140,000 trees to be felled on the moors

The above title to this post is premature and may be an underestimate of numbers. But they do say you should plan ahead.

To explain and offer musings consequent on this:-

I suppose you have all seen the headlines about planting 200,000 trees on species poor grassland on Yorkshire Water land at Gorpley Reservoir Todmorden. As usual, these reports are copied from one news media to another without giving a clear idea of what is to happen.

The Lancashire Telegraph may have a better handle on it when it says that an initial 3,000 trees will be planted at Gorpley to begin the exercise. Then it goes on to say the magic figure of 200,000 may eventually be planted across the wider South Pennines area.

But I am not sure that is true either. All media reports say there will be 3,000 trees planted per hectare, so has the Lancs Telegraph got confused and used that number as a total? Who knows.

What may be a better number to look at is the spacing of 2 metres between saplings which the 3,000 per hectare represents.

For sound woodland management, prevention of soil erosion and excess water run-off due to shading, 140,000 of these trees will have to be felled/coppiced in the early decades if the new woodlands are to function as intended.

I would suggest a plan to pollard some of the suitable species. They would resist the wind on these high grounds, would not get eaten by deer and more importantly--survive.