Coppicing for nature at Pewsham Locks with Howard Yardy from the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust.

A comprehensive look at Coppicing with WBCT Wildlife Officer Howard Yardy.
Coppicing is a traditional woodland management technique that dates back to the Stone Age. It involves felling trees at their base to create a ‘stool’ where new shoots will grow.
You can recognise a coppiced tree by the many thin trunks or ‘poles’ at its base. Most tree species can be coppiced but the best suited of our native trees are hazel, sweet chestnut, ash and lime.
What's it for?
Coppicing was originally used to ensure a regular source of firewood and timber. Traditionally, the long straight poles produced by coppicing would have been used for fencing, building and in the garden as bean poles.
These days, coppicing is primarily a way of improving the health and biodiversity of a woodland area by opening it up to the sunlight and allowing a wider range of plants to flourish. But the coppiced wood doesn’t go to waste at the places in our care - some is still dried as firewood and we sometimes use it to make fences, benches, stiles and stakes for hedge laying.