conifers.

Our plans for the 'growing area' will transform the virtual monoculture of Rosebay Willow Herb into a diverse forest garden with a rich collection of productive wildlife habitats. We will also be re-introducing a coppicing rotation which will both supply us with a useful product and benefit wildlife. Additionally we have zoned off a low intervention wildlife zone at the top of the woods where it meets the neighbouring semi-natural oak woodland owned by the National Park.

As regards the short term wildlife impact, the settlement area (where most of the human activity takes place) is contained in one area small area of the woodland. This area mainly consists of brambles, young sycamore, and thinned Japanese Larch, which has the lowest associated insect count of the trees in the woodland and is therefore the least value to wildlife.

At other similar woodland projects there have been no apparent detrimental impact on woodland creatures. Our experience is that the vast majority of the birds, insects and small animals have not been disrupted by our presence and often ignore us completely. Larger animals are often deterred from the areas around humans but may become accustomed to their new neighbours in time.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the human animal is a part of nature, and one of the greatest challenges we face at this time is finding ways in which humans can begin to see themselves and act as a part of natural cycles and habitats. We hope our project will be exploring ways of integrating the human animal back into 'wildlife' and 'nature', rather than furthering the destructive mental and physical separation of humans from the rest of the living world