Welcome! This blogspot gives you the chance to have your say as part of the 5 Year Review of the Sefton Coast Woodlands Forest Plan. To aid this process, please keep all discussion focused on the 5 Year Review. Any inappropriate or abusive posts will be removed.
Site moderator: admin@merseyforest.org.ukThis objective seeks to maintain the existing character of the Sefton Coast woodlands for the enjoyment of all.
Activities:
Within any planting area, 20% is left open to allow glades to develop over the long-term.
Golf courses are being re-designed as ‘links’ golf courses with pine tree blocks as screens and features.
The heath and woodland matrix is managed to retain predominantly heath.
Felling coupes (small areas felled to allow light in through the tree canopy to enable young trees to grow) are becoming valuable habitats for dune grassland species.
The fringes of woodland are managed for grass / tree interface.
Maritime pine has been retained on the National Nature Reserve to maintain diversity and ‘patchwork’.
Six sites have tackled scrub to reduce the regeneration of undesirable species.
Most areas scheduled for ‘cleaning’ have had some work carried out within them to remove undesirable species.
Grass and other vegetation within some dune slacks (ponds within the dune complex) on the National Nature Reserve and rides throughout the woodlands has been cut to encourage species diversity.
Paths and bridleways have been cleared of long grass and brambles in Sefton Council woodlands.
Other activities include: raking of undergrowth has been undertaken to see if vegetation recovery is speeded up in slacks, ground ivy has been managed to provide habitat (but prevented from dominating compartments), tree scrub and isolated pine blocks have been cleared to retain ‘links’ nature of dune golf courses, and ponds have been dug with screen planting.
A question for you:
To retain the diversity of character requires many different land management activities. The consequence of this is that most sites will experience change at some time in the cycle of management. The balance is about keeping character across the whole landscape – do you feel that we have got this balance right?
4 comments:
The best wasy to achieve a good balance would be to manage the dune system as a whole and to steer away from a piecemeal 'gardening' type approach. In an ideal world this would probably involve having extensive grazing over the whole area at a level appropriate to maintain a mosaic of habitat types from bare sand to patches of scrub and woodland.
Since the 1950s the dune system has become more and more stable and senescent. The deposition of atmospheric pollution is making this problem worse. Restoration of dynamic open dunes has been acheived in some places by clearance of high biomass and woody vegetation and introduction of grazing - but in my view the balance has not gone far enough in this direction yet.
In response to this comment, The Forest Plan has taken a landscape-scale (rather than a piecemeal or ‘gardening’) approach to managing the woodlands, but because it only covers designated woodland, it cannot propose management outside those areas. Some of the key indicators for this objective include percentages of bare ground, scrub and broadleaf / pine woodland. In terms of the designated woodland area, there is in the region of 20% bare ground and 15% scrub and of the remaining area (woodland), about 25% is broadleaf. These percentages are being carefully monitored across the whole 420 hectares (rather than site by site) to maintain the existing balance—or in the case of broadleaf reduce it to about 10% of the woodland area.
Good to hear landscape scale view.
Patchwork is a good term in relation to landscape-scale approaches. Although it sounds good to have a continuos forest running along the rear dunes from Altcar to Birkdale I think it is important to ensure that the dune habitats have continuity from sea to heath. The fire breaks across Ainsdale provide this in part and these should be seen as a valuable landscape ecological feaure not just a necessity for fire control. I think that the Fisherman's Path corridor should be opened up to provide the type of continuity it had in the 1960s when the nature trail was established.
The other issue in terms of patchwork is that different clearings and rides will serve different purposes. One of teh most important habitats for dune specialists (Tiger Beetle, bees, wasps etc) are the south facing claerings in teh pinewoods. Are these being given any priority? I was disappointed to see that this habitat had been planted in the corner of Formby Golf Course by the National Trust boundary. Would the woodland advisors know of teh value of this habitat compared, say, to a clearing in an area already planted?
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