MOOR TREES PART 1 – A CHARITY WITH A MISSION
TO RESTORE NATIVE WOODLAND ON DARTMOOR AND IN SOUTH DEVON

During 2022, local Ashburton-based independent charity, Moor Trees, invited ‘The Moorlander’ newspaper to follow their activities throughout the year and to learn how they go about fulfilling their mission to restore native broadleaved woodlands on Dartmoor and in South Devon.
Moor Trees was established in 1999, and whilst the charity is focused primarily on recreating native woodlands across Dartmoor and South Devon, they are increasingly being called upon to help with projects around the Tamar valley and beyond.
As stated on their website, whilst many of the fringes of Dartmoor and South Devon appear to be well wooded, many of these woodlands are non-indigenous and actually consist of commercial softwoods, Victorian game plantations (often made up of trees from elsewhere in Europe, such as Sweet Chestnut) and shelter belts. True natural woodland, carpeted by bluebells or daffodils in spring, rich with native birds and butterflies, is increasingly rare, and mostly found in the steep valley fringes of Dartmoor.
Moor Trees aims to restore native broadleaf woodland by growing trees from locally collected seed in their two community tree nurseries at Dartington and at Broadley near Diptford, and planting them as new woodland on private and public land, supported by volunteers, community groups and local businesses to enhance the forest heritage and to restore natural and native character woodland. They advocate native forest re-creation, bringing attention to the loss of the natural environment and working with others to restore that heritage.
Using their extensive team of volunteers, Moor Trees can also help with the design, planning and creation of high quality woodlands and associated habitats for individuals and communities. The charity also offers free advice and trees to individual and corporate landowners and can provide management services for the restructuring of woodlands, also facilitated by their volunteers.
In August, 2022, at the invitation of Tim Ferry, a Trustee of Moor Trees, ‘The Moorlander’ visited Moor Trees’ nursery at Broadley. Tim explained that Moor Trees is allowed to use the land free of charge, it being owned by a former Trustee of the charity. One big bonus for the site at Broadley is that the adjacent field that also belongs to the same owner has a spring for the grazing cattle, the overflow of which provides a free water supply to the nursery. Despite the dry conditions during late August last summer, the spring was still supplying water. A recent revamp of the site as part of a grant from The Tree Council has seen the installation of a mains water connection, a polytunnel and a compost lavatory facility.
Tim Ferry explained that they grow the trees in two different ways - trees grown in the ground, and ‘bare root trees’. The focus is on growing up to 18 different species, all believed to be native to Devon and for this reason they do not grow Horse Chestnut, Sweet Chestnut, or Sycamore. The general benchmark or datum point for defining ‘native to Devon’ is what was here immediately post-Ice Age, ie: what colonised Devon and the Southwest as the last of the ice sheets retreated, but before the land bridge to Europe was lost.
Beech is not generally considered native to the South West, but there are varieties of Beech which grew before the land bridge was lost which can be considered regionally native. Despite the fact that Beech can be disputed as a native tree variety, Moor Trees do now grow a variety, although initially they did not grow it as they found it hard to germinate, and it requires the cover of tall canopy trees.
Another difficult problem in recent years has been with Ash. Since Ash dieback became prevalent, they have not been allowed to move Ash around although prior to dieback it was a staple of Devon woodlands so, as Tim puts it, they have cheated slightly by growing some Hornbeam as a suitable alternative. Although not formerly considered a tree native to the West Country, a former Trustee and volunteer for Moor Trees collects Hornbeam seed from Epping Forest as an Ash substitute, as it gives the woodlands the right ‘structure’.
The plots where particular varieties of seedlings are planted out are covered in cardboard sheets taken from old boxes to suppress weed growth prior to planting, with green netting cages to shield the young trees from the sun and prevent the leaves becoming scorched. As growth progresses, the cardboard is mulched to help keep the soil moist.
When ready, trees may be planted out as small coppices, hedgerows, etc, though planting out as small mixed woodlands is the most efficient. The trees are planted to Forestry Commission Standard – 1,100 trees per hectare, with a plantation of over three hectares of woodland being eligible to apply for the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO) from the Forestry Commission. The EWCO is worth up to £10,200 per hectare, plus up to a further £8,000 in additional contributions for public benefits, to support woodland creation. Landowners, land managers and public bodies can apply to the EWCO for support to create new woodland, including through natural colonisation, on areas as small as one hectare.
‘New Vision for Dartmoor’ on the Moor Trees website explains the Moor Trees philosophy, how they would like to see Dartmoor looking in 2050, by restoring Dartmoor’s woodlands and encouraging the natural regeneration of native species that is already taking place in some areas, and helping to establish a network of community woodlands, planting trees where necessary. Essentially it is about valleys, with native broadleaved woodlands colonising valley bottoms, spreading up the valleys along the rivers.
In the past, native woodlands such as at Wistman’s Wood would indeed have filled the valleys, but as they extended up the valleys increasing in altitude they would have become progressively scrubbier – more Hawthorn, more Rowan and less Oak.
Research on palaeo-pollen on Dartmoor by Professor Ralph Fyfe of Plymouth University has provided information on the prehistoric vegetation for Dartmoor in far greater detail than for many other parts of the UK. Professor Fyfe’s work has found that that during the period of human occupation, particularly from the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, there was a very high proportion of Hazel on Dartmoor suggesting perhaps the early coppicing of Hazel and nurturing it as a major resource for eg, wood fuel, house construction, fencing, etc. Today however there is no Hazel on High Dartmoor largely due to the introduction of the American grey squirrel in the 19th century, which seriously hampers Hazel’s ability to self-seed and spread naturally in the way that most other trees do.
By 2050, Moor Trees hope to see a wilder, more natural Dartmoor, with restored moorland habitats and semi-natural grazing managed by local farmers and communities. Moor Trees also believe that a wilder Dartmoor will be good for the local economy, improving existing livelihoods as well as creating new opportunities.
Tim is keen to stress that Moor Trees works in the ‘real world’ – firstly by asking what does the South West need in the mid 21st century given the current biodiversity crisis and climate crisis? ‘The past informs what Moor Trees does but it is not the Holy Grail’.
Tim states that Moor Trees’ vision is realistic. The operational side, the seed collection, growing and planting, is entirely in the hands of landowners. “We can only plant trees where a landowner invites us to plant trees. We can’t say our blueprint for Dartmoor is this, so we are going to plant them there, there and there, because we don’t own that land. So there is a separation between Moor Trees’ operational work which is pragmatic; every broadleaf tree that goes in the ground is doing some good to somebody even if it is not directly contributing to Moor Trees’ vision for Dartmoor, because we are constrained by land ownership patterns, Commoners and by a whole lot of other very real economic, social and other factors that mean we can’t just make Dartmoor to match our vision overnight,” said Tim. “So, we are doing two separate things which are complementary, and we hope overlap. There is the operational side which achieves a certain number of thousands of trees planted every year, and there is the vision side which is more of a lobbying side.”
Tim goes on to say: “In the Dartmoor National Park 5-Year Management Plan which they call a Partnership Plan, one of the specific commitments on the woodland side was 2,000 hectares of new valley native broadleaved woodlands underway within the period of the 5-Year plan, ie, by 2026 – a very short space of time and a very large area of woodland.” Tim Ferry asked the question in public questioning to the Dartmoor Commons Council at their one meeting a year when the public are allowed to ask questions, about what financial incentives from government were needed to allow the Commoners to contribute to that? The answer he received was that the Commoners had assumed when they read the commitment that all of the 2,000 hectares would be coming from non-Common Land, i.e., they had simply assumed that only in-bye land would provide that new woodland.
There is much ongoing work to be done to educate, inform and to achieve the Dartmoor National Park 5-Year Management Plan, and for Moor Trees to achieve their ‘New Vision for Dartmoor’ by 2050.
In the next edition of The Moorlander, Part 2 will follow Moor Trees’ nursery work, seed collecting and tree planting operations in more detail, along with excerpts from an interview with Adam Owen, Director.
The following weblinks can provide more information about Moor Trees and associated organisations:
Moor Trees -
https://moortrees.org/
The Tree Council -
https://treecouncil.org.uk/
The Forestry Commission -
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/forestry-commission
Dartmoor Commoners’ Council –
https://www.dartmoorcommonerscouncil.org.uk/