Liskeard

It seems only half of the trees had survived - the Bramble was over head height, so they did not survey the middle of the plots. However, for every dead tree, 3 willows have naturally regenerated, so no need to replant here.

In November 2023, we planted a new wildlife corridor on land next to High Wood, working alongside local volunteers and a brilliant group of students from Oakwood Specialist College in Torpoint. Together, they got 450 saplings into the ground, a mix of Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Hazel, Spindle and Crab Apple. This wildlife corridor is designed to provide food and shelter for birds, animals and other wildlife moving between High Wood and the surrounding land.

Eighteen months on, our survival survey recorded an excellent 97% survival rate across the corridor, with strong, healthy growth throughout. It was especially good to hear that the Oakwood students, several of whom have planted with us at High Wood before, enjoyed the day so much that they're hoping to come back and volunteer more regularly, we'd love to have them.

In order to return High Wood to an ancient temperate rainforest, a lot of these non-native conifers need to go. It’s a 40 year management plan, and it’s a complicated process in general, but some of this is easy.

In areas that have recently been clearfelled (everything cut down) and restocked (a bunch of young conifers have been replanted), we haver a lot of “Christmas trees” which are easy to handle.

With a group of volunteers and Sam the Site Manager, we got started on the first compartment. For every three of four small conifers we removed, a native oak, willow, birch, rowan, or beech tree was hiding, struggling for light and clearly happy to have been rescued before it perished. These will grow on to mature now that the competition has been removed.