New Forest Tree Felling - Broad-leaves

	Broad-leaved timber stacked beside the ride in Hursthill Inclosure

The felling of broad-leaved trees only normally occurs in the New Forest’s forestry inclosures, and when done selectively, increases woodland diversity and greatly benefits wildlife.

Additional space created between standing trees helps those that remain ‘grow-on’, spreading their crowns and creating new or modified places in which wildlife can live.

Clearings are introduced and increased light reaches the woodland floor, encouraging the growth of wild flowers, which attract insects, including a range of butterflies. Some bird species prefer the newly created space, rather than the denser parts of the wood, and many bat species like space in which to fly, free of the clutter that might otherwise interfere with their sophisticated echo-location systems.

Then, whilst some of the felled timber is sold as part of the New Forest’s commercial forestry operation, some is also left to lie and decay as another useful resource for wood boring insects, fungi and a range of other wildlife.

But in the New Forest’s unenclosed woodlands and forestry inclosures, non-native trees and shrubs are often systematically removed or controlled where they present an invasive threat to the natural ecology. Examples of such species include Turkey oaks, rhododendrons, sycamore and Scots pine.

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