FiPL has supported a landowner to deliver activities including hedgelaying, coppicing and additional wildflower planting with the help of volunteers to manage woodlands for wildlife including the rare Duke of Burgundy Butterfly, and towards the purchase of capital items including a mobile saw mill in partnership with other woodland owners.
Bill Anderson’s woods are located in Hilfield and are part of the High Stoy Conservation Cluster. He runs ’Woodland Tuesday’ – a successful volunteer group who, alongside experienced contractors, manage the woods according to a woodland management plan based on Continuous Cover Forestry Principals. Together they “work to enjoy, enhance the biodiversity, maintain habitat and improve resilience of three areas of Dorset woodland” which includes habitat suitable for the rare Duke of Burgundy Butterfly which has its last remaining Dorset stronghold in the area. The group has run for around 10 years, and has a core of early-retired volunteers, but has expanded to include a more diverse group. FiPL funding was requested initially hedgelaying, hedge and hedgerow tree planting, and for a small amount of river, pond, and ground flora management, as well and a short length of track resurfacing.
Most woodlands within the High Stoy Conservation Cluster are small, usually less than 20 acres but are rich and diverse in their habitat. They are either undermanaged or are managed on a Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) or Irregular Forestry System. In order to support the sustainable management of these small woodlands owned by several different people, Bill also approached FiPL to support the purchase of a small mobile sawmill available within the cluster so that small numbers of trees can be turned into useful planks and sawn timber for sale of for projects on site economically. This sawmill would encourage sensitive management of some areas of neglected woodland leading to increased biodiversity.
As the project developed and further conversations were had with experts from Butterfly Conservation, additional works to open edge habitat for primrose establishment were agreed and added to the project plan (primrose is one of the key larval foodplants for Duke of Burgundy butterflies).
Bill wanted to maximise the nature benefits of his woodland holding, as well as showing how they can be managed sustainably creating valuable timber products. Investment in the volunteer group would help sustain this important wellbeing part of the management.
The project is running over three winters from 2022 to 2025. In the first year, volunteers were equipped with new hand tools, they laid 300m of hedge, and planted ground flora plugs. Contractors also coppiced bankside trees, hinged trees into the river and improved an access track. The sawmill was also purchased for use by applicant and by safe arrangement with others in the Cluster (this was funded at a 40% intervention rate). In the second year, another 153m of hedge was laid, thirty trees planted into the hedge laid in year 1, and volunteer coppicing days held. In the final winter, ‘scallops’ in the woodland edge will be created by a contractor, 148m of hedge and fourteen more hedgerow trees will be planted by the volunteers.
This project will deliver on three FiPL themes; Climate as the new hedges and trees store carbon, river works enhance natural flood management and increase resilience to climate change, Nature as the laid hedges, new hedges, coppiced hazel and enhanced woodland flora and edges all increase biodiversity including the targeted Duke of Burgundy butterfly, and People as more volunteering opportunities for people to experience the benefits of spending time in the protected landscape will be created.
The existing links between the applicant and other members of the cluster and local community were especially important in adding value to this project. The generosity of Butterfly Conservation to share their expertise and the enthusiasm and hard work of the volunteers were also invaluable. The volunteers shared about the mental and physical health benefits of being part of a group of men, and how important this was to their wellbeing.
It was important that FiPL were able to add to and vary the schedule for this project, eg adding in the additional woodland edge work, and moving hedgeplanting to the following season, so the ground could be prepared properly without the need for glyphosate use.