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British Woodlands Survey 2014

BWS 2014 focusses on ancient woodland, planted ancient woodland sites (PAWS) and restoration. Following on from BWS 2012, this latest survey is exploring current management practices and attitudes towards ancient woodland and PAWS.

The findings will support a Heritage Lottery funded outreach project, for owners and managers of ancient woodland or PAWS. The project, co-ordinated by the Woodland Trust, is offering advice and site assessments from locally based Project Officers in 10 areas of the UK at no charge to landowners and managers.

The survey is open to all woodland owners and managers. It will be available in English and Welsh. The survey will take only 20 minutes to complete, and will be live throughout September. There is valuable information provided at the end of the survey on how to identify ancient woodland and PAWS, and contact details for the local Project Officers providing expert advice to owners and managers should you wish to enquire about a visit.

About BWS

The BWS series provides an evidence base on which future polices and practice can be developed to support further sustainable forest management for multiple ecosystem services in Britain. We intend to conduct regular major surveys every four years, interspersed by smaller surveys on particular themes.


If you are interested in commissioning a future BWS then we would be pleased to discuss your aims. We are also interested in sharing selected data with researchers with a view to publishing original research.

BWS 2012


The first BWS survey was conducted in 2012, and was designed as a major survey gathering information about ownership, markets and management. As such it was intended as a baseline against which data from future major surveys can be compared. BWS 2012 itself built upon an important series of surveys undertaken by the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge since 1963.

A summary of the 2012 report can be found here.

Survey of woodland owners – your views please!

The BritishWoodlands2012 survey is run by the Sylva Foundation and supported by Natural England. We'd also like to hear from farmers and other land managers who are considering creating woodland on their land.

The survey asks about motivations for woodland management, planting and support.

The survey builds on work that has been carried out by Cambridge University‟s Department of Land Economy on five occasions over the last 50 years. Their most recent survey report from 2005 provides some context for a current project entitled "Private Woods in Crisis?"

We hope the survey will help us to:

• gauge the current level of sustainable forest management in British privately-owned woodlands
• assess the potential for woodland creation
• assemble evidence of the level of public benefits that are delivered from private woodlands
• find out why some woods remain unmanaged
• provide ideas to contribute to improvements in grants and to grow the domestic timber markets

The survey should take about 20-30 minutes to complete. All data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. Results will be presented in an amalgamated version only and will be used to help inform us about how we can best support the woodland and forestry community.

People who take the survey will be invited to a woodland conference at Oxford University to be held in December 2012 at which the results of the survey will be discussed. 

The survey is supported by Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Forestry Commission, Woodland Trust, Natural England and the Institute for Chartered Foresters.

For further information contact Chris.Reid@naturalengland.org.uk

We are encouraging woodland owners, managers and agents to complete the new online questionnaire survey by 30 September 2012.