I recently went to an excellent Introduction to Woodland Management course given by the Gwent Wildlife Trust (my fee was funded by National Lottery). This was a half day talk and walk in the woods of a trust reserve – Springdale Farm near Usk. The woodland on this site is managed for wildlife rather than timber production, the sloping ground and difficult access would make commercial use unviable anyway. One of the subjects explained was that in Wales there is funding
available for creating and managing woodland under the Glastir scheme
(see http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6J2GXD for detailed information, 2013).
Of course, it’s not possible to obtain ash saplings at present due to restrictions following the “ash dieback” disease outbreak (caused by the Chalara fraxinea fungus). Although all instances found in Wales up to early May 2013 have been in recently planted trees, the first cases in mature trees have just been seen in Carmarthenshire. There is extensive information on the subject, including instruction videos, on this web page: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/chalara.
BBC News, 1 Aug 2015: Ash dieback disease: Woodland Trust warning over impact
A high proportion of UK ash trees are expected to die eventually, and the WT is preparing to reduce the impact by supplying trees to be planted in order to fill gaps which will be left.
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Related but separate to this course: the photo above left shows an attempt to protect newly planted saplings from animals and weather. It would be important to remove individual protectors (e.g. spirals) before they become become tight around the tree stems. If there’s insufficient air space around the stem, a damp soil micro environment may be created around the bark, leading to tree damage.
Also, I understand that keeping vegetation low near saplings is important, for one thing to leave room for fungi to fruit. The trees depend on fungi root networks (micorrhiza) to increase their nutrient and water uptake. Cutting right up to the plant stems is unlikely to be practical, or necessary as long as there is suitable space nearby for fungi to fruit (their roots can be be extensive). Picking too many fungi, or otherwise damaging them (for example with herbicide), can be detrimental to trees even some distance away. The photo on the right is a stile which works quite well accessing a copse from a sloping bank.