The future of woodlands relies on effective management, just as a garden needs constant maintenance and care to thrive. Trees must be thinned to grow well and invasive species like bramble have to be managed so that they don't dominate other plants.

Woodlands that have a reason to be managed, perhaps for timber, firewood, access or green woodworking, are more likely to be receive love and attention long into the future, and indeed those woodlands that we have today have survived precisely because they have had an economic value to the local community-