Broad-leaved woodland is the natural habitat of Norfolk. It’s the principal habitat that covered what is now Norfolk from the retreat of the Devensian Glaciation, some 12,000 years ago, until Bronze Age people undertook the massive-scale deforestation of the landscape from around 5,000 years ago. For centuries, until early in the 20
th century, country people relied on woods for natural resources, both for their own use and for trade. Woods were managed to produce timber for construction, wood for burning and making hurdles, fruit, fungi, forage for livestock, and game for meat and skins.
Woodlands are fantastic habitats for wildlife, supporting specialist woodland species as well as helping a huge range of more generalist wildlife. Woodlands also provide a broad range of wider benefits such as carbon storage and sequestration, flood management, absorption of pollution and physical and mental human health benefits.
Woodland covers around 13% of the UK - roughly half of this being broadleaved woodland and half being coniferous plantation. It is essential for the recovery of wildlife, and for the climate, that we protect existing woodlands and also plant new areas of woodland in appropriate locations.
There are many different types of woodland, including:
- Ancient woodland – defined in England as woodland known to have been present since at least 1600. The area of semi-natural ancient woodland is tiny – just 1.2 % of the UK. This is a hugely valuable habitat which can be characterised by a range of indicator species, typically plants which are very slow to colonise, such as wood anemone and enchanter’s nightshade.
- Broad-leaved woodland - is woodland in which the trees do not have needles. Instead they have leaves that are broad. Most of these trees will be deciduous, meaning they lose their leaves in autumn.
- Wet woodland - is woodland with poorly draining, or seasonally flooded, soils. Typical trees present include willows, birches and alders.
- Secondary woodland - is woodland that has developed through natural processes on land previously cleared of trees. It is usually species-poor compared to ancient woodland.
Native woodlands with trees such as oak, hornbeam, alder, ash, birch and crab apple are an essential part of any countryside - they contain and support a myriad of plant, lichen, fungi, invertebrate, animal and bird species. The oak tree alone can be home to up to 2,300 species.
With one third of species that live and rely on woodlands having declined, protecting, improving and creating woodlands is incredibly important.