Transcript Fingle from the wildwood

Fingle from the wildwood
A story of a changing climate, prehistoric
people, their descendents and their
impacts
Conservationists do no
service to woodland if they try
to remake it on the image of
what they imagine wildwood
was like
Oliver Rackham 2006
Factoids
Ancient Woodland its history, vegetation and uses
in England
New Edition
Oliver Rackham
Fully developed wildwood
6200-3800BC = 8200-5800BP
9000 years ago
History of the British
Flora – A factual basis
for phytogeography
Sir Harry Godwin
Vegetation types throughout
the Holocene
Pollen diagram from Blacklane IG Simmons 1963
10,000 – 4000BP
The Field Archaeology of Dartmoor
Phil Newman
Historic cultures
Spinster’s Rock
Stone circles
Stone Rows
Hut Circles
Reaves
The History of British Mammals
Derek Yalden
Lessons from history - our lost mammal heritage
Previous interglacial and last ice age
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Woolly Mammoth
Reindeer
Tarpan
Auroch
Saiga
Red deer
Elk
Irish Elk
Mountain hare
Lemmings
Pika
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Brown bear
Arctic fox
Red fox
Wolf
Spotted hyena
Lion
Sabre toothed cat
Lynx
Wolverine
Beaver
•
Bison
Climate cold, man the hunter, open grassy vegetation
10,000 - 5,000 years ago
post glacial - warming up nicely
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Red deer
Roe deer
Elk
Wild boar
Auroch
Beaver
Brown bear
Wolf
Pine marten
Red fox
Species which
had disappeared
• Tarpan
• Reindeer
Casualties of
Mesolithic
hunters?
Covered in ‘woodland’, joined to continent until 8000BP
5000 - 2000 years ago
New Stone Age to Roman occupation
• Some Auroch, wolves ,
wild boar domesticated
• Predators become
scarcer e.g. brown bear
• Elk and lynx become
extinct
• House mouse, black rat
introduced
Woodlands cleared, hunter/gathers become farmers
2000 BP - Present
ever increasing pressure on wild places
• Auroch and bear go extinct
during Roman times
• Beaver extinct by 1600
• Wolf and boar go extinct in
Middle Ages
• Wild cat, polecat and pine
martin pushed towards
extinction during 18C
• Fallow deer and rabbits
introduced by Romans
• Grey squirrels, muntjac,
water deer, sika, mink,
edible dormouse introduced
this century
• muskrat and coypu
introduced and then
exterminated
A warm spell, minor sea level rise, mammals harassed
Grazing Ecology and Forest History
Frans Vera
European
herbivores past and
present.
Do domestic
grazers used
for nature
conservation
management
today in the
UK fulfil the
same roles?
Knepp - Sussex
Google Yellowstone, Monbiot, Wolves
Trophic cascades
Apex predators
Lynx
Pine marten
Red squirrel
Keystone species
European beaver
Another key woodland Keystone species
Wild Boar
So – where does this
all leave us with
Fingle Woods today?
There has been a lot of change over the past
12,000 years
Some caused by the climate
Some caused by people
There are also many mysteries
What did the wildwood really look like?
How was it cleared?
‘Fingle Woods’ has probably been exploited
by humans for 6000 years
The task now is to try and make it more
‘natural’
Allow nature to make the place more resilient
Just because the pollen record shows lime
occurred – doesn’t mean it can now be
planted
Use what there is….
Future challenges
Diseases
Herbivores
Climate change
People
Diseases
Lots to worry about here
Oak mildew
Will oak regenerate and does it need more light?
Ash die back
Reports of my death has been greatly exaggerated
Ash borer beetle
A real worry
Herbivores
No Apex predators
No keystone species which were hebivores
Wild boar in the UK are not Wild Boar
Keep on top of the herbivores to give the
trees and other plants a chance
Keep an eye out for muntjac
The Polecat story
Climate change
The big lesson of the last 12,000 years
is that nature is good at dealing with
climate change
Decline of NVC W11
Sessile oak in Europe
People
The problem
and
the solution
Remember why Fingle Woods was bought –
bigger, joined up and better managed for wildlife,
people and the historic environment
Over the centuries, people have changed
the appearance of the landscape from
heathland and wild woods to oak coppice
and then to conifer, driven by local and
then national need, influenced by fashion
and economics. As a result, the gorge has
been dressed in different ways. In the
coming decades, we want to help the
gorge to clothe itself again, reverting to its
more natural state. Fingle Wood’s
inheritance will help shape its future,
making it a place of conservation in a
changing environment, and inspiration and
enjoyment for everyone – today and for the
generations to come.