BBOWT volunteer Rick Saunders on how selective clearing and felling is essential to prevent the spread of shrub then woodland

My friend Robert looked at me askance. I had been telling him about my day’s work as a BBOWT volunteer, cutting down invasive willow scrub and small birch trees in nearby Parsonage Moor Fen at Cothill.

He complained that I always seem to be cutting things down. Surely, he said, I should be working with nature, not against it! It’s a good point and one frequently encountered by fellow volunteers and by BBOWT staff.

The explanation lies in the nature of nature, namely natural successional forces and the impact of farming on our landscape.

Oliver Rackham gives an excellent account in his book, The History of the Countryside, of how the British landscape has evolved since the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. Open tundra dominated by grasses was colonised from mainland Europe by pioneer trees of birch, pine and hazel followed by slower colonisers such as oak, lime and elm. These ‘wildwoods’, through which our Mesolithic ancestors hunted and gathered, covered much of lowland Britain, although it’s now thought they may have been more open and varied than previously supposed.

The arrival of farming in Britain, with staple crops such as wheat and barley, and herd animals, in about 4000 BC led to settled societies. Use of local materials, such as timber for tools and dwellings, began the process that became large-scale woodland clearance to create areas for crops, meadows and pastures, laying down the antecedents of the farmed landscape within which we now live.

Oxford Mail:
Protected: Early-marsh orchid at Parsonage Moor

Woodland clearance continued throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. Floodplain hay meadows, with soils enriched by winter flooding (which still exist around Oxford, many of them as BBOWT reserves), were an established feature of farming during the Roman period, as was the use of scythes for mowing. By the time the Domesday Book was written, only 15 per cent of Britain was wooded, less than that of modern France.

Today, my conservation work takes me to a fantastic variety of BBOWT reserves within Oxfordshire: wet fens, chalk and limestone grasslands, flower-rich hay meadows, pasture, woods and heathlands.

Most are former areas of farmland; some, such as Chimney Meadows near Bampton, are still working farms. Many fens and heathlands have also been maintained by human activity. The plants and animals that live within these reserves reflect the values we place on the diversity of wildlife that largely characterised farmland before the intensification of farming began in the middle of the last century. Rare and threatened species are of particular importance.

However, the natural process of successional change never goes away. Grasslands, meadows, pastures, old quarry floors, fens and heathlands quickly develop patches of thorny scrub and would eventually revert to woodland. Of course, some scrub provides a valuable habitat for wildlife. However, without the action of BBOWT volunteers and staff clearing the rest, we would lose our flower-rich chalk and limestone grasslands like Hartslock, near Goring, and Sydlings Copse near Barton. Scything reeds and scrub removal prevents the wet fens at Parsonage Moor and Dry Sandford Pit at Cothill from drying out, allowing rare dragonflies, damselflies and soldier flies to breed and flourish.

Grazing of many of these reserves by BBOWT’s cattle, ponies or sheep also suppresses new scrub growth and promotes a greater diversity of habitat, complementary in a sense to the work of the volunteers and staff. Grazing is a particular feature of hay-meadow and pasture management. Selective tree felling can provide wildlife corridors that link different areas within a reserve and provide glades running through woodland that attract numerous butterfly species. One great satisfaction of being a volunteer is that we actively contribute to the conservation of all this wildlife, sometimes alongside our animal ‘colleagues’, in spectacular countryside. But when we cut things down, we do so for a reason.

Volunteer with BBOWT to meet new people, develop new skills, and benefit the wildlife in Oxfordshire