30/07/2025
Mapping a Brighter Future for Coppice – An Update
The National Coppice Federation (NCFed) is delighted to announce it has successfully completed its coppice study (the More Coppice Into Productive Management aka ‘coppice mapping’ Project).
Since the outcomes of the Project unlock some of the significant barriers that existed, there has never been a better time for landowners and managers to think about progressing coppice restoration and management.
The Project’s aims and outputs were to:
• Significantly improve the understanding of where coppice woodland is located and its condition and restorability;
• Improve understanding of the barriers to coppice management/restoration;
• Produce a publicly available interactive web-based summary map (subject to consent and GDPR measures);
• Produce coppice management/restoration information resources;
• Produce a final Project report to include recommendations for further action and support.
During the Project we:
• Surveyed 9,583ha of woodland across 610 sites, of which 7,020ha was identified as coppice not previously recorded in the existing official national dataset (National Forest Inventory 2023 dataset);
• Discovered that this is twice the previously known extent of coppice for the whole of Great Britain in just three regions of England;
• Discovered that the vast majority of coppice recorded during the Project (80%; 5,662ha) is unmanaged and therefore at risk of further decline or disappearing altogether;
• Discovered that most existing coppice seems to occur in Ancient Woodland;
• Discovered that woodland owners and managers collectively experience a wide range of interlinked barriers and requirements specific to them; there is no clear single theme. Therefore any future support needs to be flexible so that it can be tailored to suit their needs.
The following is now available to access freely online via the Project webpage https://ncfed.org.uk/mapping-project/:
• Interactive online coppice map;
• Coppice restoration and management information guide for landowners and managers;
• Contact details for the network of Coppice Advisors; and,
• Our main Project report which includes the results of our consultation and mapping work.
In addition, the project was instrumental in the new coppice-specific woodland grant (FY6 Restoring Coppice in Woodland) being added to the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier grant scheme. See here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countryside-stewardship-higher-tier-get-ready-to-apply/countryside-stewardship-higher-tier-new-capital-items
We feel we have achieved a lot in the past three years, and the work has helped NCFed expand capacity for various initiatives. For now, we are able to reflect and learn from both the successes and challenges of the Project with the knowledge that we hope to build on the work that we have conducted across 3/5 of England so far. In the long term we hope to conduct further mapping work in the remaining two Forestry Commission regions of England, as well as in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and conduct work on the Forestry England estate; subject to further funding. It would be a truly historic achievement to gain a comprehensive picture of how much coppice woodland is left in the UK, and in what condition.
If you have an interest in conducting further mapping work or have any other queries about the Project and its outputs, then please get in touch with us at [email protected]. Please note further mapping work would ideally require some form of budget allocation, but the team is also willing to discuss citizen science mapping possibilities. Also, we no longer have full-time staff, so response times to queries may be slow. Please be patient waiting for a response.
Getting more coppice woodland into productive management will increase the availability of good quality coppice material to meet demand and bring many other environmental and social benefits, including increased biodiversity.
NCFed would like to thank the Project team and is grateful to many others who have contributed their time, knowledge and expertise to the Project; in particular the many landowners and land managers across England who allowed us access to woodland for survey work. The National Coppice Federation gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided to this Project by the Forestry Commission through its Woods Into Management Forestry Innovation Fund (WIMFIF).
(In-rotation Hornbeam coppice, image by Joel Roden)
