Restoring and rewilding initiatives.
by The blog at woodlands.co.uk, 26 February, 2021, 0 comments
At the end of the last Ice Age, the British Isles were recolonised; plant and animal species from the continent moved across the 'land bridge’ (doggerland) that connected us to Europe. Trees, shrubs and plants began to move into the areas ‘released’ from the ice sheets, forests formed in many places. At first, the forests were largely coniferous and they extended across the north of the UK to swathes of Europe and Asia: they formed an enormous area of boreal coniferous forest. This vast array of trees provided shelter and food for a variety of animals - wolves, lynx, elk and many other species.
Since the Ice Age, forests and woodlands have been cut down for farming; trees felled for timber, sheep and deer ate young shoots and stopped native trees (like the Scots pine) from re-growing. Read more...
