New Year Update The New Year has seen plenty of activity in the Wood. Volunteers have been hard at work replacing fencing in various locations. Some people ask why some parts of the Wood are fenced off. It is necessary to restrict access to selected areas in order to protect ground layer plants from trampling and compaction. It is useful to have a look at the adjacent Dulwich Wood where there is no such protection of vulnerable areas. In much of that wood, there is little or no ground cover, with the trees emerging from bare earth. Woodland shouldn't be like that, and a healthy ecosystem should have vertical layers in it, which support different species of birds and insects. Some butterflies, for example, forage in the upper branches of trees, whilst many more need healthy ground vegetation. Without that ground cover, they will not colonise the wood. The same goes for other insects and small mammals like wood mic...