Trust’s trees hold promise for the future

Our trees will be surveyed across native woodlands, wood pastures, and parklands - these priority habitats have been identified in our recently published Plan for Nature. This plan provides a framework and focus for the Trust’s nature conservation efforts and includes our actions to care for our native woodlands and protect our ancient, veteran, and notable trees.

The survey work, made possible by funding from players of People’s Postcode Lottery, supports the project’s first phase to achieve the goals for ancient, veteran and notable trees highlighted in the plan. In addition to mapping the trees, the Trust aims to carry out remedial work to ensure their future condition while regenerating and protecting a new cohort of ancient trees to provide continuity of these important features for nature. The aim is to establish a future successor of each ancient, veteran and notable tree identified.

Alan Crawford, Senior Nature Conservation Officer, said: ’Ancient native woodlands and ancient and veteran trees are incredibly biodiverse habitats. They are irreplaceable and important for rare, threatened species, yet they are often fragmented, isolated and vulnerable. They are culturally iconic, places of beauty and inspiration, and a source of folklore and stories. They prevent soil erosion, improve water and air quality, help with flood control and help capture carbon from the environment, which is vital in our fight against climate change.

’Because of the types of places we care for, we have a huge responsibility towards ancient, veteran and notable trees. Unlike an ancient tree, which is a tree that is chronologically old for its species, a veteran tree need not be especially old, but it is a mature tree which, by virtue of the type of life it has lived, shows some ecological characteristics and similar features to those of ancient trees. A notable tree is not ancient or veteran yet but may be the oldest or tallest of its species in the locality, or it could be a tree associated with some cultural heritage, custom or folklore – a tree with a story, or it could be a tree that just catches your eye because of an unusual form.

’Some of these ancient veteran and notable trees are found on our extensive upland properties, within areas of native woodland or wood pasture, and in remote locations on crags and gullies. Some will be found in lowland properties on the grounds of castles and big houses, as part of designed landscapes, often in parkland settings, wood pastures, or tree-lined avenues.

’These trees can live for hundreds of years. They come in all shapes and sizes and are often described as ecosystems in their own right. Currently, we don’t know how many ancient, veteran or notable trees we have across our places, nor how they are distributed, and so the first part of the work to protect them will be to survey and record each of these trees or groups of trees across our estate.’