Rural Payments and Services

This item is available for native woodlands or Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites of high environmental value, where the amount of deadwood does not meet the UK Forestry Standard requirement.

You must provide details of how you will undertake this operation, and where, in your Woodland Improvement Grant – Habitats and Species option.

You must have a minimum of 20 cubic metres of deadwood (greater than 15 centimetres iin diameter) per hectare over the whole forest or woodland.

Where there is not enough deadwood within the forest or woodland, you must carry out the following actions:

• do not remove deadwood from living trees – unless there is a risk to the public
• add standing deadwood by ring-barking selected trees that would not be a risk to the public
• fell selected trees and leave the fallen wood to decay, preferably in dappled shade
• gather sneddings from silvicultural operations into piles and leave to decay, preferably in dappled shade

Once the target of deadwood has been achieved then maintaining the deadwood habitat will involve:

• retaining existing old and large trees
• retaining accumulations of deadwood
• ensuring a continuous supply of deadwood by diversifying even-age stands of trees
• not removing standing or fallen dead or dying trees.

This item is not eligible for woodlands that have received payment for this under previous Forestry Commission Scotland grant schemes.