UK Forests Pushed To Crisis By Threat Barrage, Says Woodland Trust | Climate News

The UK’s woodlands face a ‘barrage’ of threats such as habitat damage, climate change and nitrogen pollution pushing them to the point of crisis.

A new study from the Woodland Trust says insufficient efforts are being made to create resilient native forests, protect and restore existing woodlands and put individual trees back on the landscape, with only 7% of the country’s native forests in good ecological condition.

He said that efforts to combat climate change were plagued by the inability to address the issues facing woodlands and forests.

Woods and trees face a barrage of threats, including imported diseases, invasive plants and direct loss of woodland to development, while what remains is fragmented, according to the report.

All of England’s woodlands, and most other parts of the UK, exceed harmful levels of nitrogen pollution, altering the natural composition of habitat by damaging delicate lichens and helping grass outgrow flowers wild.

And climate change is altering the pattern of the seasons, such that spring occurs about 8.4 days earlier, hitting wild animals such as blue tits who may find their breeding cycles do not match their food supply for them. the chicks.

The government plans to plant 30,000 hectares of trees per year by 2025 across the UK to tackle climate change.

The amount of timber has slowly increased in recent years to cover 13.2% of the UK’s land area, with around half being native habitat, including old growth forests, and the other half largely from non-native coniferous plantations.

But the wildlife that lives in the woods has seen sharp declines, woodland birds down 29% since 1970, butterflies down 41% since 1990 and …