Please help us raise £200,000 to protect the future of this beautiful woodland in the heart of Essex
Fir Tree Wood is at the heart of an expansive interconnected landscape for wildlife .
Essex is one of the most over-developed counties in the UK and our landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented. Broken up, fenced off and built upon. Wildlife needs habitats to be connected to find food, shelter and to help them become more resilient in the face of climate change.
Fir Tree Wood in Little Baddow, near Danbury, is an enchanting woodland which has been untouched for many years. The current owners have been dedicated to sustaining the site in this unrestricted way, enabling wildlife, trees and plants to grow undeterred.
But only two years ago, 4.5 hectares of adjacent woodland along Common Lane was sold by others at auction and divided into 12 plots. As a result, Essex Wildlife Trust wants to bring Fir Tree Wood into the Danbury Ridge complex of nature reserves.
Thanks to the current owners, who wish to see Fir Tree Wood remain as woodland for posterity, a partnership between Little Baddow Parish Council and Essex Wildlife Trust has been formed to secure the woodland's future - ensuring that these 10 hectares of woodland can actively extend the network of local nature reserves across Danbury Ridge.
Fir Tree Wood forms a critical piece in the jigsaw of habitats across Danbury Ridge.
Your donation will ensure this mosaic of habitats across Danbury Ridge is managed together for wildlife and Fir Tree Wood is protected as woodland in perpetuity.
How your donation can help
£25
£50
£100
can help us to buy a safety kit: goggles, hard hat and gloves for one of our amazing volunteers working on the site.
can help us to purchase hand tools, enabling our volunteers to keep the site safe, while allowing woodland and wildlife to thrive.
could help us build and install a bat box, providing a safe environment for bats to raise their young.
£200
£370
£1,000
£5,000
£10,000
could help us carry out a dormouse survey, to monitor their population and help ensure their protection.
can help us buy 100m2 of woodland, providing vital habitat for wildlife.
could purchase a brush cutter, helping us to enhance this complex ecosystem.
could help us to meet management costs for the 10 hectares of woodland for the first 10 years.
could help us secure 2,550m2 of this woodland that forms a critical piece in the jigsaw of habitats across Danbury Ridge.
£25,000
could help us to improve the access track to the site, making it easier to manage the special woodlands at the heart of Danbury Ridge.
A stone’s throw away from the ever-growing urban environments surrounding Chelmsford and Maldon, Fir Tree Wood provides a special place for nature.
Under the stewardship of Essex Wildlife Trust, this woodland will become a new nature reserve: a key piece in the jigsaw of habitats collectively known as the Danbury Ridge.
Covering over 100 hectares, Danbury Ridge provides a refuge for a range of species to thrive, adapt and cope with a changing climate. It is here, in this land of woodland, common, heath, grassland, streams, bogs and dells, that nature has a home.
Elusive and scarce barbastelle bats with their flattened pug-like faces and dark, silky fur forage through the woodlands on the lookout for moths, midges and beetles. Lesser spotted woodpecker, the rarest of Britain’s woodpeckers, nest within the trees. Adorable dormice, when they’re not hibernating safely in their woven nests near the base of trees, climb throughout the woodland complex looking for hazelnuts, berries and insects. These are species that are at risk throughout the UK, and they can all move freely across Fir Tree Wood.
There are numerous butterflies, orchids and colonies of lily-of-the-valley across Danbury Ridge, which are indicators of ancient woodland. Fir Tree Wood will protect the neighbouring ancient woodland that is so incredibly important for wildlife, ensuring these pockets of precious habitats thrive by creating a buffer zone from housing and roads.
With increasing pressure on our natural resources and habitats, this enchanting complex is fundamental to nature recovery in Essex and must be protected.
Donate now to help us buy, establish and manage Fir Tree Wood as a new nature reserve. One of the UK's rarest mammals
In partnership with Essex Wildlife Trust, Natural England and the Bat Conservation Trust, Essex Bat Group has been studying the rare barbastelle bat throughout the Danbury complex.
Studies show that Danbury is a hotspot, with the bats utilising the network of woodland rides, streams and roosting in multiple trees throughout the reserves.
We all know that woodlands capture carbon, a vital resource as we combat climate change. And we know how important woodlands are for wildlife, providing a haven for countless species.
But woodlands are also essential for us. They provide effective filters that improve our air quality. They reduce the risks of flooding and protect soil from erosion.
Woodlands are essential for our mental and physical health. Regularly enjoying time in woodlands has been shown to boost our immune systems and relieve There’s nothing more calming.
Experience it for yourself – park at Scrubs Wood entrance in Runsell Lane and follow the recently improved Danbury Ridge Nature Trail. Fir Tree Wood spans both sides of the track leading from Fir Tree Lane to the crossroads with the Postman’s Lane bridleway. Visit www.essexwt.org.uk/nature-reserves/danbury-ridge or scan the QR code for a map and directions.
Woodlands form a unique and complex community of flora, fauna and fungi and their management can be equally as complex.
Traditionally, native trees were used for firewood and charcoal and were cut to near-ground level, allowing people to use the resources, and the trees to regrow. This is known as coppicing. Practised for centuries, woodland wildlife and wildflowers adapted to thrive when woodlands were coppiced on rotation.
Coppicing allows differing levels of sunlight to reach the woodland floor. This enables wildflowers like foxglove, wood anemone and lily-of-the-valley to emerge in these newly lit areas. Where new wildflowers grow, insects will follow, while low-cover nesting birds utilise the shelter that coppiced woodland provides. As vegetation renews after coppicing and ride widening, dormice move in, loving the woody regrowth to scuttle across. Left unmanaged, woodlands can become very
dark to the detriment of other habitats and creatures, reducing the sustainability of the complex ecosystem.
Fir Tree Wood is a secondary woodland, meaning it has been subject to changes by humans and re-grown over time. While coppicing is practised across Danbury Ridge, providing glades for wildlife to travel between, Fir Tree Wood will be largely left intact to provide a buffer to the ancient woodland it connects to. The boundary tree cover will be left for people to enjoy the magical experience of stepping into the woodland realm.
Adding Fir Tree Wood to the mosaic of reserves across Danbury Ridge makes it one of the largest woodland complexes in Essex and of critical importance for wildlife conservation in the county.
Please help us raise £200,000 to complete the funding of the land purchase and the woodland's management.
Every donation will protect the future of this woodland forever and will help wildlife to thrive.
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If you are a UK taxpayer, you can boost your donation by 25p of Gift Aid for every £1 you donate. This means your donation of £200 could be worth an extra £50 to usand it doesn't cost you a penny! Are you happy for us to claim Gift Aid on this donation and any donations you make in the future or have made to Essex Wildlife Trust in the past four years?
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If you pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax in the current tax year than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all your donations, it is your responsibility to pay the difference.
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We would love to thank you for your donation, keep you updated with our progress on securing Fir Tree Wood and other news from the Trust. How would you prefer us to contact you to thank you for your gift?
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Please use the pre-paid envelope or return to: Essex Wildlife Trust, Abbotts Hall, Great Wigborough, Colchester, CO5 7RZ
Your donation will be used for the purpose of purchasing Fir Tree Wood, protecting it as woodland in perpetuity and ensuring it is managed as a woodland habitat.
Should we not reach our appeal target, or the sale of the land is unable to proceed, funds raised through this campaign will be used to further enhance our conservation work in Danbury Ridge. If we exceed our target, we will be able to increase our impact and invest further resources into the management and restoration of woodlands across the Danbury Ridge area.
We will keep your data for the purposes of processing your donation and will only contact you with further information about Essex Wildlife Trust if you have opted in to do so. You can update the way you hear from us at any time by contacting us on 01621 862964 or membership@essexwt.org.uk. We promise to protect your personal data, in accordance with our Privacy Policy: www.essexwt.org.uk/privacy-policy
