newts in forestry

[Charlieh]

has anyone had issues with forestry work being restricted due to the presence of newts on the site?

 

have recently come across a site (commertial forestry) where there is a good population of great crested newts, but they have been told they cant carry out normal operations such as thinning/chainsaw operations and also cant keeping brambles down by using a tractor flail.

 

i know they are a protected species, and so is the habitat, but is my opinion that its these practises that have lead to the newts being present. i feel that if the operations are stopped, the site will become unsuitable, then everyone has lost as the timber wont have as much value and the site will be under about 4ft of brambles, and the newts will clear off.

 

so has anyone had any experience of this, or dealing with sites with great crested newts, i suspect its not as common as issues with bats.

 

Cheers

 

Charlie

[Mr Ed]

I have had plenty of problems with them on site clearance jobs. They are protected as heavily as bats. Once they're there, nothing you can do. You can try and fence off the area's they inhabit with riparian fencing.

[madmatt]

We had a job once where they were present in a floodwall. Had to get various authorities involved and a couple of lads went on a newt handling course so they could move them out of the wall for the brickies to work on it.

 

Not come across them in forestry though

[Charlieh]

trouble is their right throught the wood, probably in most rides.

 

just wonder if we can get the work consented if we put loads of mitigation in, ie conservation wood piles, create a small pond/scrape

 

it just seems stupid that its this work that has lead to the newts being there, and stopping it will have a detrimental impact, but thats conservation agencies for you (i should know, i work for several:stoned:)

 

the planned work was taking 30m of timber from either side of the two main rides, using chainsaws so its not like their going to be run over with harvesters etc! there is no chance of moving them all out of the area being worked on.

[Amelanchier]

Theres some guidance issued by natural england about GCnewts. Ecological impact assesment leading to three main options.

• Don't touch the site. At all.
  
• Destroy some habitat but create some more (in better places!)
  
• Move all newts.
  

 

I have a copy somewhere but it might be an old copy. Stuff might have changed.

[Mr Ed]

Funny thing I've found, Great crested newts love the water filled ruts created by tractors and forwarders...

[Charlieh]

i have all the GCN info from froglife and NE, but its mostly geared to a small site or limited work. No one seems to have any info about landscape scale work eg an active woodland. i could appreciate it if they wanted to use harvesters etc, but thats not the case, dont think a team of guys with chainsaws is going to tread on to many

 

hmmm this is going to take more thought than i had hoped it would!

[Frimsley]

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/GCNwalesv4.pdf/$FILE/GCNwalesv4.pdf

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/england-protectedspecies-newt.pdf/$FILE/england-protectedspecies-newt.pdf

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/Guidancenote34protectedspecies.pdf/$FILE/Guidancenote34protectedspecies.pdf

and various other bits and pieces on the FC website.

[Charlieh]

spot on, thanks for this, its just the kind of info i was after!

[Log-ologist]

Newts . In ponds, riparian zones ,woods , I find them in the veg patch at home. This one is on a house brick for scale.