Woodlands SOS
We know that native species and habitats are, right now, facing very real and present threats to their continued existence, and this crisis is only going to further intensify with growing pressures such as climate change, economic and built development and conflicting land use issues.
The ground-breaking State of Nature Report published last year – a stock-take and health- check of our native wildlife compiled by 25 wildlife organisations – revealed that 60 per cent of species studied have declined over recent decades, and more than one in ten of all the species assessed are under threat of disappearing from our shores altogether.
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Hide AdSome of the most charismatic icons of our native woodland, including Scotland’s pinewoods, as well as capercaillie, wildcat, twinflower, the shining guest ant, timberman beetle, some rare tooth fungi and green shield-moss, are all nationally rare or scarce.
There is a need to make our native habitats as resilient as possible in order to help them and the species they support from drifting towards national extinction, and we need to do this as a matter of urgency.
Of course, any such restoration must be done sympathetically and sensitively in the appropriate places using the right species of the right provenance, and based on all the latest peer-reviewed and best science. But none of this removes or negates the imperative. We are united in our view that much of our wildlife, and that found in native woodlands in particular, is in dire trouble and it needs our help to restore it.
Stuart Housden OBE Director, RSPB Scotland
Jonathan Hughes Chief executive
Scottish Wildlife Trust
Carol Evans Director Woodland Trust Scotland
Alan Watson Featherstone
Executive director Trees for Life
Stuart Brooks Chief executive John Muir Trust
Kate Mavor
Chief executive
National Trust for Scotland
Dr Deborah Long Programmes manager Scotland, Plantlife
Craig MacAdam Scotland director, Buglife