Action Plan: Native Woodland

Native woodland refers to wooded areas made up of tree and shrub species that have inhabited an area naturally. In the United Kingdom this usually relates to species that colonised after the last Ice Age.

All native woodland types are equally valuable, hosting a range of different dependent plant and animal species. In Northumberland five types of native woodland exist and these are often found in woodland mosaics:

• upland oakwoods
• upland mixed ashwood
• wet woodlands
• lowland mixed broadleaved woodland
• juniper

All native woodland types fall within the two main categories of Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland (ASNW) or Plantation on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS). ASNW refers specifically to woodland dating back to at least 1600 AD in England as before this planting of new woodland was uncommon. So a wood present in 1600 was likely to have developed naturally. PAWS are areas of ASNW on which the original natural woodland has been cleared and replaced by a plantation of either native or exotic species. Whilst PAWS will have been changed a great deal, many features of ancient woodland can still be seen on these sites and restoration work can be undertaken to restore them to native species sites.