You must comply with regulations protecting wildlife species and habitats when you’re managing woodland and planning forestry operations. These include the European protected species (EPS) listed in the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

It’s an offence to:

• deliberately capture, injure, kill or cause significant disturbance to a protected species
• deliberately destroy the eggs of a protected species
• damage or destroy protected species’ breeding sites or resting places (such as a bat roost in a tree or a dormouse nest on the woodland floor)

You must carry out planned operations carefully, making the necessary checks, and you may need a wildlife license in certain circumstances. If you follow good practice you should be able to carry out most activities without the need for a licence – but to do so you may just have to modify or reschedule some of your management proposals or practices.

Penalties

You can get an unlimited fine and up to 6 months in prison if you don’t have a wildlife management licence when carrying out an activity that have an impact on protected species.

Who to contact

Although Natural England are the statutory body for wildlife licensing, the Forestry Commission local area teams offer support to woodland managers and owners who may need to apply for a wildlife licence from the Natural England licensing unit. The Forestry Commission will carry out an initial assessment to help with processing of wildlife licence applications and give applicants a single point of contact. Natural England will make the final decision on wildlife licences and will issue them through the Forestry Commission.

Read more about
how to comply with habitats regulations
(PDF, 1.18MB, 19 pages)

– including decision-making and woodland planning processes that help to effectively manage protected species in woodlands.

Protected species checklists

Use this
European protected species and woodland operations checklist
(PDF, 135KB, 1 page)

when you begin to plan what work you want to do and how it might affect protected species. The completed checklist will help provide some evidence that you have considered protected wildlife if your operations are later challenged, but you must also research what species records are available, survey your woodland for evidence of species presence and manage your woodland according.

Operational site assessments

You can also complete an operational site assessment (OSA), using the
site feature checklist
(PDF, 23.5KB, 1 page)

This is a simple checklist to use when planning forest operations – eg harvesting or civil engineering work. Use the OSA to consider any aspect of the work that could cause a problem, including to:

• wildlife on or close to the site
• people directly involved in the operation
• third parties such as members of the public, neighbours etc
• the landowner who is legally responsible for operations that occur on the site

Read Forestry Commission
guidance on OSA and protected species
(PDF, 64.2KB, 2 pages)

You can download species-specific advice from the Forestry Commission on how to check your woodland for protected species and how you should operate in their presence:

• 
  all 17 species of bats
  (PDF, 311KB, 12 pages)
  

• 
  dormouse
  (PDF, 79.5KB, 9 pages)
  

• 
  great crested newt
  (PDF, 171KB, 10 pages)
  

• 
  otter
  (PDF, 89.7KB, 10 pages)
  

• 
  sand lizard and smooth snake
  (PDF, 80.3KB, 9 pages)
  

Badgers

It’s an offence to kill, injure or take badgers. It’s also an offence to interfere with their setts. If you’re in doubt over whether you might damage or disturb badgers or if damage or disturbance would be unavoidable, you should apply for a wildlife licence

Red squirrels

Red squirrels and their drays are protected by law. Find out more about the legal protection of the red squirrel.

Plants

You should also consider plants in your woodland that might be protected by law. See the list of plants protected by law and how they are protected.

Note: woodland managers should follow the good practice found in the UK Forestry Standard.

Biodiversity

Find out more about managing your woodland to benefit species and habitats biodiversity.

Apply for a wildlife licence

Find out when you need to apply, the type of licence you need and how to complete the application. This guide provides a full list of licensing information for:

• badgers
• bats
• bumblebees – non-native species
• deer
• dormice
• freshwater fish
• great crested newts
• invertebrates
• mink, coypu, muskrat and grey squirrel
• natterjack toads
• otters
• plants
• reptiles
• water voles
• white-clawed crayfish
• wild birds

Wild plant licences

Find out how to apply for a licence to cover activities affecting wild plants

Tree felling

You should be able to undertake felling operations without a wildlife licence even in the presence of EPS, providing you follow the associated good practice rules and make proportionate decisions on how to deliver your work proposals

You may need a wildlife licence if felling operations could adversely affect any protected species on your site, for example, when you need to fell trees that host protected species because of a tree pest or disease. Find out more about tree-felling and applying for felling licences.

Contact the Forestry Commission

You can email england-protectedspecies@forestry.gsi.gov.uk or get in touch with a woodland officer in your local area office for advice on protected species and support to apply for licences.

Sites of special scientific interest (SSSI) are protected by law to conserve their wildlife or geology. The Forestry Commission or Natural England can help identify woodland you own or occupy as an SSSI – this is called being designated.

Find out what you can do on or near an SSSI and when you need consent for an activity. The Forestry Commission in consultation with Natural England can help you manage your woodland.

You don’t need formal consent for work next to an SSSI but Natural England may choose to advise on precautions you may need to consider so that your work doesn’t harm the SSSI.

How the Forestry Commission can help

The Forestry Commission will obtain consent from Natural England on your behalf when we process your application for grant aid or a felling licence. This means that when we send the grant agreement or felling licence to you we’ll also send Natural England’s consent, which may list additional conditions. Prior to carrying out any work on an SSSI it remains your responsibility to check that you have the relevant consents from Natural England.
Find out about applying for a felling licence

Find out more about applying for grants and funding in the overview guidance on creating woodland.

What you need to do

Complete a supplementary notice of operations for work on an SSSI and send this with your grant or licence application. If you don’t send this form to us, you’ll have to get consent from Natural England independently.

In this form you’ll answer a series of questions related to woodland management operations and what the impacts will be in order to carry out tree felling on a SSSI.

You must give full and clear details about the specific nature of the proposed operations, how you propose to carry out and manage them and where and when within the SSSI they would take place. This information allows Natural England to check that you won’t harm the SSSI’s special wildlife so they can decide whether to give consent.

To process your application as quickly as possible, we may contact you to arrange a joint site visit with a Natural England advisor.

Contact the Forestry Commission

You can contact the Forestry Commission. The Forestry Commission area offices assist with:

• grants
• licences
• advice for woodland owners and managers
• pests and diseases

Following withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the UK will be introducing new Nuclear Safeguards Regulations to enable a domestic nuclear safeguards regime to operate in the UK. This consultation seeks views on the operability and effectiveness of these draft Nuclear Safeguards Regulations.

The government has committed to establish a regime that will operate in a similar way to existing arrangements, but with changes made to the regulations to ensure they are appropriate for the domestic, legislative and operational landscape in which they operate.

If passed into law, these proposed Regulations will allow the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to meet international obligations from day one of exit, and to build, over time, a safeguards regime equivalent in coverage and effectiveness to that currently provided by Euratom.

This guidance gives you a step-by-step approach to design techniques used in the forest management planning process. You can apply this guidance to the creation of new forests and woodlands – by planting or encouraging natural regeneration – and the management of existing forests and woodlands.

Although you’ll find information on how to follow aspects of forest planning for small woods, this guidance mainly focuses on larger forest areas that involve more complex issues and need more time to programme woodland management activities.

The guidance is organised into sections covering:

• introduction and overview
• how to document your plans
• the process – scoping, survey, analysis, synthesis, implementation, monitoring, revision
• design techniques
• survey information – what to collect

The Environment Secretary Michael Gove will attend the launch of Bees’ Needs Week today on Carnaby Street, which has been renamed ‘Carnabee Street’ to raise awareness of the campaign.

Defra has partnered with Carnaby London, the leading West End shopping and dining destination to kick off the week of bee and pollinator action from government, conservation groups, industry and retailers to raise awareness of the campaign and the ways people can help save the bees.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

Bees and other pollinators are vital contributors to the beauty of our landscapes, our economy and our £100 billion food industry.

It is inspiring to see such a wide range of organisations celebrating these essential creatures for this unique Bees’ Needs campaign – showing us that all of us can play a part and help pollinators to thrive.

Recent actions Government has taken to protect bees include:

• The Government is developing a Nature Recovery Network in England to provide 500,000 hectares of additional wildlife habitat, more effectively linking existing protected sites and landscapes, thereby improving access to habitat for pollinating insects;
• In November 2017, the Environment Secretary announced that the Government supported further restrictions on the use of three neonicotinoids due to their harmful effects on bees and other pollinators, and the UK voted in favour of the EU Commission’s proposal in April 2018;
• Since 2015, nearly half (47%) of new Countryside Stewardship agreements included the Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife Package. The package ensures that a minimum of 3% of the farm is converted to habitat for farm wildlife including pollinators;
• Defra has funded new research by the University of Exeter which has found a way to track the invasive Asian hornet back to the nest. The hornets prey on honeybees so tracking the predator back to the nest will enable inspectors to take swift action and destroy them;
• Defra has provided a home for the rare Black Bee to the hives on the roof of the department’s London building. This particular species was on the verge of extinction a few years ago.

Two schools, St Albans School in Hampshire and Trythall in Cornwall, will receive the Pollinator Champion Award from Lord Gardiner, which recognises their invaluable work in helping pollinators thrive.

Defra Minister for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity, Lord Gardiner, said:

It is my pleasure to award the Pollinator Champion Award to St Albans Primary School in Havant and the Trythall Community Primary School from Penzance. I would like to thank these young people and their teachers for their exceptional work in helping to protect these vital pollinators and their dedication in raising awareness of bees’ needs.

Bees’ Needs Week is about celebrating the fact that everyone can get involved by growing more flowers, leaving patches of garden to grow wild, cutting grass less, not disturbing insect nests, and thinking carefully about using pesticides.

The campaign also celebrates the efforts of a wide-range of organisations that will be present in The Hive – a discovery center dedicated to pollinators on Carnaby Street, London:

• The Royal Horticultural Society are handing out pollinator-friendly seed: Blooms for Bees;
• The London Honey Company are offering free honey tasting;
• Reading University are showcasing their leading research and a Bumblearium has been installed offering people a window into the secret lives of bees;
• Last year’s Pollinator Champion, Rebecca Twigg, will be in the Hive with her fascinating augmented reality bee trail;
• Wildflower Turf – the company behind creating the idyllic countryside landscape for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics – have stepped in to decorate the Hive and showcase some of the most beneficial native wildflower habitats for pollinators.

Simon Quayle, Director, Shaftesbury, said:

Shaftesbury is delighted to support the launch of Bees’ Needs Week, on our very own ‘Carnabee’ Street, which is also being backed by many of our occupants in the area. There has been an alarming decline in the pollinators across the UK, which play a vital role and are the unsung heroes in our ecosystem.

We can all play our part in helping to boost the population, even in urban environments. If you take a closer look around our areas of London’s West End you can see we’ve introduced pockets of pollinator friendly plants wherever possible. With hanging baskets and window boxes, green walls and roofs, and even the introduction of rooftop beehives adorning parts of the area, it offers a much-needed oasis for our pollinating friends.

A swarm of activity is taking place in the world-famous shopping destination to raise awareness of Bees’ Needs including:

• Carnaby Street has been renamed ‘Carnabee Street’ and the iconic arch has undergone a bee-themed makeover;
• A pop-up ‘Hive’ will open at 3 Carnaby Street which will host educational and fun games, installations and talks in partnership with Defra alongside charities, universities, businesses and landowners;
• Visitors to Carnaby will be able to follow an art trail around the area’s 14 streets, with illustrated bees by London based artist Lizzie King on the windows of participating shops and restaurants;
• Shops and restaurants located in the world-famous shopping destination have created bespoke bee themed products, menus, cocktails and offers to raise awareness of the Bees’ Needs campaign.