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The important UK #StateOfNature report has just been launched. Here’s my woodlandy take on this vital snapshot of the life from which we all live. [Thread] nbn.org.uk/stateofnature2… 
The gloomy headline is that abundance of 700 indicator species has declined 13% since 1970, with indications that the decline of nature may be accelerating. But I’m more interested in the detail, because that’s where we can change the trends. #StateOfNature
After agricultural intensification, #StateOfNature reveals that climate change is the biggest threat. While changes may initially be seen in distribution rather than decline of species, it is imperative that we tackle what is an unfolding and irreversible disaster for ecosystems.
#StateOfNature highlights that no habitat is an island. The impact of the success or failure of carbon sequestration, storage and substitution, by timber in a forest, will be felt in the sea.
Whereas in agriculture, intensity of management is the problem, #StateOfNature highlights that in woodland it is decline in management which is degrading ecosystems; and failure to create more woodland is a missed opportunity for biodiversity gain.
#StateOfNature notes the advances made in new woodland design to benefit wildlife amongst other objectives, thanks to the UK Forestry Standard, but highlights that the area of woodland in sustainable management has remained static.
Our biodiversity urgently needs secure policies and market mechanisms to make well-managed woodland valuable to landowners, to ensure healthy, diverse stands are nurtured over future decades. This was highlighted recently in a report by @royal_forestry: rfs.org.uk/media/552717/w…
@royal_forestry #StateOfNature is impressively referenced; but there is the occasional unreferenced, misleading, assertion. Native trees ARE vital for certain niche assemblages; but poor management is a far greater limitation on overall woodland biodiversity: researchgate.net/publication/22…
@royal_forestry The #StateOfNature measure of sustainable management quoted above is a measure of the sustainability of timber produced: so almost all these sustainable woods include timber-producing exotic conifers. Native woodlands are rarely certified. ukwas.org.uk
@royal_forestry #StateOfNature commends a new resource which could change this: the Woodland Wildlife Toolkit. Linked to external monitoring and funding, this new self-assessment tool could be transformative for native woodland health. woodlandwildlifetoolkit.sylva.org.uk
@royal_forestry The oddest thing about the 2019 #StateOfNature report is that it makes no reference to the 2016 report – which had no less than David Attenborough highlight its 2013 predecessor. rspb.org.uk/globalassets/d…
@royal_forestry I’d really like to have seen a discussion of changes from one #StateOfNature to the next, to clarify what is changing both in nature and our knowledge. Simply repeating ‘decline since 1970’ risks sending everyone, not least conservationists, into a slough of ineffective despond.
@royal_forestry #StateOfNature demonstrates very clearly that the increase in data and recording is tremendous. We should focus far less on 1970-2010, and far more on what their new data demonstrates about how specific interventions deliver specific outcomes.
@royal_forestry For example, butterflies and specialist woodland birds are a thin measure of changes in woodland habitat in the short term. I’d like to see woodland bryophytes, lichens and insects disaggregated from the all-habitat series, and a woodland fungi series included.
@royal_forestry Meanwhile: congratulations to all who produced #StateOfNature, especially young ecologists like @NaturalistDara, @BellaLack, @JamesNaturalist and many others who are keeping biodiversity in the headlines and the minds of land managers and policy makers. nbn.org.uk/stateofnature2…
