GREEN SPACE
A NEW FOREST FOR ENGLAND
Can you sum up the aims of the Heartwood Forest project? Heartwood Forest is the Woodland Trust’s biggest acquisition in England at 850 acres and will see the plant- ing of 600,000 trees over a 10 year period. It will become England’s larg- est new native forest.
When was the idea for the creation of Heartwood Forest born? The Trust announced the acquisi- tion of the site back in July 2008. We were looking for a so-called ‘fl agship site’ which highlighted the potential of woodland creation, and we really wanted to fi nd somewhere reasonably close to London. The idea was that it would be easy for a large proportion of the population to travel to, and would act as a showcase site to highlight the potential of woodland creation to busi- nesses and corporate partners. The forest will become the centrepiece of the Woodland Trust’s work, providing widely accessible green space, links with local schools and colleges and long-term tree planting opportunities.
What’s special about its location? Heartwood Forest is adjacent to a local nature reserve in the middle of
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The Woodland Trust’s Heartwood Forest project is seeing the creation of a new native forest in
Hertfordshire. Site manager Louise Neicho tells us how the project will transform the area, and about the innovative partnership with Disney Store
the Hertfordshire countryside, and is only 25 miles from the heart of London. A quarter of a million peo- ple live within 10km of the site and there are 1,500 schools within 25 km of it. The site itself is also highly var- ied, containing large open spaces of former pasture, as well as more than 40 acres of ancient woodland and 17km of hedgerows.
Why is it important to create more woodland in the UK?
The UK only has 12 per cent wood- land cover, which is around a quarter of the European average (44 per cent). Furthermore in terms of native wood- land cover – the important stuff – we only have 4 per cent, and only 2 per cent ancient woodland cover, which is our equivalent of the rainforest. Trees and woods are important for
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a wide variety of reasons, from provid- ing habitats and shelter for a range of wildlife – 36 individual species of birds have been recorded on the Heartwood Forest site alone – to alleviating the effects of climate change and absorb- ing carbon. Plus there are all the obvious health benefi ts that walking in woodland provides.
What’s happened since the Woodland Trust acquired the site? Since acquiring the site in 2008 the Trust has embarked on a programme of work, planting trees with volunteers – more than 175,000 to date – open- ing up previously inaccessible areas of land, installing interpretation boards and kissing gates and working hard with the local population to get them involved. The fi rst tree planting took place at the end of 2009, with many
ISSUE 2 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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