22 years after "the great storm"

[robin wood]

In 1987 the most powerful storm in 200 years hit Southern England uprooting millions of trees. The following year I got a job as a National Trust Warden clearing and replanting the storm damaged woodlands at Toy's Hill the property at the epicentre of the storm where 95% of the trees were flattened. Last weekend I took the opportunity to visit Toy's Hill and see how it had changed. Toy's Hill covers about 450 acres most of the area was cleared using tractors, bulldozers and huge bonfires that burned for weeks on end. Afterwards the bare scraped soil was replanted with a mixture of oak and beech but it also was thickly covered the next year in birch seedlings. Those seedlings are now 21 years old.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/thewoods_album/IMG_9466.jpg
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/thewoods_album/IMG_9470.jpg

This area is now pretty much like any other 20 year old secondary woodland growing on a heathland site, a not uncommon and not tremendously diverse habitat.The most interesting area though is the 50 acres which was left as a "non intervention zone"
Here just a few yards from the main footpath and 20 miles from central London it is possible to get a true sense of exploration and it is a very interesting woodland.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/thewoods_album/IMG_9478-1.jpg
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/thewoods_album/IMG_9512.jpg

More pics and discusion on my blog here http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2009/09/20-years-after-great-storm.html

[BOD]

You make the point well in your blog.

I find the whole idea of "management" of natural resources, apart from managing to reduce human intervention as much as possible, to be quite hubristic.

The world did quite well for millions of years without us.

Why do be believe that we can make a difference in any way other than causing harm?

[jojo]

You make the point well in your blog.

I find the whole idea of "management" of natural resources, apart from managing to reduce human intervention as much as possible, to be quite hubristic.

The world did quite well for millions of years without us.

Why do be believe that we can make a difference in any way other than causing harm?

Well said BOD.

That old woodland looks wonderful Robin. It just shows that nature can and does recover quite well without us meddling.

Sadly, we just can't leave well alone, can we. Most of modern western cultures appear to be so full of its own self importance that we really believe we "improve" anything we touch. As one of journalist's favourite jingle goes every time something horrible has happened: Will "lessons be learned to ensure this can never happen again"? Probably not. Then there is money..

[BigShot]

I think we can make a difference when we've already screwed things up, for example keeping herbivore populations from exploding by taking the place of all the apex predators we killed off ages ago.
Though I'd rater we just re-introduced and had done with it.

Brilliant post, Robin.
I was especially interested to read about the heckling, dog walkers cutting fences and going ahead with a plan known to be second best because that's what had been announced. Those three points probably sum up our species rather well.