page_title: Ancient woodland
section_title: Management
hierarchical_section_title: Ancient woodland / Management
caption_attribution_description: A recently coppiced stool of Alder (Alnus glutinosa), Hampshire, England, 2005.
context_page_description: In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 1600 is likely to have developed naturally.
  In most ancient woods, the trees and shrubs have been cut down periodically as part of the management cycle. Provided that the area has remained as woodland, the stand is still considered ancient. Since it may have been cut over many times in the past, ancient woodland does not necessarily contain very old trees.
  For many species of animal and plant, ancient woodland sites provide the sole habitat, and for many others, conditions on these sites are much more suitable than those on other sites. Ancient woodland in the UK, like rainforest in the tropics, is home to rare and threatened species. For these reasons ancient woodland is often described as an irreplaceable resource, or 'critical natural capital'. The analogous term used in the United States and Canada is "Old-growth forest".
  Ancient woodland is formally defined on maps by Natural England and equivalent bodies.
context_section_description: Most ancient woodland in the UK has been managed in some way by humans for hundreds (in some cases probably thousands) of years. Two traditional techniques are coppicing (harvesting wood by cutting trees back to ground level) and pollarding (harvesting wood at about human head height to prevent new shoots being eaten by grazing species such as deer). Both techniques encourage new growth while allowing the sustainable production of timber and other woodland produce. During the 20th century, use of such traditional management techniques has declined while there has been an increase in large-scale mechanised forestry. Thus coppicing is now rarely practised, and overgrown coppice stools are a common sight in many ancient woods, with their many trunks of similar size. These changes in management methods have resulted in changes to ancient woodland habitats, and a loss of ancient woodland to forestry.
caption: A recently coppiced alder stool. Hampshire, England
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