Willow trees have an enormous value for biodiversity: They support a huge number of insects and provide homes in their hollows for bats and birds. Their roots also help stabilise river banks.

Pollarding willows extends their lifespan and helps to create unusual niches for wildlife.

This leaflet encourages landowners and landmanagers to bring neglected willows back into a pollarding scheme and also to plant new willows to reestablish them as landscape features.

This leaflet was produced jointly by the Cambridge Green Belt Project, the Environment Agency and the Biodiversity Partnership.