Facilitating Woodland Restoration from Conifers

One of our #CelticRainforests project actions is to “facilitate woodland restoration from conifers”, and we have a works package about to commence with Forestry Services Ltd, at a privately owned woodland adjacent to the Torrent Walk just outside of Dolgellau.

The entire wooded part of the site sits within the Meirionnydd Oakwoods Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and also forms part of the Coedydd Dyffryn Wnion SSSI.

Identified as having areas classified as both PAWS (Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site) and RAWS (Restored Ancient Woodland Site), there are some quite dense sections within the woodland of both Western hemlock and Western red cedar.

The lower sections nearer the river gorge containing the most intact semi-natural habitat, supporting sessile oak, ash and birch woodland with a holly and hazel understorey. There is also some threat to the site from large mature beech through leaf litter, over-shading and re-seeding.

Our works aim to halo thin around the native broadleaf trees within the hemlock and cedar compartments, and ultimately bring the woodland back into positive management, facilitating the future regeneration of the native understorey and native tree regeneration.

This thinning operation will be carried out carefully and sensitively and will increase the light levels in the woodland, over time creating better conditions for the rare woodland lichens found within the SSSI.