Good idea or folly?

[Matthew Storrs]

Take a look at the rest of the oak on the moor. It's crap.

 

Crap is one word, its not often you see a 'lowland' oak on the higher moors, but the stunted efforts of those that survive still have amenity and habitat value.

Having been involved with numerous plantations on the high moor my experiance shows that the planted oaks take years to get going at all and more planted oaks die over any other of the native species however this I suspect is down to the peat and saturation which many of these plantations have been in- FIngle starts to get a bit more lowland and no peat.

[tomshiell]

I know this particular woodland very well.(the pub in video is my local! ) It is not exactly on the high Moor, it is in between Drewsteignton and Dunsford on the fringes of Dartmoor Narional Park along the Teign gorge. The ground is not conducive to timber extraction, so why not take it back to a more natural state? A more varied ecosystem is far better for all flora and fauna and a lot more attractive to look at. I for one would much prefer to have this on my doorstep than the commercial shoot that rented it before!!

[Paul Cleaver]

fell the conifers and let nature take its course -

[waterbird]

I think it's a very good question. Dartmoor National Park have made their only experienced woodland officer redundant, leaving a hedgerow expert in his place. I think this woodland 'regeneration' project is a smokescreen for the fact that they have done next to nothing towards achieving their woodland plan agenda in the past decade.

[waterbird]

Having watched the video, it looks like they are on to a good thing - that the charities involved are looking to benefit that area. My concern is how joined up the thinking is within the park - or whether this project will be a flagship without actually addressing the vast amount of unmanaged woodland throughout the park and how it could be brought back into active management - might this project be taking the vast proportion of funding that could otherwise go towards supporting wider reaching regeneration projects across the whole of Dartmoor? Afterall 5million does sound like a very large amount.