For the individual Habitat and Species Action Plans see publications (right)

Overview

Cambridgeshire is one of the least wooded areas in the UK with only 2.1% woodland cover (State of the Environment Report 1998), so wooded habitats play a vital role in the county as important wildlife habitats and landscape features.

The priority task is to conserve the surviving sites and ensure that they are appropriately managed. It is also important to increase the area of woodland cover in the county.

There is an increasing awareness about the importance of very old trees and the role they play in wooded habitats, especially parklands. Such habitats are now increasingly rare and efforts must be made to conserve such features.

There are a number of different wooded habitats in the county which support a varied and complex range of species. A number of the habitats are semi-natural whilst others have been planted by man quite recently. In fact, many habitats would lose their importance for wildlife without management.

Most of the long established woodlands have been managed by coppicing in the past to produce a range of wood products. The decline of this traditional management has reduced the biodiversity of the woodlands.

Some of the rare species found in woodlands and scrub are the Dormouse and the Black Hairstreak butterfly. There have been no naturally occurring populations of Dormice in Cambridgeshire since about 1900, while the Black Hairstreak is limited to about nine sites in Cambridgeshire.

The Action Plans outline the action to be taken in Cambridgeshire over the next 10 years to help preserve and enhance these habitats and species.