Stawley

We had a couple of brilliant, cool, and sunny days on the Bullock Hill site near Storley in Devon, where Phil, Angus and Michael continued the gradual restoration of this PAWS (Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site) area. It was encouraging to see the young broadleaf trees planted over the past few years showing strong signs of life, and the conifer plantation beginning to open up into a more diverse habitat.

Our main task for this visit focused on sympathetic thinning. Previous light felling had been carried out, and we continued this work by removing select conifers to open the canopy and allow more light to reach the woodland floor. This approach supports natural regeneration, encourages biodiversity, and moves the site toward continuous cover forestry under a long-term conservation management plan.

We targeted trees that were either dead or leaning, as well as a few along the edge to create better access for future management. By creating these corridors, future felling will be safer and more efficient, preventing hung-up trees and unmanaged tangle.

One of the more unexpected jobs involved removing two old fence lines, both a traditional sheep fence and a rusted barbed-wire line. Clearing these is important for future access and safety, preventing hazards for people and wildlife.

As we worked, we ensured that biodiversity benefitted from our activity: • Logs were stacked to dry and stored at 4–6ft lengths for easy handling. • A small number of high-quality long logs were left for potential milling, locking in carbon and providing opportunities for local timber use rather than burning or leaving to rot. • Two brash piles were created intentionally as overwintering habitat for insects and small mammals. • One small fire was used in the field and safely extinguished. • Impact on hazel regeneration was avoided wherever possible, and a bent hawthorn was left in place to regrow naturally.

In total, we removed approximately 5 cubic metres (m³) of timber, most of which is now neatly stacked and ready for future use. The site may look a little untidy at first glance, but it has been left in a safe and manageable condition, and everything has been done with biodiversity and long-term woodland recovery in mind.

Overall, it was a productive visit and the winch only came out once. We look forward to returning, sharing more images soon, and continuing the slow transformation of this conifer block back into a thriving broadleaf woodland ecosystem.

The landowner carried out the survival rate survey, giving some very positive feedback: “Our survey of the trees showed the survival percentage was 94%, and given the hot, dry conditions we have had, we were very happy with this, particularly as a high number of the trees were not just surviving but thriving…There were also a very large number of self-seeded regeneration trees – several hundred. Mainly but not exclusively oaks. We protected about 30 or 40 of those…”

We returned to Stawley in February 2025, with more volunteers and a lot more trees! It was lovely to see some familiar faces from last year. The landowners have been incredibly generous and helpful with this project, and let us know that they are pleased with the way the planting and care of the existing woodland is going.

Hot soup, bread, traybake and hot drinks, including a vegetarian option was provided by the landowners to thank the volunteers for their efforts, with the neighbour again opening up their home, and toilet, for our use. There was also a compost toilet in the field. Most of us sat in their garden room in the warm and dry to enjoy our lunch.

A free dinner was again offered at a local pub to all volunteers. One volunteer said: “The provided pub meal in the evening (we actually went the night before) was a great idea - and unexpected. This gave us a chance to have a good talk to Project Earth and the landowners.”

The weather cooperated and stayed dry and all the volunteers had a great time, including the children. One volunteer said that there was a “nice friendly atmosphere and it was great as a family event.”

In total, we planted a further 2800 trees on the site, all with guards and stakes to help them thrive. We look forward to surveying the site in future years to see how it progresses.

Wood Could gave us some lovely feedback.

“We were delighted with how it all went and think that Protect Earth are brilliant. We love the overall aims and philosophy of Protect Earth, as well as the positive “can do” attitude of everyone in the organisation. The team are informal and casual and so not everything is perfect, but that is fine by us – the team instils confidence and clearly has the main tasks under control, so everything important gets done, and done properly. We also appreciated Phil and Andy helping with maintenance of the existing woodland once they were happy with how the planting was progressing in the main field under the care of Steve and Duncan. We’d love to keep working with Protect Earth and hope to have the opportunity to work on another project together – please do keep an eye out for ways in which we can help you too in the future.”

This exciting project is one of our largest, to be tackled over the next couple of years. Wood Could Should CIC had done a lot of planning, but were finding it rather overwhelming, so they approached us for support. Of course, we were happy to help.

We ordered trees, stakes and guards from a very local nursery and they agreed to deliver them to a What3words address in the corner of the field, which many nurseries won’t do. There were a lot of trees to plant so we suggested a three-day event. Wood Could Should already had some volunteers and we promised to find the rest. Phil, Andy, Steve and Duncan all went to help as there was a lot to do.

One corporate group, Youngs, came on the Friday and the rest of the volunteers came mainly from nearby towns, although one came all the way from Bristol, camped in the field and helped on all three days. That’s dedication! We had such a good turn out of volunteers on both Friday and Saturday (around 30 each day including one teenager working for his D of E Award) that the Sunday volunteers were not needed!

Because this site is not connected to anyone’s home, a neighbour was kind enough to provide lunch and hot drinks for everyone. The members of WCS invited all the volunteers out for dinner at a local pub at their expense. Not everyone was able to accept, but those that did had a wonderful time.

We asked the volunteers for some feedback about their day and this is their response: “Everything went well, clear instructions, great briefing from Duncan at start of activities, good supply of tools, poles, trees, supports. Steve and Andy friendly for regular refill of missing materials. Lovely lunch and facilities provided by nearby house owner.” Everyone we asked said they would love to volunteer again.

Would Could Should were very thankful:

“We are so so happy with how the weekend went and to have made a huge step towards creating the West Field Wood. Phil, Steve, Andy, Duncan along with Eds and Laura (Friends of Protect Earth) were amazing. The Wood Could Should team were busy stressing about whether we'd get it all done over the weekend, where everyone would park, how the plan on paper was going to get transferred onto the ground and whether volunteers would be put off by the rain but Phil and the Protect Earth team remained relaxed and quietly just made it happen, showing people what to do and correcting mistakes in a friendly way.

We really enjoyed getting to know the Protect Earth team and the volunteers you mustered and I think the friends and family and local people we brought along were all inspired by them. Kathy was brilliant in communicating and keeping us up to date in the run up. We're looking forward to planting again next year and continuing to work with you.”

WCS wanted to make clear that all those who volunteered were welcome at any time to go and visit the site and observe the progress of the trees they had planted.