Ancient woodlands are wooded areas that have been covered in the same native woodland cover since 1600 AD. These habitats are irreplaceable due to the many years of the native fauna to evolve to the composition of these habitats to take full advantage of the many niches up for offer.
These habitats compose of just 2% of the UK's landscape and so provide a unique habitat which provide the UK with photogenically rare fauna that are severely vulnerable to any disturbances and so the niches that don't overlap between the generalists will die along with the species.
Half of all of the UK ancient woodlands, are severely degraded and in serious need of restoration. Instead, much of these forests are being replaced with non-native conifer plantations with little differentiation between species variation. These plantation pose little ecological benefit where it is shown these transformations reduces biodiversity in the native bird, reptile, and mammal species where the rare species are the most vulnerable due to their incapability to adapt and take up new niches.
Although, restoration won't be capable of completely restoring the conservation value of the fully intact ancient woodland, if serious degradation/ destruction has occurred restoration is the best to do to mitigate the carbon emission and to provide a form of support for the surrounding biodiversity. These restoration programmes display varying results with the common denominator being the planting of photogenically distinct native flora to provide adequate supports for rare species as well as improving the multifunctionality of the woodland.
