Our first community woodland: High Wood, Liskeard
Our purpose is simple: we aim to reforest and rewild as much of the UK as possible, to help mitigate the climate crisis. We work with landowners, environmental and voluntary organisations, and the general public, to access land, plant trees, and monitor their development. We also acquire land of our own to rewild and protect indefinitely.
Luck and generosity of our donors has brought the beautiful High Wood, Liskead into our ownership, making us the perminent stewards of this amazing historic place. We thought it was about time we made our intentions clear for the project. After careful consideration, we’re finally ready to reveal our exciting reforestation plans, and what they mean for the public. Let's get into it.
It’s clear High Wood is an integral part of the Liskeard community, a place for serene dog walks, peaceful gatherings, and wildlife spotting, so we wanted to reassure you this will not change. Public access will stay a priority. The existing permissive footpaths will continue to be open, and we are seeing what we can do to restore some of the footpaths connecting to High Wood that have been closed over the decades.
This comes alongside plans to restore High Wood to its former glory as an ancient, temperate rainforest—a habitat that’s all too rare today. Based on advice from various ecologists and foresters we engaged for surveys, and a representative from the Woodland Trust who wanted to share a few thoughts, we have determined that this incredible site is about ready to bloom back into its former biodiverse glory. It's simply in need of a little help. We’ve got our top people on the job, and together with them we’ve been working out the best way to reinvigorate High Wood.
Right now, there are a few things holding this impressive woodland back from reaching its full potential as a carbon sequestering champ. The first and most simple change is to stop all future clearcutting, where huge swathes of trees had been removed outright. This has resulted in a dire loss of plant life and animal habitats. In order to restore the existing clear cutting, we’ll be replanting as much of the lost woodland as we can with locally sourced, native saplings. There is evidence of natural regeneration happening in these areas already, with hundreds of oak, hazel, ash, willow, and holly popping up out of the scarred landscape, but not enough to establish a canopy before the brambles take over and gum up the regeneration process for a few decades.
In other sections, the majestic Douglas firs have been planted so close together they’ve been causing each other trouble, and bullying some of the few Oaks in the woodland. Most will not grow to their full potential unless we split them up, but the rest will be given a stern talking to. They should fill out sideways after that, rather than all awkwardly reaching for the sky.
What’s more, there’s a distinct lack of undergrowth in some sections of High Wood, which needs addressing in order to encourage biodiversity. After all, what’s an ancient woodland without flourishing fern, moss, and lichen? There is evidence of this in the eastern edge where ferns and moss are growing all over the oaks, but we need this to spread throughout the site.
Sadly, the introduction of non-native conifers to a few areas has acidified a lot of the surrounding soil, and blocked a great deal of light from reaching the forest floor. While that’s given the place a beautifully haunting look, it’s desolate, and wildlife has nowhere to set up home. Some gradual thinning will be necessary in these sections so the dormant seeds in the earth will have a chance to sprout, and the soil should balance itself out, too.
Taking the approach of minimal natural regeneration means High Wood itself will take care of the rest over the coming decades, filling itself out and turning our nominal meddling into maximum propagation. Essentially, don’t panic if you see a couple of trees being felled here and there; all this tweaking will eventually work toward mitigating the biodiversity crisis, as well as the climate crisis, which is something Project Drawdown list as a huge source of carbon sequestration: Temperate Rainforest Restoration.
Protect Earth considers itself to be a steward of the land, and will not allow High Wood to be turned into anything other than a glorious woodland. We will do everything it takes to restore High Wood to its halcyon day splendour, while keeping public access and wildlife conservation at the heart of the project.
Happy trails,
The Protect Earth Team