Guidance Note 1
Issued: 09/01
Minimum intervention management aims to work with the grain of natural change in woodlands. This Guidance Note sets out the Trust's approach to minimum intervention management.
1. BACKGROUND
Management must encompass change. Ecosystems change in response to external environmental factors. They are also intrinsically dynamic due to competition between species and natural fluctuations within populations of the same species. Individual changes may be small or they may be catastrophic in scale and impact.
Conservation management in semi-natural woodland is increasingly concerned with sustaining these ecosystem processes with fewer management interventions. Grazing animals, including deer or cattle, may sometimes be an essential factor in sustaining dynamic woodland ecosystems.
Since the severe storm which affected south east England in 1987, natural processes of woodland change (tree regeneration and restructuring of plant and animal communities) have generally ensured the continuity of woodland and, in many cases, the vigorous natural regeneration of trees has overwhelmed those that were planted. The debris from fallen and damaged trees has contributed positively to the protection of young seedlings.
However, not all woods are large enough to respond to environmental change without unacceptable loss of species or structure. Active management may still be necessary. It may also be desirable to encourage greater connectivity between relatively isolated woods so that the system is more robust. This will encourage woodland species to increase their range or relocate (see Guidance Note 6: Planning New Woods).
2. POSITION
Policy
Management in formal, ornamental woods within designed landscapes will often be detailed and intensive. Elsewhere, greater reliance on natural processes means that woodlands may be only lightly managed. Often, even sparse and sporadic natural tree regeneration is sufficient to sustain a semi natural woodland indefinitely.
Woodlands are continuously changing. So far as possible we work with change .
As climate changes woodlands will change in new ways. But since most woodlands are too small to accommodate change without the loss of wildlife or other interests, where possible we plant or encourage the natural colonisation of land in close proximity to the most important woodlands to act as stepping stones or corridors for mobile species.
National Trust Forestry Policy 2000
The Trust has adopted a minimum intervention approach to the management of semi natural woods. This means that management is prescriptive only in general terms; results will be significantly shaped by natural processes.
This approach will need to be negotiated and reconciled with Woodland Habitat Action Plans (Woodland HAPs) and Woodland Grant Schemes requirements. They are both typically more prescriptive as to favourable outcomes.
Whilst being fully committed to minimum intervention, the Trust can make no commitment to non intervention management. Non intervention management allows all changes to proceed without any intervention.
3. ACTION
Management should be based on an understanding of the significant features and attributes of individual woods. In order to understand ecosystem processes managers should also assess what might happen to a wood and neighbouring land if there was no active management.
| Management planning should address the following:
|
| What is special about the place? (significance) |
| What could it be? (vision) |
| What would happen to it if it was left unmanaged? (process) |
| What interventions are really essential? (minimum intervention) |
In semi natural woodland there is then a presumption to do only what is essential to ensure survival of key characteristic species.
In practice minimum intervention means:
- being less prescriptive about management outcomes;
- acceptance of many of the natural changes in structural change (e.g. windblow) and in species composition;
- encouragement of natural regeneration and colonisation as an alternative to planting;
- better focus of resources on management interventions which are essential
- lower woodland maintenance costs;
- reduced pesticide use;
- the steady development of greater diversity through natural change;
- ultimately less saleable timber
- more robust woodland ecosystems adaptable to changing environmental conditions.
More intensive intervention management may be necessary where:
- highly artificial stand types, such as coppice, are important;
- a particular diversity of habitats and stand types is desirable;
- historic or culturally important landscapes are being conserved or restored;
- small isolated woods would become biologically impoverished by ecosystem change;
- public safety could be compromised by failure to carry out remedial work;
- timber production is a high priority.
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