Original natural woodland

Abstract

Millenia of forest clearance, exploitation and management have apparently left Britain without any truly natural woodland. If, contrary to belief, some natural woodland does survive, it is likely to be small and to be confined to remote sites such as ravines, and so to be hardly representative of British woods as a whole. Furthermore, such woodland could not be proved to be natural, but only assumed to be so in the absence of contrary evidence. Nevertheless, the lost primaeval, natural woodlands which once covered most of Britain are not just a tantalising and fascinating subject for ecological historians, but are important as the sources of much of Britain’s native fauna and flora, as the direct antecedents of some existing woodlands, and as the yardsticks — or controls in the scientific sense — which enable us to discover how much we have modified our natural environment.