Transforming Lifeless Monocultures Into Biodiverse Woodlands - Mossy Earth

At Mossy Earth we have planted hundreds of thousands of trees and we try to do so always with the right mix of native species so that we can be confident that our forest will grow to be biodiverse and resilient. But what about all of those miserable monocultures we see dotting the landscape? They are left lifeless and lack much of the diversity we see in other forests. Not only in terms of trees but crucially also the understory. This is where we spotted an opportunity for rewilding impact. Which is why today I'm really excited to tell you about our latest project here at Mossy Earth where we're trying to restore the understory of this forest right here in the hope of transforming it into a thriving woodland full of biodiversity. Hi, Tom here your trusty Mossy Earth editor and if you're a regular viewer you might be wondering who the other guy is. So it's my pleasure to introduce you to Rob from Leave Curious. We've partnered up with him to help us present some of our UK projects and we hope to do this more and more in the future to try and build the rewilding niche on this platform. So if you like the type videos we make here at Mossy Earth you should definitely check out Rob's work over on his channel. I think he's creating some brilliant content over there and you can consider this a personal recommendation from me. There's a link in the description below and there will also be a video of his linked in the end screen. So now that you know who he is I'll leave him to continue telling you about our project. For this pilot project we have set ourselves a goal to help restore 14 hectares of woodland here at Locker Woods, 7 hectares here at Wardlaw and 1.2 hectares here at the former Royal Ordnance Factory just west of Glasgow. The idea behind this project is to learn as much as we can by restoring these forests and then to apply the learnings across all of our project areas in the various countries we work in. For this particular woodland we've had to clean it up and also reintroduce many key plant species that were missing. But before we get into that I want to show you what a thriving woodland looks like and explain to you why it's so important for biodiversity. I wanted to show you something comparable to our forest so I visited an older forest which is only five minutes away from our site. You see woodland can be thought of in different layers of structure. Up top we have the canopy made up by mature trees, pine, oak, ash, birch, alder, willow and aspen. And below this there's the understory trees, species like holly, hazel, elder and hawthorn. Then you have the shrubs and ground layers made up of ferns, wildflowers, mosses, lichens and liverworts. And as you can imagine when all these layers are present and abundant with different species the woodland just feels more wild, it feels more alive. From the hawthorn shield bug to the hazel door mouse, the understory habitat is so important. But when much of the understory is missing it makes the woodland feel lifeless and depleted, which is the case for our woodland here. And it actually goes by the name of Locker Woods and it was planted on reclaimed land. And this was a vast improvement on what was already here but sadly as the trees grew they were given little attention. And over the past few decades although natural on the surface this area just wasn't living up to its potential. This is where Peter from Ada comes in. He specialises in the cultivation and restoration of rare plant species in Scotland and he developed a plan on how to go about restoring these woodlands and that is when he connected with And here at Mossy Earth we saw this as an opportunity to rewild, to create a more resilient ecosystem and a more enjoyable space for the local community. Before I show you the intervention that we made to try and rescue this woodland I want to tell you about how we get the money to fund all of this work because it's a really important component of the project. At Mossy Earth we run a membership that helps bring back wilderness through rewilding and reforestation projects. For me the reason why I chose to partner with Mossy Earth and why I'm so passionate to tell these stories is because of the sheer variety of projects that get implemented and then how uniquely impactful they are. From planting native tree species in places like Iceland, Scotland or the Carpathians, to supporting termites to fight desertification in Benin, to flooding forests to restore wetlands in the Danube River, all the way to using innovative techniques to help bring back kelp ecosystems in Portugal. Mossy Earth really funds all kinds of good work. I think the variety of novel projects really just speaks for itself and they're also super transparent as well with all of these videos which are also pretty impactful with 80% of the money going back directly into the work. If you want to find out more be sure to head over to mossy.earth to read about this work. Back in our understory project, so far we have spent only about £4,500 of a £14,000 budget which is not huge on its own but we hope to learn a fair bit from this and use the learnings to scale up understory restoration efforts elsewhere. So this budget really packs a punch. So far the work has started at Wardlaw and Locker Woods with the Royal Ordnance Survey Factory site planned for next spring. So the work undertaken can be split into two key areas. Firstly, plastic guards are being removed from the trees because they no longer need them and when they're left in place not only do they look ugly but they can restrict the tree's growth, they can create conditions for decay and when they break down the plastic pollutes the environment. It's not good stuff so getting a team in of local volunteers to remove these was the first step. The work was carried out by Peter and a group of volunteers and Hannah, our biologist, was also there to help out. And the second step of this project is all about creating that diversity in the understory. To this effect we are planting a wide variety of common woodland plants that are currently missing such as Greater Woodrush, Wood Sorrel, Primrose, Bogmital, Dog Violet, Lesser Stitchwort, Devil's Bits Corbaceous and Slender St John's Wort. One plant is being planted every 10 metres so that we will have about a thousand new plants in each hectare. We hope that many of these survive and propagate thus enriching the woodland in the long term. I'll let Peter explain a bit more about the sourcing of these plants. We are targeting obviously ancient woodland sites locally to source our material from. So to try and keep it as local as possible we accept that there are certain things that we might not be able to grow whatever reason or be able to source the right kind of seed they're cutting. So we will then go out and you know purchase plants from suppliers again trying to get at least Scottish provenance and then if not just keep working out. So we're trying our best to get as local as possible the right species that belong here you know that are on the database for rent for sure etc. So it's not just a matter of sprinkling wildflower seeds it's not like that at all. In addition to this we are enriching the woodland with some tree species that are also missing such as Sessile Oak, Juniper, Rock Whitebeam, Aran Whitebeam and the Aran Service Tree. Finally under every 10th tree we've planted a climber such as Honeysuckle or Ivy. The aim is is that as this woodland matures these native species will spread and they will create this resilient and structurally diverse element that is missing. So our woodland understories they are so so important in creating a better connected a wilder a more biodiverse woodland ecosystem. I just want to say thanks again to Peter at ADA and of course our Mossy Earth members because without them none of this would be possible. And I mean that all of this work is funded through this community of members and we hope to expand this in the future to also help out every one of you to implement your own rewilding projects so that we together can have as much impact as possible. I can't wait to see what this woodland understory looks like in 5, 10, 15 years time. Until next time, cheers. Oh and if you're still around be sure to check out my channel where I tell rewilding stories from the UK. Here's one on the screen for you now.