Woodland management measures for Aspen woodlands

The Biodiversity and Management of Aspen woodlands: Proceedings of a one-day conference held in Kingussie, Scotland, on 25th May 2001

Denis Torley
Former Forest of Spey Officer, Denis now works for Tilhill, 43 Clachnaharry Road, Inverness, IV3 8RA. Email: denis.torley@upm-kymmene.com

Grazing pressure © Peter Cosgrove In many areas inappropriate grazing pressure, for example by rabbits at this Grantown upon Spey stand, stops Aspen regeneration from happening and is a serious constraint against woodland regeneration and expansion.

The purpose of this talk is to identify how the Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS) can assist in improving the extent and condition of Aspen stands and their associated flora and fauna.

The Forestry Commission's WGS was introduced in 1988. It aims to encourage people to create new woodlands and forests to produce timber, improve the landscape, provide new habitats for wildlife, and offer opportunities for recreation and sport. It seeks to encourage good management of forests and woodlands, including their well timed regeneration, particularly looking after the needs of ancient and semi-natural woodlands. Its current form, WGS III, is presently under review and out to public consultation (as of May 2001).

Funding is increasingly targeted at specific priorities and it is in this context that we should look at management incentives for Aspen.

Priorities for Aspen

From the various species accounts and subsequent discussions we can identify two broad strategic priorities for Aspen:

• Ensure that Aspen stands are minimally isolated by improving the connectivity of sites.
  Species which depend on a rare or patch woodland type may remain isolated, even in a fairly complete network of woods. Thus, we need to look for opportunities to increase patch size and reduce isolation.

• Enhance conditions within stands of Aspen for dependent species.
  Increase the size of existing remnants and manage for continuity of structural conditions. For example, create conditions that continue to be capable of supporting the saproxylic fauna, and carry out management to provide a constant supply of suitable fallen timber. This means ensuring that there are suitable areas of differing growth stages of Aspen.

What incentive mechanisms can help achieve this?

In terms of creating new woodland to improve connectivity of broadleaved woodlands, there is a planting grant and the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme. For expanding semi-natural woodland, the preferred method is by natural regeneration. However, where there is no suitable seed source, planting may be appropriate.

The second priority is to improve conditions for associate flora and fauna within stands of Aspen. This can best be achieved by ensuring that there are sufficient patch sizes of broadleaved woodland, component stands, and critically, adequate representations of age classes within these patches and species components to ensure a sustained supply of suitable niches.

It is worth noting that some key woods are already under management regimes to encourage regeneration, under the WGS; for example, Invertromie, Torcroy and Inverton. However, there is still a need to secure regeneration in other key woods and improve links between them, either by creating new woodlands or by restructuring existing ones. In this context, one issue that must be addressed is grazing. Larger stands are components of larger broadleaved woodlands, which are valuable for shelter and grazing. Total livestock exclusion reduces farmers' options and is not always appropriate or even desirable. For example, Epione vespertaria absolutely needs Aspen less than 1m in height and the most practical way to achieve this is through grazing. Until these conditions are achieved there are a number of ways to improve conditions and these can also be managed through, and assisted by, the WGS.

Woodland Improvement Grant

The Woodland Improvement Grant (WIG) is a single discretionary payment to encourage a range of work in existing woodlands. It may be paid to undertake work that will enhance the value of woodland for conservation, landscape or recreation.

In the context of Aspen, assistance is available for woodland owners to manage their woods in ways that will implement the forestry aspects of "Biodiversity, the UK Action Plan".

There are five UK BAP species that rely on Aspen:

1. Epione vespertaria

2. Hammerschmidtia ferruginea

3. Orthotrichum gymnostomum

4. Orthotrichum obtusifolium

5. Byctiscus populi

The WIG can assist with the following operations:

• Preparing and implementing management plans for semi-natural woods;

• Condition Survey;

• Felling to create deadwood/Creating sap runs;

• Protecting deadwood from stripping; and,

• Respacing regeneration to favour Aspen.

Grant will be paid to cover half the net cost of suitable work, up to a limit of £10,000.

For example, at Invertromie the wood was surveyed to assess its deadwood resource, and management operations were prescribed to create a continuity of supply of fallen deadwood as a habitat resource for the Aspen hoverfly Hammerschmidtia ferruginea. These operations, if necessary, are easy and relatively cheap to carry out.

• Establish by survey the present availability of suitable fallen timber.

• Do you need to protect it from being stripped?

• Do you need to create more by felling, delimbing, and for how long?

• For the Dark-bordered beauty Epione vespertaria, you need to establish regeneration and maintain areas of young regeneration either through grazing or though encouraging areas of regeneration over a longer period. The Dark-bordered beauty is associated with suckering Aspen less than 1m in height. Appropriate grazing is therefore critical.

Annual Management Grant

Annual Management Grant is an incentive to help towards some of the cost of work that is necessary to maintain and safeguard woodlands. It is a contribution to costs to safeguard or enhance the existing special environmental value of a wood. It provides assistance at a rate of £35 per hectare as a contribution to the costs operations such as:

• Management plans.

• Essential survey work - e.g. archaeological survey.

• Removal of invasive species.

• Control of exotic natural regeneration.

• Uneconomic thinning/felling to encourage natural regeneration.

• Broadleaved planting (up to 300 plants/hectare. Larger plantings should be funded through normal grants).

• Essential monitoring of management effects - e.g. population monitoring.

• Deer and rabbit control: this is not normally eligible but exceptionally a case may be made for (e.g.) developing a coherent management plan where this is clearly essential to enhance the special environmental value of the woods.

Restructuring

Restructuring mainly conifer woodland through Forest Plans

Forest Plans were introduced in 1999. The Forest Plan is aimed at woodland owners who plan to carry out felling, restocking and thinning in their woodlands over a 20-year time period. Grants are available to help with plan preparation. The advantages of such medium term planning are obvious. It is worth noting that the approval of Forest Plans is a competitive process and applications are judged against set criteria, one of which is the delivery of substantial public benefit with a high conservation interest.

When Forest Plans are going through the scoping process, it is worth establishing if there are opportunities in existing plantations to favour current broadleaved stands with an Aspen element, or to identify opportunities in the restructuring which will help to create stands of Aspen with links between broadleaved stands. This is one way of establishing links in the network without planting valuable agricultural ground.

Conclusion

Creating a network of broadleaved woodland with an Aspen component capable of supporting the range of Aspen dependent species is a priority that the WGS can help to deliver. The ways in which you feel it can better contribute to priorities for Aspen and its dependent communities might form part of your response to the consultation on the review of the Woodland Grant Scheme and the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme.

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For further information about aspen, please go to the Aspen Information Resource