As part of its NEMO Project, Natural England earlier this year commissioned research into a Treescapes Site Inventory, initially focussed around the Bassenthwaite Lake catchment in Cumbria.  The work was conducted by Hallam Environmental Consultants Ltd who were requested to identify, map and assess the quality of the ancient tree resource in the catchment.  The research collates data from a variety of secondary sources, verified by fieldwork on a small sample of sites.

Natural England is now looking into how best this work can be taken forward so that it becomes an accurate inventory and a useful tool in safeguarding our ancient tree resource.  We would therefore be very interested in your views on the work, in particular on the following aspects:

1.      improving the quality of the database and the methodology
2.      applying the methodology beyond the Bassenthwaite Lake catchment
3.      applying the database in practice
4.      integrating the work into other initiatives
5.      disseminating the data

The following documents can be downloaded below:
1.       the report:
2.       a summary of the report
3.       sample outputs from the GIS database

Please contact Christoph Kratz (christoph.kratz@naturalengland.org.uk) for further information including a full copy of the database and the GIS in MapInfo or ESRI format.  Christoph is very keen to have your feedback on the report and the database.  He will also be orgainising a workshop in the next few months to take this work further.

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: HEC Report 2008 (summary)

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: HEC 2008 (full report)

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: sample GIS output - wood pasture and parkland

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: sample GIS output - vetran and notable nr Rosthwaite

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: sample GIS output - attributes example

Bassenthwaite Treescapes: sample GIS output - all records - features

North West Region Urban Tree Survey Methodology final report.doc

A scoping report for a regional audit of urban trees concludes that the Regional Forestry Framework has an important lobbying role to raise the profile of urban trees at all levels of the planning process.

The RFF delivery group commissioned the report from ADAS and Myerscough College to see how the group might better support the region’s urban tree planting, maintenance and protection work. The report concludes that there is very high support for carrying out a canopy survey of urban trees in the region. It recommends that RFF focus on advocacy and network development to raise the profile of urban trees within local authorities, and to encourage local authorities to carry out a survey using a standardised methodology to build up a region-wide picture. With this in mind, the RFF group have sent comments on required actions to the national team developing the new Delivery Plan for England’s Trees, Woods and Forests Strategy.

The urban trees audit report is now available on the iwood website. Next steps in the North West will be discussed in the near future. For more information, please contact Clare Mumford at Natural England, clare.mumford@naturalengland.org.uk

Mapping of the ancient tree, parkland and wood pasture resource in Cumbria’s Bassenthwaite catchment has now been completed. It highlights the huge richness of the resource that exists.

The three-month project, carried out by Sheffield Hallam University and Hallam Environmental Consultants and funded by Natural England, was initiated because of the perceived importance of these habitats in this area but an equally apparent lack of data on their location and condition. The project outputs will be used to help Natural England and Forestry Commission advisers define best locations for using their respective grant schemes, and the best land management practices to support these important cultural and ecological “treescapes”.

Next stages are to promote the use of the material collected and to identify what additional mapping work is needed.

If you would like a CD containing the final report and the collected database of materials, please contact ian.crosher@naturalengland.org.uk

You may be aware that DCLG’s national report Trees in Towns II has just been published. Headline figures suggest that the tree stock in the North West is younger than other regions and relatively immature. We have now begun a short project to build on this research, to see how we might work out if we’re achieving a net gain of tree cover in the North West. It is essentially a scoping exercise to see how some kind of regional audit of urban tree cover might be helpful to, and used by, a range of groups and organisations in the region.

ADAS and Myerscough College have been appointed as consultants for this project, to collate the views of stakeholders in February and March, and propose to the RFF delivery group some next steps after that. If you would like to be involved in this work, you can contact either me or, to attend the 11 March workshop, Mark Johnston at Myerscough College (email mjohnston@myerscough.ac.uk ).

This work responds to feedback received at the Regional Forestry Framework’s evaluation event in October 2007, at which participants felt that urban tree planting was an extremely important activity. It was also inspired by anecdotal evidence from tree officers, which suggested a possible decrease in the number of street trees. We hope that the project will help support the excellent work done to date and encourage an even wider range of people to understand the potential benefits that urban trees can offer. There are a number of tree audit projects going on at the moment: if anyone has surveys and experiences to share, please do post comments here.

Clare Mumford
NW Regional Advocacy & Partnerships Team, Natural England

There is a huge amount of new work on the horizon for action area three.  On my Christmas list to be delivered for 2008 is:

•    A strong new regional Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) targets for woodlands’ maintenance, restoration and expansion.  There is a consultation until 18 January 2008 on what the North West’s BAP targets should be for wood pasture and parkland as well as native woodland.

•    The Natural England “treescapes” project to map wood pasture, parkland and ancient trees in Cumbria’s Bassenthwaite catchment and assess their condition and future management requirements.  This should be particularly useful given that BAP targets for wood pasture for the first time now include upland sites.

•    An agreed methodology and progress towards a regional audit of urban trees, so we can see if we really are achieving a net “green” gain for climate change adapation and for wildlife habitats in urban areas.  The RFF delivery group is hoping to get this project up and running in the next few weeks.

•    A strong integration of England Woodland Grant Scheme and Environmental Stewardship targeting for funding, so more landscape-scale activity shows the full value of trees and woodlands in the North West.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

All the best, Clare

First welcome from AA3

The Regional Forestry Framework priorities for Action Area 3 - biodiversity
and landscape - were essentially to (1) help link up activity across
agriculture and woodlands management, (2) work out how to make our
woodlands less fragmented from each other, (3) make sure we have good
regional policies to support our work on trees and woodlands, and (4)
ensure public funding is used effectively to protect and manage important
trees and woodlands.

Much activity is going on to help with the priorities above.  One of the
issues is that many different people and organisations are doing huge
amounts of work, all at different stages of development.  Linking all this
up, keeping people in touch with what’s going on, and making the
connections across geographical landscapes and different programmes of work
can be difficult.  As AA3 coordinator, this is a key area for me to work on
right now.  Please do get in touch if you have ideas about good ways to do
this.

I’ll post updates on particular actions over the next few months.