Another quandary - Mankind

The Wilderness Stream choked with thrown-in sticks and logs

27th February 2024

Following on from last week's “ecological quandary” I'm up against yet another one involving interactions with a quite different species - Mankind.

One of the best things that Wilderness Wood does for the interaction between man and the environment is to introduce people to the awe and wonder of the natural world, people who might otherwise not make that first step towards environmental awareness.

City folk in particular may see the natural world as something of a threat. I was told a story by someone working for The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) on the Isle of Thanet in Kent. It had been suggested that a programme of tree planting should be carried out since the area had no significant woodland.

In preparation for this initiative a meeting was organised between residents and TCV. When the scale of planting close to housing estates was revealed to the residents, there was a general note of discontent from the audience. It transpired that trees were associated with gangs of youths and drugs, since trees offer concealment from the prying eyes of the police.

I had a similar experience when my late father-in-law came to visit us in Battle. He had spent almost all his life in London, rarely going any place else. A keen gardener himself, we invited him to look at the garden when he and my mother-in-law visited.

“No thanks. I’m fine looking at it from here.”

It was some time later that we discovered that it was the plantation of tall western red cedars on land beyond the bottom of our garden which spooked him.

Anyone who lives in the High Weald probably doesn't give trees and woodland a second thought, perhaps taking them for granted, but that is not necessarily the case for anyone who lives in an inner city area. I can imagine a ‘gang’ of 25 metre tall green monsters might appear quite threatening to them.

The ‘gang’ of Western Red Cedars at the bottom of my garden.

Wilderness Wood is within easy driving distance of south London, so attracts metropolitan types looking to take the kids for a day out where they can have access to a car park, cafe, toilets and a play area.

A major attraction however, is the relative freedom to roam around the site’s 62 acres. Most of this is woodland, where inevitably they will come across dens built by other kids and their parents, using branches lying on the ground. By and large this does not present a problem, especially in the softwood plantation areas.

However, the new ponds excavated on site present an entirely different challenge. Kids love water and mud, every bit as much as den building, with their dogs perhaps even more so.

The problem with introducing water bodies to the wood is that they are a magnet for both dogs and children. This is unfortunate since we dug the ponds to increase the biodiversity of Wilderness Wood and not as an extension to our mud kitchen.

Last Tuesday I went to check on how the ponds were doing and found to my consternation that not only had masses of long branches been thrown into the open water, but bewellied feet had trampled around their margins.

Multiple children’s footprints around the pond margin and a large log moved by an adult?

This is probably the most delicate part of the pond, where young emergent plants such as reed, loosestrifes, yellow flag and others might be struggling to find a foothold. Ironically a foot inside a Welly achieves the opposite.

Kids want to play and invariably don't think about the consequences of their actions. Fortunately most parents visiting are pretty aware and rein in their overenthusiastic offspring. I suspect last week's parents (usually dads) did the opposite and joined in. This assumption is based on the size of footprints and one particular log which must have weighed a couple of hundred kilos.

So the dilemma is how to address the protection of the ponds, without fencing them off and plastering the site with negative notices.

I am hopeful that once the pond project gets to the stage where any marginal mud is crammed full of mature emergent plants, then people will avoid disturbing them. Further, any occasional disturbance will not be so threatening once deep roots and rhizomes have developed.

For the next year at least we are going to have to develop strategies to mitigate any risk of trampling. Information, education and physical barriers will need to be employed. Striking the right balance will be critical, so that we can continue to offer an introduction to nature, but at the same time protect the very thing they have come to experience.

I returned on Friday with some notices asking visitors to avoid disturbing the ponds. I intentionally used the words “Frog Sanctuary”, in an effort to appeal to their inner Kermit.

Today I came back for phase two of my frog protection scheme. Jake has cut me 30 or so 5ft stakes (don't worry your children are quite safe, unless they happen to be vampires).

The stakes are for Stewsat on Saturday. Volunteers will be set the task of driving these into the ground at 2 ft intervals around the pond.

We will also cut 8ft branches off adjacent coppice stools and weave these between the stakes to create a dog and childproof ‘Estonian’ fence (a kind of woven fence we have used in the past).

It'll look beautiful, the kids will be saved from falling into the ponds and the tadpoles will be able to continue their life cycles undisturbed.

A line of stakes to be woven into an ‘Estonian’ fence to separate ponds and public

As a footnote, dogs can offer another threat to pond life. Not so much the trampling or the disturbance of wildlife, but the more insidious issue of manufacturers of flea powders using substances which on getting into freshwater kill off freshwater invertebrates. Dog fleas and water fleas react in much the same way to such substances - death! We can happily do without dog fleas, but water fleas, other invertebrates and of course frogs are essential to life in our ponds.

A message from The Rivers Trust - for dog owners

David Horne - you can also follow me on www.leggingroundbritain.com as we explore the coast of the UK.