Forestry Now

Dermot McNally (00:01.784)
Welcome to Forestry Now, where we explore the forces impacting profitable and sustainable management of commercial forests and natural woodlands. I'm Dermot McNally. Today I speak with experienced ecologist Dr. Kate Harrington about a recently published research into native woodlands, primarily planted in the last 20 years. Now we know that native woodlands benefit nature, but today Kate and I discuss exactly what that looks like in these forests. Kate carried out extensive field research.

Which revealed subtle but critical changes to specific pollinator species and other indicators as the woodlands aged. We speak a little about the where and the why these forests were planted, about how they interact with the farming landscapes they often exist in, about the edge effect, and we also touch on a few simple measures a forest owner can take to maximize enjoyment and nature enhancement. So let's get stuck in. Okay.

Welcome, Kate, and thanks for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dermis. Happy to be here. Could you start off by introducing yourself and tell us how you ended up leaving your professional career as a as an ecologist to do a PhD? So yeah, I'd worked for an ecologist for for a number of years. originally did a degree in zoology and sort of had gone into research then, straight out of that. There were there weren't that many ecology jobs at the time. Then I ended up going into ecological consultancy, sort of

great, learnt an awful lot, and ultimately ended up in Irish Water. And so look, had a grand career, was very happy with life. But I did have sort of always have this like, maybe I should have done a PhD. And it was sort of always in me and I was always kind of kind of keeping an eye out on on different ads and and wondering, maybe maybe I could do that. But but you know just life circumstances just wasn't possible. And then I did see this PhD advertise I ultimately ended up doing. And my first instinct was

somebody should do that. That that, you know, that needs to be done. Because it was looking, you know, the the original title was the ecological value and ecosystem services of these new native woodlands. And, you know, throughout my consulting work and and and other work, I I was always sort of recommending, okay, plant native trees, plant native trees. And, you know, they're they're sort of seen as this solution for climate and biodiversity and the community groups of planting them was just like native trees everywhere. So, but you know, there wasn't any

Dermot McNally (02:29.202)
really substantial evidence that they were sort of doing what they're supposed to do. So so yeah, that was I saw it advertised and thought someone should do that. And it was only a few weeks later that I kind of reflected on my life and thought, actually maybe I could apply for this. So that's where yeah. So I ended up there. That was the road. Yeah. It did need to be done and you've done a good job. I think we're we intuitively know that native species are what we need, but it's good to have evidence. So

Then what was the doctoral research actually focused on? And as you say, why was it necessary? I was given quite a broad slate, I suppose, to decide what direction to take it. And as I was saying there, you know, I I could see that there wasn't any sort of formal monitoring of these sites and that had been planted under the native woodland scheme. It had been up and running about 20 years. So I thought, well, that's that's a good starting point, is is to get out into some of these sites. They're all privately owned. So

You know, they're not readily accessible, which is perhaps why there hasn't been any kind of major studies on them. So yeah, so that was sort of the initial thought was that well, it just let's let's find them, get out into them, see where they're being planted, get the sort of initial data in terms of you know what's growing, the sort of woodland structure, you know. and and the idea was to get a kind of a selection of of ages and of planting types and different soil types.

And yeah, try and just build up a nice data set and sort of see what it could tell us. And then there's a sort of secondary thought then was like, okay, let's look at something else other than the sort of the plants and the trees and see what's happening in terms of a s a sort of a species indicator, because particularly where you've got these plantations being you sort of put in for like biodiversity net gain and things like that, you know, that they're

There's monitoring programs built around those, and they're looking to monitor more than just the vegetation. You know, sometimes they're using remote sensing and other, you know, birds and other indicators. So there's this kind of need for like, well, what other indicators make sense for these forests when you're when you're monitoring them from like nothing, like little sticks in the ground to like a full woodland? Because, you know, forest indicators, the traditional forest indicators are, you know, like mosses and and

Dermot McNally (04:52.738)
deadwood and things like that, which you're not you're not going to find in these young forests. So yeah, that was a sort of a a secondary plan then was to to look at some species indicators as well. So in effect you needed to frame what exactly you were going to look for and record so as to be able to have some record of what was actually happening. Yeah. Like you sort of had to sort of design instructor study so it would tell you what you wanted it to tell you. Because I mean what became abundantly obvious as soon as I walked into these sites is there's so many

So many variables, so many factors. You know, you've got what's going on in the surrounding firm, you've got the history of any one field is like, you know, you talk to the farmers and they were like, Well, we did this and then we did that. And, you know, then there's what the father did, what their father's father did. And so like trying to capture all of that was quite difficult. So we sort of had to pare it down a little bit and and sort of broadly lump things into some categories and sort of, yeah, refine some of the site selection a little bit so that we had

we had something meaningful that we could kind of actually do some stats and analyse and come up and say something meaningful from it. Like there's a lot, a lot of diversity out there. Yeah. Okay. Well maybe then we should talk about the type of forests you visited. We know they were native woodlands, but how'd you select them and what age were they were and maybe how how big they were or how small that they were. I initially I got the sort of spatial data set from the Forest Service. They were happily gave me that very readily.

So I could see, you know, when I kind of layered in other things in the GIS, I could see what soils they are on. And that had a list of like the proportions of the different trees that were planted. So I could select on that basis to get a kind of spread of different mixes of forest. But pr predominantly they were like either kind of dominated by sessile oak, peduncledogue, and ash, but obviously less ash then after the whole dieback thing kind of transpired.

And alder or sort of willow wet wetter woodlands. So they were sort of the three broadest groupings, which largely reflected three of the main kind of scenarios that are planted under the native woodland framework. Yeah. And then in terms of ages, like I mean, the scheme has been up and running now 25 years, but at that time it was just over 20 years. So I had sites that were sort of like two, three years old, and then sites that were 20 years old, and I had this time series then, which

Dermot McNally (07:16.812)
made up for the fact that I couldn't like track any one site over multiple years because that you know the PhD timeframe just doesn't allow for that. I mean, that's your ideal, that's your gold standard, that you'd have, you know, long term monitoring of individual sites. Whereas in this case, I kind of had to take this time series. But if you can get enough sites in that, get to enough sites over the over a period and and have enough sites, then then that sort of works as well. And it's quite a common tool used in ecology.

Especially for woodlands, which sort of takes so long to mature. So so yeah, so the the species, the soils I had from the database. And yeah, I basically kind of limited myself to the eastern midlands of Ireland. I had thought, can I get to other areas? But, you know, at the end of the day, I was just one person. And I, you know, you always start off with great ambitions, but I had to kind of bear it back when I kind of realized the real you know, the reality of getting around all these sites. So but I had a nice spread of sites within the eastern midlands and I had a nice

a kind of landscape gradient kind of going from the sort of lowland areas up into like the sleeve blooms a bit or the cumrers or the w Wicklow Mountains as well. So so that kind of gave me a good spread of different planting types and different soil types and different ages. And then the Forest Service, they had to go ring people because of GGBR like they couldn't just hand me their the names and numbers. So

I sort of gave them this big long list and it wasn't in any particular order and they just kind of went down from top to bottom. So in that sense, it was fairly random in that I think they had somebody sit down for a day and just ring a load of people. And that's I got about 20, 30 sites from that, but they weren't selecting them in any way other than the list I had given them. So it was it was pretty I got a pretty random selection from that. And then additionally, I had contacted various foresters who were involved in the native woodland scheme.

And so yeah, a lot of them were were super helpful and gave me kind of contact details and and asked landowners it would be okay if I could survey their site. So I got another sort of tranch through that. And then people just heard about it and people told their friends and yeah, those lots of people contacted me separately going, please come serve my woodland. So that was nice. Kate, did you did you hit the issue that you probably often met

Dermot McNally (09:37.622)
As an ecologist, that you go out to a site, you know the forest is there, but you can't get in. I mean it's overgrown, it's brambles. And I I remember bringing friends of mine out with me to to different forests and I think they were expecting to see a path in. It was that part of the battle to actually get into some of these? yeah, yeah. And that was I was annoyed myself that hadn't kind of caught that really, you know, because I thought just, you know, in my head, I'm like, we went into woodlands, but of course I wasn't. I was going into like thickets and brambles and

you know, the branches are very often just at the right s size that they slap you in the face. So it was hard going. And yeah, you got to a few sites. and it depended on the landowner and how how much they cared about it and how how, you know, involved they were. But yeah, there was a few sites where they're like, You're not going in there, are you? And, you know, I I kind of got better as I went along about

you know, s I at the start I'd see a sort of an impenetrable wall of bramble and I'd be like, God, no, I can't get in there. But by the end I was just like walking through it. Very good. Very good. So yeah, yeah. No, that was tricky, particularly that kind of middle aged, you know, in in I suppose if they're between two and twenty years old, those kind of eight to twelve year old woodlands before the canopies started to form, they were they were tricky to get around. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, slash hook is essential equipment for for every ecologist. I know, and then when you're yeah, you don't want to actually disturb the nature trying to record as well. So it's tricky. Okay. So now another part of that question, and these are kind of side questions, but it's helping us to paint a picture where you were. We know that traditionally in Ireland, landowners are were often encouraged to plant forestry on the marginal parts of their holdings, areas or fields that were hardest to farm. And

This was very much the case for conifer plantations. But on the other side of that, we know ecologists and you you would often you'd probably have seen it yourself that these less intensively farmed areas are often the richest in terms of biodiversity. Did you notice this pattern in the native woodlands that they tended to be planted on the inverticoma's worst part of the ground? Yeah, no, not exclusively, but that was certainly the case, you know, where it was the rocky place or

Dermot McNally (11:54.56)
It was slopey and or poorly drained, or you know, it was fields that were always a bit problematic and on the edge of the farm or running down to the river or something like that. It was often those places. And, you know, on more than one occasion it was referred to as like the bad field. And yeah, as you say, like from an ecological point of view, they're the first places you look yotid, you know, and that's where all the nice things are hiding. So yeah, it was it was interesting, but you know, you could see

They had struggled to farm them and they were trying to farm them because at least at that time the the way the calf payments were structured, you know, they they were being penalized for not farming them. So it was an ongoing struggle. So I mean, certainly I'd think at the time they were planted, a lot of these sites weren't obviously anything special. I think the fencing them out and, you know, as the trees are put in and maybe some of the ground disturbance associated with the tree planting, I felt like there was a probably a flush of of

you know, nice plants that would in the early stages would sometimes come through. Whether they were there beforehand, I I just don't know. You know, I mean, certainly that you you could see in the the the nature of the grasses and the plants that were there, the potential for it should should have been kind of clear in some cases. But but whether the kind of initial people who walked the ground, you know, came across anything interesting or nice, it's it's probably less likely. Yeah. But it does point to

you know, different conservation objectives. And, you know, what what should anyone feel being, you know, if you're going to give it to nature, you know, should it be a meadow or wetland or a a woodland? You know, it's it's it raises that question. Yeah, yeah. And I I suppose then if someone is planting primarily for nature and they're continuing to farm, perhaps there's an argument that they should be planting an intensively managed area of the farm as opposed to

planting species rich grassland or or or less intensively managed areas. Yeah, and look, the the safeguards are there in in most cases that, you know, it it shouldn't really end up on on species rich grassland, these plantations. I mean, that's that's part of the kind of due diligence that's done at the start. But I think, you know, it ca it can be hard to judge that. And it can certainly be when when a field is very closely grazed or it's gone rank one way or another. Like it it

Dermot McNally (14:22.154)
you know, it's kind of transitioning a little bit. It can be hard to judge what the potential habitat could be. I think people will just judge it based on what they see on the ground and that and that's fair. But yeah, yeah, no, that's it's certainly certainly a challenge. I think putting yeah, putting the these trees on the more intensively farmed areas in terms of overall net gain in the long term, that that makes more sense. But you know

financially, socially, culturally, that's a different challenge completely, you know. Let's talk a little bit about the landowners themselves. You didn't meet all the landowners by virtue of the way this was structured and and your sampling kinds. But those you did meet, can you tell us a little bit about them? Were they still farming and what were their motivations for planting? Native woodlands in particular? Yeah, it varied a lot. I mean and

Yeah, I loved meeting the landowners. It was it was it gave you so much, you know, you just got such richer information, just context and yeah, a lot of them were like really into biodiversity and nature and trees, and you know, they're availing of other grants and schemes as well. You know, they were monitoring things in their farm and and that that it was lovely to meet them because you know we could just go on a real buzz together about about nature and biodiversity. But yeah, they were s a sort of a subset.

There were others who you know, like were more, I suppose, traditional farmers, I suppose, where where, like you said, that that, you know, we talked about the bad field was was put in it. To varying degrees they they would have favoured or not favoured woodland, you know, they would, you know, some obviously it was like just the last resort and the most sensible thing to do with the land in terms of finances. There was a set who were I but had more seemed to have more of a history of of having a woodland on the farm and more

knowledge of how to manage it. And they'd often have a native woodland, but other working woodlands as well. And also like a history in the family of like you know, how you use trees on a farm, you know, like the native that the the hazel rods or the fence for fencing or sticks for moving cows about or what what trees might make furniture or cart or something like that. You know, so that was

Dermot McNally (16:39.096)
That was really interesting to me because I felt like you know that that's how it should be. You know, we should have our working wood on a farm. And there's no reason why that can't be a native woodland. And then there was a set of more elderly farmers who were doing it because of just the the strain of managing a farm, maybe didn't have somebody to hand it over to to varying degrees. Sometimes there's a few feels, sometimes it seemed to be almost the whole estate. And

Yeah, you know, or you know, or wanted to maybe leave like a legacy for nature as well. That was another sort of driver. Yeah, but but yeah, some of them were like had never set foot on on on the site, you know, they were like yeah, like that guy was like, I I can't believe you want to go down there. and then others were were, you know, had built some put some paths around the place and and were sort of just in it all the time and loving it. So it was a real spectrum. Yeah. Well, let's move into the body of the research itself. So

Can you explain how you approach the measurement of biodiversity in the woodlands and the changes to it over time then? Yeah, so like I said at the start, I was, you know, sort of my primary initial kind of survey plan was to was to look at the vegetation and the structure of that. So that was a key part of it, like looking at the you know, the different woodland species, the whole composition, you know, and then then non-floor aspects like you

sort of dead wood and litter and the different layers in the forest and how much there was in terms of shrubs and ground floor and mosses and that kind of thing. So that was sort of the the first year of of surveying where sort of going around. And it was just like a one-off survey and I followed the methods that had been used in other forest surveys in Ireland. So there were there were sort of series of projects going back maybe 20 years, 15, 20 years that looked at other

Of woodland plantations and I use the same methodology. So they were tried and tested. And then as I mentioned, I wanted to look at a faunal indicator. So I chose pollinators. Now I was sitting in Jane Stout's research group and she's the kind of queen bee of the all-oldering pollinator plant. So there was a bit of pollinator propaganda going on, but but also both you know native woodland expansion and pollinator protection restoration is all part of this sort of our nature restoration.

Dermot McNally (18:59.15)
plan ambitions. So it made sense to kind of, I thought, to look at the two together and look at any conflicts or synergies there. So so yeah, that was another reason for choosing pollinators. Other frequently chosen groups are like birds and and beetles and things like that. But there was sort of more of a research grap with the pollinators. So so yeah, with the pollinators then that was a second year survey and it was you need to monitor them across the whole season. So I had to take a subset of sites.

And then repeat visits over time. So you get the kind of the full season and repeat measurements. So tell us about the pollinators you found then, because they there was interesting variation and interesting story to tell there, I suppose. Yeah. So I was looking at bees and hoverflies, and I had a kind of side question on this. You know, I was interested in just seeing how

woodlands changed over time in terms of the community and the the abundance and and the species richness or the numbers of species. But I was also interested in, you know, the monitoring, you know, the different metrics you use and and how that might relate to kind of monitoring any one site in the future over time, going back to this idea of like, you know, a biodiversity in a game project or something like that. So and and of the bees and harbour flies, then which would be, you know, are they both good indicators or neither of them or is one of them better? So

Yeah, so like in terms of the community itself, you could see a kind of drop-off in grassland specialist species. You could see also sort of drop-off in numbers and species richness in the kind of center of the woodland. So this is as the kind of across that time series. But then you did see the kind of the not moving as kind of moving to the edges of of the woodland. And there you had a kind of uptick in floral resources. So

More of more flowers. Now, not necessarily more species, but certainly if you think about these woodland edges, the they tend to plant flowering trees. So willows and apples and cherries and things like that and hawthorn. So they were all planted on the edge of the woodland. And then at the same time, you typically these were in a field, so you'd have a hedgerow that was sort of left unmanaged and an edge that was left unmanaged that would expand out.

Dermot McNally (21:16.758)
In terms of those kind of shrubs. So there's lot of more shrubby species, but turned out they were really nice places for sort of pollinators and you know, great food and pollen resources there for them along these woodland edges. So now if you think how it would age over time, you might lose those areas as as a kind of, you know, the the the hedgerow can run into the edge of the woodland essentially. But at least in these kind of interim phases, there's a real

flush of resources there for pollinators around the woodland edges. And then over time you would expect within the woodland itself that other resources become available for pollinators. There's a lot of research pointing to even like wind flow wind pollinated trees, so oaks and sycamores and things, that that a lot of bees will forage up in the canopies on on the on that pollen because it's of kind of very high nutrient value. And then

within the wood itself, you know, the dead wood habitats, the old wood, there's a whole suite of specialist pollinators that starts to emerge there. Now I didn't get, I didn't look at those that KJ age of woodland, but that's the trajectory you would expect. And then in terms of the bees versus the hoverflies, the the research pointed to the bees sort of tracking alongside that time series, alongside woodland age, you could see that relationship quite clearly with the community as a whole shifting.

As the woodland ages, whereas the hoverflies didn't. Now they were still responded to all the flowers that were out there. But that we can explain because it relates to like the their sort of how they their life strategies. Like a bee has a nest and a kind of a forages around a zone around that. So they're called central place foragers. Yeah, the chances are the bees that were in these woodlands are are, you know, nesting nearby or even in the woodland.

Or even these scrubby edges, whereas hoverflies can kind of don't have a central nest, so they can kind of come in from everywhere. So it just the conclusion was look, if you're going to monitor either one of these things over time, you know, as part of a sort of suite of woodland species, you know, monitoring this shift from from a kind of a grassland almost to a woodland community over time, that the bees are are better indicator to use.

Dermot McNally (23:38.914)
This podcast is kindly supported by the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. If you're thinking of planting a new forest or keen to access information on financial and technical supports to manage your existing forest, then go to gov.ie forward slash forestry for you. I'll include that link and other critical details about the guest and this topic in the show notes. Now, back to the chat.

So what you're saying there is that the bee numbers increased more as the woodland got a little bit older and then the hoverflies had maybe less resources or less area that suited them and their numbers declined, or how how was that? It wasn't so much in the overall numbers, it was more in the the kind of in their their sort of identity like the kind of individual species. So the the the kind of suite of species was changing in terms of the bee community in response to

How the woodland was aging, whereas it wasn't related. There wasn't that relationship there with the hoverflies. So different bees started to appear, is that it? Yes, different bees were appeared. Some bees were leaving and some new bees were arriving, basically. And then with the pollinators that are the the hoverflies, that wasn't happening. but they were changing in response to more landscape-level variables. So we looked at like the around the woodlands, we looked at the kind of composition of the landscape.

And the hoverflies were more associated with that. So it's yeah, so it's it's it's not that they weren't all using the edges and and and they were similarly reacting to the sort of loss of follow-aging resources within the the middle of the sites. But it more comes down if you're going to pick one to kind of monitor woodland over time as as as to reflect that change, then the bees made were were the better indicator to use.

Yeah, because if you're say I went out to look at five woodlands and my time is precious, what you're saying is that they if you focused on the woodlands, they might give you a very good quick grasp of what's happening at that age and how developed it is. Is that kind of Yeah, if you were to track it over time, I think it it would be better to track the bee community. And they're probably a little bit more accessible in terms of actually seeing them and catching them and monitoring them as well. Now you've got your

Dermot McNally (26:03.448)
Bumblebees, obviously, which are nice and obvious, but also the solitary bees were were important as well. And particularly in the springtime, where there's not there's not so many flowers in the in the kind of wider landscape, these woodlands, because you had all those spring flowering trees along the edge, particularly the likes of willow and hawthorn, but there there was a lot of activity in terms of the then yeah, we were getting a lot of

Salitary bees at that time of year. So yeah, there's a sort of seasonal benefit to these woodlands as well. What was the youngest plantation you were in? Were were there many of them in the less than six years old? Because on a native woodland, it may have been planted on ground that resembled the field next door. But when it is planted, the gate is closed and there are no more grazing animals or there's no more topping. So is there a massive then change in the ground flora for those initial couple of years? Yeah, I think.

It it sort of depends on the site and as a bit of how fertile the soil is kind of would play into it as well. But and and we didn't have that kind of like this was the site the forehand reference point because I don't even know how you'd start choosing that. You know, it was it was quite tricky. And yeah, it just came down to time and effort as well and and the amount of resources we had. But yeah, I know exactly I I

think you fence things off, you know, you the the the vegetation starts to change of its own accord anyway. Now there often has been a bit of ground disturbance, but like you say, then the the if the fence is up and grazed are kind of sufficiently kept out, yeah, you you can see a nice sort of meadow developing alongside the native trees. So, you know, and and and in and of itself, that's, you know, a wonderful thing to have in a landscape, I suppose. You know, we tend to think about these

woodlands as the end point of the woodland. But in fact, if you look across all the ages, the the at every stage there's a nice benefit for nature. You know, at the start it might be this flush of a meadow. Even in those sort of thickety stages, like and you know, you think, gosh, well that the species diversity is dropping off and it doesn't look as nice here and the grass has gone all thatchy. You know, that that's where the bees nest, you know what I mean? So and that's where you have your small mammals and your birds. So

Dermot McNally (28:24.182)
You know, that's the benefit at that stage. And then later on, then you get the kind of woodland species coming in. So at each stage, you know, and if you have across, think of across the whole landscape, you have woodlands being, you know, at ever at every point in in this kind of journey, then then you're getting benefits every point in that journey. It's just no one site will have all the benefits for every type of nature.

kind of feature. Yeah. Yeah. So each age has its own particular peculiarities that that benefit nature in a slightly different way. And it will change. Yeah. And it will change over time. So Kate, we you mentioned edge areas then. And these often tend to be areas maybe that are setbacks of rivers or setbacks of of hedges. And so just remind us again, why do they matter so much in some of these forests? I think I suppose

There's a lot of opportunity in in these edge areas and and there's different ways it could go in any one forest. And also I suppose in any one in any one edge, like there's lots of edges on a forest. And I don't know that there's there's one way that's this necessarily the best. Like, I mean, you could allow your hedge to just run into your forest completely, which would expand the overall extent of the forest, which is, you know, can be a positive thing. a lot of

owners were sort of maintaining a path around the edge and that can, you know, if they maintain it it's sort of like once a year, it's sort of like a meadow meadow managed feature then. And and you get this sort of nice meadow strip and you you kind of get a, you know, these important habitats for for pollinators, particularly in the spring, that's, you know, is especially beneficial. But likewise, even those sort of thatchy, scrubby edges, you you can, you know, there there's still gonna there's gonna be nesting places for bees there and

And birds and and you know, they have they have a benefit as well. So I think if it was me in my first, I'd like to maybe do a little bit of everything, you know, just kind of maintain a diversity. Certainly it's nice to have the sort of the path for access and and maintenance. yeah, you get this nice sort of little meadow as well alongside it, you know. So so there's kind of dual benefits to that. But it depends what the ground is like and what

Dermot McNally (30:46.658)
what's what's in the adjacent land. Like if you're sort of putting your woodland adjacent to another woodland, it makes more sense to to kind of run them into each other, I suppose, and and have that broad bigger extent of habitat. And so it'll be quite site specific, I think, as to what makes sense. And I I would hope that the scheme, you know, the scheme continues to allow for some flexibility there for the f the forester to sort of judge it together with the landowner and and think practically about okay, what's this going to look like in the future and how are we going to manage it? And where do we need a path?

And, you know, what what's the conservation objective more broadly here at at the farm scale? You also mentioned observations around natural colonization. Now we know that brambles moved in and we know that the ground floor had changed. What else happened in terms of colonization of the the forestry side? Yeah, so as the the kind of forest age you did notice a sort of increase in, you know, tree saplings coming in that weren't were obviously not kind of part of the initial

planting, you know, most of these sites were agricultural grasslands in advance of being planted. And so, you know, it's not like something's regenerating from the soil seed bank or it's unlikely. So, and they were very often you could see the hedro and and they were kind of at sort of, you know, marching in from there effectively. So yeah, particularly in the more more fertile sites, that was the pattern. It was sort of coming in from the hedgerow.

And you know, they're we're being protected from grazers in most parts of these these trees are getting a chance to establish whereas in, you know, a lot of other places they they wouldn't. so that was nice to see because it sort of says, well, it's not just about tree planting or or versus rewilding that you can kind of facilitate the sort of natural colonization, but you know, give these sites a head start and particularly where their seed resources aren't available in the wider landscape. I think that's important. But

it doesn't exclude, you know, this sort of process happening either. So that was nice to see. And then there were certain parts, you know, particularly the more sort of uplandy areas of sort of poorer soils up in in Wicklow in particular, where by you'd get a lot of a lot of birch coming in.

Dermot McNally (33:01.578)
mature birch trees nearby, particularly, you know, you you could nearly argue that a fence would be adequate there and maybe you come back in five years or ten years and manage it in interplant or, you know, I mean forester, I suppose, would would have a view on how exactly that's done. But it struck me that yeah, you a lower level of initial planting was probably adequate in certain circumstances. But yeah, that was

That was less so in the more intensively managed sort of landscape areas. Do we know anything just from a historical point of view? Do we know much about the provenance or are we just guaranteed that these were native provenance were available? Would that be As far as I understand it? That's there's yeah, they're supposed to be native provenance species. And then obviously the nursery stock has kind of varied over time, and I think it's been

been a challenge with the the licensing process as well, whereby, you know, there's been various gaps where there hasn't the the foresters haven't been able to plant. So then the nurseries kind of find that hard to keep up with. And and you know, I I'm not anywhere expert on any of that, but I I think it's been it's been a challenge to keep the stock and then sometimes they've had to kind of swap in other trees. But but yeah, I think the the provenance is is certainly important.

Now you could start thinking about you start thinking about adapting to climate change and future climates. There's a whole conversation to be had there about, you know, looking at that. But as I understand it, yeah, the the sort of forest research teams are are sort of considering that sort of thing as well, you know, future resilience to future climate and drought. And as we've seen the last few months, it's it's becoming more and more of a thing. Yeah, yeah. No, it is.

Just when you say that, it makes me think that I I often hear this talk of climate ad adaptation in new planting, and it tends to be more typically focused on timber species, ter trees that are going to be grown for timber. I'm not sure what's happening with native provenances because either we're planting native provenances or we're not. And and maybe the provenances we need to be thinking about are Hawthorne from the south.

Dermot McNally (35:20.704)
East of England. I'm just gonna make up something southwest of England. But but that doesn't fit our our category. So I mean, look at it's an unanswered question, but perhaps there there could be something to that. Possibly. I I think we should certainly be sort of trialing these things at the very least, I would think. And and maybe maybe they are. But yeah, you kind of think about like trees from France or wherever might do a little bit better than others, you know, it's it's it's hard to know. But

Yeah, the like the like climate change is moving faster than than these sort of forests will grow and adjust by themselves. So there's a a sensible degree of intervention that's that's likely needed to at least start trialing things and understanding the benefits and risks. We were speaking about the surrounding landscape and how what you initially find in the forest can often be representative, at least in the earlier years.

what's in the surrounding areas. But have you seen other other ideas or things at home or abroad that might bring even greater landscape benefits to the good work that many landowners are are doing? Because at the minute, you know, these are pockets. They're quite often just pockets of forestry in a landscape, especially in eastern part of Ireland, they're pockets of forestry in in a in a landscape of agriculturally farmed land in that sense. Is there is there other things we should be doing to

make more of what we're doing in that regard? Yeah, yeah. Like I mean, there's already some good stuff being done. I think if you think about the the Woodlands for water scheme, like that whole idea of spatially targeting forestries and and and and or or these native woodlands and making sure that it's some sort of additional incentive for putting them in sort of sensible areas. So in that case for for water quality and nutrients, if you expand that idea like that's

Essentially what you know you get if you're thinking about sort of a more strategic approach nationally. Like in the UK, they've been do they've been kind of mapping out like nature recovery networks. And the idea being that, you know, you have your kind of core conservation areas, you identify buffer zones around those, you identify corridors and stepping stones between kind of different core areas and

Dermot McNally (37:43.446)
You know, you you you sort of put this in a sort of almost like a zone-based map. And then, you know, like you're you you would you could then target incentives to particular woodlands in particular areas. So maybe, yeah, maybe this it they get a little bit more if they do a particular preferred woodland in a certain buffer zone close to say Klorani National Park or something like that. So yeah, you're thinking about it strategically and you're guiding really guiding it for for like both the public and and private sector.

You know, to sort of think about what we should what should we be putting where. And it's it doesn't need to be limited to woodland. Obviously, you know, that could be, you know, same principle would be applied then if you're talking about species rich grasslands or wetlands or, you know, peatland conservation or restoration. You know, having having some sort of overarching framework for all of that, I think makes a whole heap of sense. And then having an incentive tied to what you want where as well makes a lot of sense. And

It's all been done in a sort of piecemeal way through the life schemes and the EIP schemes and the sort of woodland to water. But it would be nice to see a kind of more overarching strategy around it all. And it would give it more of a sense of like, this is for the long term, you know, this is this is how we're going to restore biodiversity in Ireland. And yeah, it would it would it would be nice to see that kind of permanence because I think all these little piecemeal schemes, they come and go and

It just leaves people not really trusting. And yeah, I suppose, you know, there's a lot of farmers who've experienced of of of various schemes and and they drop off after five years and and they're left with nothing. And, you know, they may have really wanted to keep going with it, but the money wasn't there. So so yeah, I think that's that's would be the the way to go. And hopefully the nature restoration plan will start sort of taking us in that direction. Let's talk about that then and maybe

Maybe you can say something to what your research might help in terms of the nature restoration and how it's measured the impact of what actually happens are measured then. Yeah. So yeah, I suppose we set out the start with it with it in mind in that, you know, it's a massive there's massive woodland planting targets, including increasing proportions of native woodland. And that's all kind of called out in in the nature restoration laws required and out in nature restoration plan as well.

Dermot McNally (40:08.512)
So so yeah, it's very direct tie there in terms of are these woodlands the right thing to be doing for nature and are they sort of reaching their their goal habitats because they're they were you know, the scheme has been designed based on the the soils and and the planting mix to target our native woodland tradition our our typical native woodland habitats. And yeah, the the evidence I found sort of suggests that they're they're certainly going in the right direction and

you know, that the signs are positive, you know, that there's more woodland species coming through, that the community is starting to align with the communities that those that they're targeting, that there's some, you know, natural colonization and that there's structur the structural diversity is all increasing. So so yeah, I think it's it's sort of a positive news story in terms of of meeting those nature restoration goals through planting native woodland.

And then additionally, there's targets with the nature within the nature restoration law and plan for restoring and protecting pollinators as well. And while our study sort of, you know, highlights a sort of somewhat of a of a trade-off in terms of pollinator abundance, perhaps, you know, it also points to actually you know, you look at these edges. And again, the scheme is designed such to to plant these these pollination friendly trees around the edges.

And if you think about it in the longer term, you're going to get, you know, your woodland pollinators coming in and you've got your spring foraging there. And, you know, it it it's generally also if they're put in the right place and you're not offsetting a species rich grassland, these are are general positive things to have in our landscape for pollinators and and particularly in that sort of middle middle stage where it's not a grassland, it's not a woodland, but it's still providing a benefit.

Kate, you mentioned that I think you said something that you know, if you had your own woodland you might approach or do certain things. Maybe you'd you'd speak a little bit about that because you were in you've probably been in more native woodlands than most ordinary people and and nearly as many or more than a lot of foresters. So if you had your own woodland of let's pick an age ten years old, what would you be trying to do physically yourself to enjoy that and maybe to

Dermot McNally (42:27.342)
to improve the the biodiversity capacity of that land, that forest? Yeah, well, you know, there's an element of once once you put a fence up around these places, it sort of nature finds its way, you know, and wouldn't be heavy in terms of intervention. One of the nicest sites I know is is near me, actually. And what happened there was I think about eight years in, they had ash and they took it out because of the dieback. And then they replanted. And there's a lovely

already a kind of a nice mixed age structure. And I don't know that the scheme necessarily allows for that, but a sort of a phased planting earlier on kind of makes sense to me. You know, it sort of seems to more kind of reflect what happens in nature. But whether yeah, I don't know whether that's that's feasible or not. But yeah, it it did create a really nice site where you had some areas that were closed, other areas that were a bit mixed and other areas that were open. Yeah, introducing any sort of wetland feature pond into a site, I think, is well just

You get an immediate shift there in terms of the species that are using that area. Like it just it's a step change in terms of yeah, different communities. so that would be be lovely to see as well in my perfect woodland. But I'll have to just make do at my suburban back garden for now. Okay. And and obviously the pathway and access, simple and all as it might be, that that's pretty critical, I I suppose. Yeah, yeah. I think so. To enjoy it and to help.

access it and just mind it and and for for everyone to come along and be able to see what's happening and you know, are deer getting in, are invasive species getting in, are the the trees okay? Like, you know, I think I think that that's that's quite critical. And, you know, it it did strike me that a lot of these landowners who maybe aren't so into biodiversity could really do with a bit more help in that regard, you know, they're they're

you the the foresters involved up to like five years and then it sort of hands over to landowner to kind of instigate, it seemed to me anyway, to instigate anything into the future. And and you know, some of them had trouble contacting Forest Service where they did have careeries. And some of them just hadn't bothered at all. But you could see that the woodlands would benefit from some degree of intervention. And maybe there's a just a cohort where that needs to be done for them.

Dermot McNally (44:47.168)
And I know that's tricky because it's one rule for some people and and different rule for other people. But and there's certainly a group who could be trained up to do that themselves and would probably be interested. But yeah, there's certainly a another cohort who I think, you know, particularly the older they get, could do with could do with somebody else kind of coming in sort of to mind it for them, really, and and maybe do that sort of basic maintenance stuff. Like there are grants available, but yeah, not everybody's kind of geared up to to kind of pursue those.

So yeah, it's a bit of a lost opportunity. And and another thing, and I know I've gone off topic here a little bit, but not at all. I would just say that there were a lot quite a number of sites where there's lot of litter left around, like a lot of tree guards and plastic. And again, it's the same issue. It's that the you know, the forest has left after five years and for one reason or another, nobody else has kind of come in and started sort of looking after these sites. So, you know, there's a lot of sites out there like that now based on

just this the group I looked at, it would indicate that that that's something that would need to be done, a bit of a kind of an audit and a check on a lot of these sites. You know, there's people who've passed away as well in the meantime and it's been handed off to somebody who lives in Dublin and doesn't ever go see it. You know, there's there's lots of situations like that as well. I think everything you've said there makes sense and especially the access, because even if you don't do anything for 10 or 15 years, once the access is there, you can get in.

to make a couple of changes to tidy up the tree guards. But if you leave yourself with such a battle, it's very hard then. And there's a lot of local farmers adjacent to most of these plantations. And if you don't farm yourself and you can speak nicely to them, a lot of them would be happy to run the topper along the edge and to to at least get you part of the way into the forest. I want to ask you about one other aspect of the survey because for a lot of well well say lay people, one of the

biggest enjoyments in a forest, especially in younger forests, might be the the increase or the diversity in the bird species or the mammals. Maybe, maybe people will typically sometimes put out the trail cams and and catch animals coming into the woodland. Did you see much of that? I know when you're there physically that probably reduces their activity, but can you speak to that or is there anything you noticed? Yeah, no, I I

Dermot McNally (47:09.716)
My sense is that they're just little havens for for wildlife, you know, and yeah, d you know, you do see signs of of sort of foxes and badgers and all sorts of other things and and certainly the bird life. Yeah, yeah, it's very, very nice like in now I think in most cases these are sort of common countryside species, you know, at this stage of development, they're not going to, you know, harbour a lot of woodland specialist species, nor do we have

a lot of those species in Ireland anyway. But, you know, when you think I like to think of it like all all these little bits of land that have been cleared through our landscape as the incentives have encouraged that over time, like they were a pain for farmers to clear and they could have been left in many cases. You know, they weren't agriculturally productive places. And it just feels about a little bit like we're putting, you know, we're putting those back through through this scheme. We're allowing

allowing that to happen again and for those areas to recover. And, you know, most of biodiversity loss is actually just a loss of all the common stuff. So it's important that we create those spaces as well and just allow allow these kind of natural little wild areas to recover. And, you know, they are refuges when you fence something off and you don't have the public going in, you don't have kids running through it or dogs or cats or, you know, it it's these there are little wild spaces, you know. So

They're yeah, it's important that we we have sort of have those back through our landscape. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When you when you think of intensively managed farmland perhaps surrounding each of these, then it does become somewhere safe for those animals. And it would make sense that they'd be happy there, knowing that they're there there isn't going to be a tractor rubbing past them. Kate, your work now is there and and hopefully other researchers who who come in future will be able to put their hand to it and build on it. Is there anything else you'd like to

to mention then or any of the any particular joy you took out of the service it's at because the paperwork must have been hard, but the actual physical joy of being out on site were were there moments and things you saw that really just made your heart warm? Well I I think it was just a lot of the people I met, you know, and seeing their passion and how much they cared about their site and how eager they were to sort of see biodiversity maximise and the joy they took in.

Dermot McNally (49:33.89)
you know, finding new plants and finding new species. And yeah, like it that was that was really special. There's one site where the the owner would sort of as I was doing my surveys, would after to come running towards me and all the butterflies would go and bees would go flying up and I was like, no, I'll have to restart my transact. But he was so enthusiastic and he would give me the inventory of what he'd found and sort of since I was there last and

Yeah, it's just it was really heartening actually to s yeah, to see the kind of passion people had for and care they were taking with with a lot of these woodland sites. and you know, you kinda just think, gosh, if that can be replicated through the country, then maybe maybe things aren't so bad, you know, because you do get a bit depressed as an ecologist with all the the the bad news. But yeah, I think this was this is a good news story. My reflection is is that forest owners often planted

commercial species, but in doing so, they opened up a whole new habitat to themselves. And if they were active and they kept the paths open, it ended up being a gateway into seeing the biodiversity changes on their own sites. So the their initial motivation may not have been it may have been more financial, as you said earlier, but that if they're engaged and active, you can't help but notice nature changing. And when you become familiar with a place, that familiarity then really

increases the richness and how much you can notice things changing. If you're never there, you won't notice the changes. Yeah, yeah. No, and and you do, you know, I mean the landowners and farmers, they know their their lands inside out. And, you know, a lot of them would reflect on, you know, memories of as we all do of of more sort of wildlife and birds and and hearing things, you know, you know, like a less intensive landscape and

now they're they're kind of hearing that come back again and seeing those changes again and and and realizing I suppose what had been missing. And yeah, look, it is not exclusive to native woodlands by any means, you know, a carefully managed kind of woodland of non native species. I mean, I've seen fabulous examples of of that as well. You know, it isn't unique to these native species. Obviously if you're targeting

Dermot McNally (51:47.586)
these particular habitats in the long run then then that's important, but there's equally space for, you know, a whole mix of other trees and and and you know, some of the the continuous cover forestry methods that are sort of gaining traction now, I I think that could be transformative in terms of the wider forestry estate and biodiversity. Yeah. Well Kate, thanks very much for joining me. Great. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Thanks again to Kate for joining and explaining to me how Ireland's newest native woodlands are moving towards increasing complexity and richness. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Any feedbacks or comments, do feel free to email me at forestynowpodcast at gmail dot com. Until the next time, take care.