While agreeing with you about the plantations Shimrod I must take issue with your comment about 'green-tinged do-gooders'

It is the enthusiasts/conservationists and scientists in organizations like The Woodland Trust who are concerned about retaining the 2% or so of the UK's 'ancient woodland' (defined as being mapped as woodland over 400 years ago but in probability much older)

Some of the purchase of previously cleared land to replant with native trees is to act as a buffer to remnants of previously ancient woodland and the aim is to also to acquire and preserve others under threat

Neither are they unaware of "what is in our local environment, and how it is changing over time"

'Co-author Richard Smithers of the Woodland Trust said, "Phenology is 'the canary in the cage'. The results of this new study** make real our changing climate and its potential to have profound consequences for the complex web of life."
The research shows that there are large differences between species in the rate at which seasonal events have shifted. Changes have been most rapid for many organisms at the bottom of food chains, such as plants and the animals that feed upon them. Predators have shown slower overall changes in the seasonal timing of their life cycle events.'

Thanks for that description Guest Date: 04 Jul 10 - 08:49 AM - unfortunately for most of us in the UK land space only permits the planting of a tree or two in a small garden.
The provision of woodland, open and free to visit, is so important in this crowded country

Biodiversity at Grass Wood in the River Wharfe valley


**The collaborative study, involving scientists from 12 UK research institutions, universities and conservation organisations, including the Woodland Trust, is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment so far of long-term changes in the seasonal timing (phenology) of biological events across marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments in the UK
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and carried out by staff from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Woodland Trust, Butterfly Conservation, University of Cambridge, Rothamsted Research, Marine Scotland, Royal Holloway University of London, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Sciences, Freshwater Biological Association, People's Trust for Endangered Species, British Trust for Ornithology, and the National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit University of Worcester