Wales is a patchwork of diverse habitats from rugged mountains boggy moorland and
marshy estuaries but there is one habitat that defines the Welsh and
British landscape like know other they are the largest semi natural habitats in
the UK the leafy green threads that have held the diverse Welsh countryside
together for more than a millennia
there are over 88,000 kilometers of hedgerows in Wales
that's enough hedge to stretch twice around the world
Hedges have years said the oaks and every bush is something's loose silent
as tombs these creatures are so true no gold no gifts can subdue the thoughts of
17th century Brecknockshire poet Henry Vaughan - they are absolutely culturally
they're very important and historically as well they're a real link to the past
a link to the people that worked in the countryside in the past and lived in the
countryside in the past hopefully alarm a bit earlier catch a
bit earlier market hopefully make a bit more money because the lands will sell
it or more at a better time of the year when there's not a glut of lambs
hedgerows have got other values you know they act as carpet storage they help
with water drainage and things like that which we just as important as in urban
areas as they are out in rural areas although hedgerows form a lattice of
habitat across large swathe as of whales whales has lost an estimated 25 to 30
percent of its hedgerows since 1945 immediately after the war there was a
course pressure on increasing food production making fields larger
agricultural equipment got larger tractors got wider so sometimes narrow
gateways and hedgerows were removed to make bigger unit fields looking at old
maps looking at old photographs you can see there are far fewer Riis in the
landscape than they used to be that there have been payments in the past to
grub out your hedge rules to get larger fields however there are now efforts to
arrest this habitat loss with funding from welsh government's nature fund a
partnership has been formed with keep wales tidy as its lead alongside the
Woodland Trust and the University of South Wales law forest project is a way
really of raising awareness and interest in our hedgerows it's a practical
conservation project and we do a number of activities from practical hedge
laying which is a very skilled task which people can learn
in free training through - something's is a little bit easier for perhaps the
younger members of the community we do work with schools which is looking at
hedges thinking about what hedges are what lives in or around hedges and what
sort of condition hedges are in - what we are aiming to do with this project is to
reinforce that the importance of hedges and ensure that the people working with
them so farmers and landowners can sort of sustain them and and work alongside
each other - to make them better some of the hedgerows the project has been
helping to maintain manage and restore our ancient they have been planted on
purpose for many centuries to create fields and to keep one set of livestock
away from another a lot of them were planted in the 18th century when the
enclosure acts came in and fields began to be enclosed but some hedges actually
date from much much earlier than that I think there are even examples of
Neolithic hedges - hedgerows are crucial habitats in the welsh landscape for a
myriad of species indeed they are home to 47 species of conservation concern
including 13 which are globally threatened and if you think about them
they're really connecting through vast areas of the countryside vast areas of
farmed land and enabling the dispersal of wildlife throughout those areas
connecting up with for example areas of woodland River corridors so there are
really important way that that wildlife moves throughout the landscape many
species of bats use hedgerows and other linear features for navigation for
foraging for roosting dormice are classically a species that are
associated with hedgerows and woodland habitats and again hedgerows are thought
to be as important as Woodlands as a habitat for dormouse hedgehogs as well
or another species that are associated with hedgerows and they find really
significant important cover at the base of hedgerows and again lots of good
foraging so hedgehogs will be finding things like slugs and other
invertebrates to be feeding on in the damp sort of undergrowth associated
with the base of the hedgerows as well as finding a place to hibernate
bumblebees are a species that have unfortunately undergone
significant declines over the last few decades and hedgerows are thought to be
an important habitat for particularly certain species of rare bumblebee
hedgerows and particularly the margins are associated with hedgerows providing
often quite a good diversity of flowering plants and not just a good
diversity but a good diversity throughout the season that bumble bees
are foraging so right from sort of April through to September in terms of nesting
and feeding yet a whole variety of birds from typical woodland species such
as you know blackbirds wrens blue tits great tits they'll all find nesting and
foraging in good thick shrubby hedgerows which provide good cover good safety
from predators as well as providing lots of insects and things to feed the young
in the margin in particular of a hedgerow can be a very important
resource and and really is a sort of relic of something that was much much
more widespread - although the hedges themselves are crucial habitat for these
species there is one other important element of the hedge that is an iconic
part of the Welsh countryside there are an estimated one point eight million
hedgerow trees in the UK they are an important part of the hedge ecosystem
and significant habitats in themselves so we've got a lovely old oak here we've
got a row of hazel in there there's also a young ash
there's also filled maple and if you think that some as 275 species of insect
that will use oak as a food plants there's 250 - that will use hazel as a
food plants think hundred and eleven that will use ash so there's a whole
habitats both in each individual tree as well as in the row of hedges given that
we only have four to five percent of our native woodland left in Wales the
habitats that hedgerow trees provide is hugely important increasingly important
not only are hedges a ubiquitous feature
in our rural landscape but they are also important habitats in the urban
environment as part of the project the University of South Wales has been
carrying out surveys in the grounds of Cyfarthfa Castle which is in the centre
of Merthyr Tydfil there's only been a small deterioration in the condition of
hedgerows across the whole area in the last 15 years which is good news however
what we have seen is we've seen loss of hedgerows particularly through housing
development on the outskirts of the towns and villages hedgerows in urban
areas are just as important as hedgerows in other areas such as in rural and
farming landscapes because they do provide a harbor area for wildlife
species but also they've got important community value and a lot of people like
to see hedgerows in the area because particularly when they're well-managed
it gives them a sense of place and an understanding of the landscape around
them people understand the importance of these hedgerows then they're more likely
to be able to protect them and get them managed effectively - as well as providing
important habitats for wildlife and connecting people to nature hedgerows
are also important in other ways one of them being the prevention of erosion
if there's a big area without anything growing in it the soil tends to get
carried along by the water and goes into rivers and so on so it can actually help
to keep the quality of the soil in fields - when you have a lot of rainfall
what happens is the the water obviously runs into the ground and soaks into the
ground and what the hedgerows will do along slide other species like trees they
will actually draw the water up and store it and they will actually slow the
rate of drainage into the water table stopping flooding and halting erosion of
the soil is also important to farmers indeed hedges are essential to farmers
in one crucial way big hedges good hedges a shade it's like having a shed
the sheep will snuggle up under the hedge and the wind on the cold wet night
and you won't get the losses loads of lambs are lost from from hypothermia
and if you can give any chance of protection it's a benefit to me isn't it
if you can save one lamb it adds up one Lamb a night it
adds up to significant savings over a lifetime of the hedge hedgerows not only
help save lambs for farmers but the management and maintenance of hedges is
a tradition and skill in which many farmers take a great pride
I've been hedging since I left school hedge laying is an art and of course
they're all styles of hedging we only go one to go to the next county from
Brecknockshire and here in to Radnorshire where you've got a different style
different style again in Carmarthenshire I wouldn't like to see the
skill of the hedging day out at all because once you skip a generation it
doesn't come back is it - management and maintenance has become a problem since
World War two as well as a 25 to 30 percent loss in hedgerows in Wales it is
estimated that fear within 44 percent of today's hedges are in a favorable
condition there for training and the passing on of knowledge is critical in
reversing the decline what we try and do with hedgerow management is to is
to avoid the bird nesting season really and that that runs it it does very a little
but pretty much from March until August at the time when you want to
really avoid doing much management at all on your on your hedgerows it's good
to cut your hedgerow once every three years if you can't it's giving it a
chance to grow properly it's always good to not manage an entire area in one go
and the reason for that is it's very useful to have mixed habitats it's good
to have a different age structure so you can have some young hedgerows you can
have some older hedgerows some thicker hair drawers some bushier hedgerows
again it creates that variety of habitat which is so important for wildlife the
types of plants that you want to put in there the native trees really will
depend on that what you're really looking for on your land if you've got a
lot of livestock you know you you're likely to have a much higher proportion
of things like Hawthorn and Blackthorn but if you're interested in having
a diversity of species there are lots of different wildlife hedgerow packs that
you can get a hold of and from people like the woodland trust have great
mixtures as well as teaching management and hedge
laying skills the long forest project has also provided farmers with support
to plant new hedgerows - saw an advert in their local paper for this long forest
project hedge pigeon plants contribution towards it I thought that seems a good
idea I could plant some new hedges this field
here was two fields originated years ago and the hedges went and it ended up as
one field so what we've done we've planted 250 metres of hedge new hedge in
plants and trees down the middle of this field and the field back as it
originally was two fields and I would say it would probably be best part of
50% contribution to the cost of the project the project supplied me with the
plants and the fencing equipment and I supplied all the labor to put it all up
so it's it was a big contribution to the job yes according to the woodland trust
planting new trees is also a priority that cannot be delayed - Hedge link UK
has estimated that there are 1.8 million hedgerow trees in the UK and alsothat a
third of those over a hundred years old so whilst it's good to have many older
trees because more species of animal will depends on those and on younger
trees we do need to keep renewing them many of our native trees are available
from garden centres but I would say always check that those trees have been
sourced and grown in the UK because there are many pests and diseases
outside the UK that can be brought in on imported stock
if more trees are planted hedges laid and maintained with a helpful
initiatives like the long forest project we could all be more optimistic about
their future lots of people who live in countries of the world that are too dry
or cold or arid to have hedgerows really appreciate our hedgerows very much
there the response that we've had has
been really positive and hopefully something that we can do again just to
ensure we can sustain our hedges here in Wales - imagine what it would like if we
didn't have any hedgerows you know within Wales how how much more poor
would we be.
closed captions - Trees Woods Forests