Northfield Wood Restoration

This HD short film commissioned by the Woodland Trust, illustrates the fantastic work done by the Woodland Trust and its team of hard working volunteers lead by John Michell, who have worked tirelessly over the past 23 years to bring Northfield Wood  back to life and to its ancient woodland glory. This video was used as part of the Woodland Trust’s ‘Save Ancient Forests For Everyone’ Campaign, for their website, for meetings with the government and for workshops.

Northfield Wood was taken over by the forestry commission in the 1950’s and ancient  trees were cut down to make way for fast growing Conifer Trees needed for timber.  A Conifer was planted every 6ft which overwhelmed the entire wood blocking out all the light so the natural biodiversity of the wood i.e. the wild life, wild flowers, flora and fauna just died off.  The Woodland Trust bought the wood 23 years ago and embarked upon a restoration project where gradually John Michell and his team of volunteers have been cutting down the Conifers allowing the natural light back into the woodland enabling the broad leaf trees to return along with the vibrant flora and fauna encouraging wildlife, insects and butterflies back home.  Rare wild flowers such as orchids, primroses, red Campion, bluebells and yellow Pimpernell and more have slowly returned to the woodland.

Alarmingly we only have 4% of ancient woodland remaining in the UK – so if you want to do something about this then log onto www.woodlandtrust.org.uk and join their ‘Save Ancient Forests For Everyone’ campaign or you can ‘Become a WoodWatcher’.

Sadly we only have 33% of public forests remaining in the UK – and due to public outrage at the government proposing the sale of our public forests in January 2011 – a dramatic u-turn occured and now the government have set up an Independent Forestry Panel to decide what happens to our remaining 33% of public forests.  This panel runs from 2011 to 2015 but it still has a remit to sell off 15% of our public forests.  Make your voice heard to the panel by logging onto www.woodlandtrust.org.uk and send an email direct to the panel on the ‘Have Your Say’ link – but sadly 31 July 2011 was the deadline for this call for response – so keep checking The Woodland Trust website for future opportunities to ‘Have Your Say’.  In the meantime, you can write a letter or email to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Caroline Spelman – click here for guidelines on what you can say.

WE ARE NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET !

Crew

Client – The Woodland Trust

Producer, Writer, Director – Sara Proudfoot Clinch

Camera – Tom Whittaker

Sound – David Bekkevold

Composer – Adrian Meehan

Editor – Daniel Richards

Colorist – Yiorgos Loizou

Camera Equipment – Procam TV

Post Production – Evolutions

Woodland Trust Representative – Michael Ryder

Woodland Trust Head of PR – Paul Hetherington

Woodland Trust Volunteers – John, Taz, Colin, Neville, Colin, Tim