ABSTRACT
Since the last ice age, Great Britain has lost most of its forest cover but a determined restoration effort over the last 100 years has managed to increase both the cover and productivity of woodlands. Most of the woodland restoration that took place during the twentieth century, which can be described as providing replacement woodland (Stanturf, 2005), was driven by the vision that it was necessary to create a strategic supply of homegrown timber (Anon, 1918). Much of this new woodland was established before the ecological aspects of restoration became generally well-established toward the end of the twentieth century (Newton and Kapos, 2003; Stanturf, 2005). This initial phase of woodland restoration was focused on the widespread afforestation of poor land where fast-growing non-native conifers would grow satisfactorily and losses to agricultural production would be minimal.
