Trees and Woodlands

Description

Features almost 300 colour photographs and brings together more than 60 years of research by a leading voice in British woodland ecology. Trees define woodland. They provide a complex, multi-layered habitat for a great range of wildlife, but they are also wildlife themselves, reacting to their circumstances and each other. Woodlands are important to people, supplying timber, food and fuel, accumulating carbon, and offering places of refuge and refreshment. But they are also under threat: some stand in the way of 'progress', and all are becoming increasingly vulnerable to disease and climate change. In Trees and Woodlands, George Peterken brings together decades of scientific research, while also incorporating his personal experiences, to explore the ecology, nature conservation and wider cultural value of our native trees and shrubs, and the various ways they have combined as woodland. Peterken accepts that all woodlands have been shaped by people as well as nature, and he describes the long history of use and management and how this has influenced woodland wildlife. Woodlands have also contributed to our art, beliefs and social attitudes, and this too is examined. He concludes by asking, what next for Britain's trees and woodlands? He advocates woods being managed and their timber and small wood being put to good use, but recognises that this is all part of a larger question: the future of ourselves. Containing nearly 300 photographs, and interspersed with box texts describing the history and ecology of representative woods across Britain, this is a commentary on trees, woodlands and our relationship with them from one of our most highly regarded forest ecologists.

Working with the Nature Conservancy and its successors, George Peterken started the ancient woodland inventory, and helped negotiate the nature conservation aspects of the Government's 1985 Broadleaves Policy, which he later worked to implement in his role as nature conservation adviser at the Forestry Commission. His research interests, which have centred on nature conservation, natural woodland and long-term and large-scale aspects of woodland ecology, benefited from a Bullard Fellowship at Harvard University. George's early books included Woodland Conservation and Management (1981) and Natural Woodland (1996), before he changed direction to write Wye Valley (2008) in the New Naturalist series and Meadows (2013) for the British Wildlife Collection. More recently, he has returned to woodlands to co-write Woodland Development: a long-term study of Lady Park Wood (2017) and Art meets Ecology (2020). Born into a New Forest family, he now lives in the Lower Wye Valley. He was awarded an OBE for services to forestry in 1994.