It's a big worry' Missing saplings prompt fears for Britain's ancient woodlands

To an untrained eye, Monks Wood appears healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance beside footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich in ash, maple and oak trees.

- Patrick Greenfield

Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.

But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find.

Today, in the dappled sunshine surrounding the largest trees, spaces that would normally harbour a mass of saplings scrambling for light are bare.

This pattern is not limited to the 157-hectare (388-acre) site. From Buckholt Wood in Monmouthshire to Glen Tanar in the Cairngorms, new research across eight sites around Britain shows evidence of a deeply concerning trend: ancient woodlands are failing to regenerate.

Despite having vastly different species, soil types, rainfall and temperatures, all the sites were following the same trend: the saplings were dying.

Mailes, a postgraduate researcher and co-author of the research, said: "We could see as we were going through the forest that there wasn't a lot of regeneration coming back up.