Ancient woodlands are a vital part of the country’s ecosystems; trees at all stages of their lives contribute to the essential life-giving diversity of nature. Hundreds of different wildlife species thrive in woodlands, many of them making their homes in healthy trees.

But standing dying and dead trees are vital too, especially for birds and bats, until the next storm takes them down. Then countless minute and not-so-tiny insects, mosses, lichens and fungi take over the fallen branches and toppled trunks as they gradually rot and enrich the woodland soil. This has been happening for millennia and ancient woodland is still surviving. So you might be forgiven for thinking that there’s no big deal for a deadly fungus to be threatening the country’s ash population. We need to take a measured and scientific approach to counteracting ash dieback in the UK. Ash is a genetically diverse species and mature healthy trees could hold the genetic keys to resisting the disease. It makes sense to survey woodlands and, where it may slow down the spread of the disease, destroy young trees that are infected. But the ‘cures’ of spraying fungicide or a clear-fell approach taking out healthy as well as infected trees are not the way forward. In fact Danish forestry scientists are reporting that mature trees survive for a long time, and there’s not yet been a single case of a tree over 40 years old being killed by the dieback disease alone; although it does though make them more susceptible to other diseases. Ash trees form a major part of the Bernwood Forest woodlands, remnants of the historic Royal Forest of Bernwood that once stretched roughly from Stanton St John northwards towards Buckingham. Would it be disastrous for wildlife if ash trees in this area were infected?

Our nature reserve at Rushbeds Wood in the Bernwood Forest area is a good example. The worst case scenario could mean the infection, over a period of time, of most of the mature ash trees in this reserve. If that happened there would be considerable wildlife benefits, because the tree canopy would be opened up. More light on the woodland floor would encourage hazel and other understorey trees, which would have a beneficial effect for woodland butterflies such as the silver-washed fritillary and wild flowers such as bluebells. Rushbeds Wood is one of three wonderful woodland nature reserves. The others are Whitecross Green Wood near Horton-cum-Studley, and Finemere Wood near Calvert, which are at the heart of a new three-year Bernwood Forest project, funded by a £222,910 grant from WREN, to restore and create woodlands that will be ‘ancient’ in the future. The project includes opening up woods to encourage natural regeneration of ash and oak as well as beautiful woodland flowers.

BBOWT is recruiting a project officer to start in the New Year, so at this stage we are considering what the consequences of ash dieback could be for these woodlands. The project aims to restore important wildlife habitats through conserving and managing woodlands, hedgerows and meadows. This will help to ensure these beautiful wild woods survive, with the strongest and healthiest trees continuing the natural life-cycle.