Sandi Toksvig on threat to UK's ancient woods: 'Once it's gone, we will never get it back'
Sandi Toksvig is fronting a new series to save and restore a wooded patch using wit and a chainsaw – here, she tells Radio Times why it's so close to her heart.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Are you busy? Stop what you’re doing and walk with me in my ancient woodland. I promise you it’ll do you good. The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”, a simple pleasure known to improve your health and wellbeing that is even prescribed by doctors as a form of medication. We can all reap the benefits of a walk among the trees here in the UK, as long as there are woods left to do it in.
Ancient woods (ones that have persisted since at least 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 1750 in Scotland) are an amazing feature of our landscape. They are the UK’s richest and most complex terrestrial habitat and home to threatened species such as red squirrels, stag beetles, Scottish wildcats and bats.
In my own small patch of woodland in the south of England, which I bought in 2022, I spend my time in wooded glades that have existed since Elizabeth I was on the throne. The history of the place is, of course, even longer.
I can walk across the border of the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia where more than a thousand years ago my forefathers from Denmark once took control!
Here you can feel the calm of land that has lain undisturbed by human development. There are no houses or roads but a unique and complex community of thousands of species including plants, fungi, insects and other micro-organisms not found anywhere else.
It is a habitat doing you good even when you aren’t here, for these ancient woods are crucial to the climate-change effort. This ancient glory makes up about a quarter of all UK woodland, yet holds 37 per cent of all the carbon stored in woods and trees. It is fighting for our very breath.
So, it’s good for us when we are up close (it helped heal me after a nasty bout of bronchial pneumonia) and even when we are nowhere near. Surely this needs our love and attention? Well, you would think so, but our ancient woods are not in a good state. Today Britain is one of the least wooded countries in Europe. Ancient woods cover just 2.5 per cent of the UK, and of that only seven per cent are in good ecological condition. What’s left is under constant threat.
In about half of those that remain, the beech, ash, sycamore, yew, whitebeam and oak trees of old have been felled and replaced by non-native conifers mainly intended for timber. Some 1,225 ancient woodlands are currently threatened with destruction or deterioration from development, overgrazing and air pollution. Most ancient trees have no legal protection.
Once what little we have left is gone, we will never get it back. This complex biodiversity of undisturbed soils and decaying wood has taken hundreds of years to accumulate and cannot be replicated.
As a child, I had an emotional connection with the woods of both my native Denmark and in New York where I grew up. I have been an ambassador for the Woodland Trust – which is fighting to protect woods and trees – for at least 20 years and I have long dreamt of owning a wood. Dreams and reality are, of course, quite separate things. I had no idea how much work it would entail.
Our 15 acres have been neglected for generations and holly has moved in to choke the venerable trees. And so we have been felling trees, building wildlife ponds and releasing orphaned owls into our wood. We have also learnt to chainsaw and understand that sometimes we have to cut things down in order to allow sunlight on to the forest floor.
The light and the space we create will allow new shoots to appear, guaranteeing a future long after we are gone. Maybe that is a good metaphor for all of us. Make space to take a breath, stand in the sunshine and feel your spirits grow.
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Sandi’s Great British Woodland Restoration is available to watch on Channel 4.
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