The Ancient Woodland Practice Boosting British Biodiversity

The Ancient Woodland Practice Boosting British Biodiversity

The Ancient Woodland Practice Boosting British Biodiversity Living Paradigms is a series about what we can learn from the customs and cultural practices of others when it comes to solving problems. It is sponsored by Wonderstruck. E very year, around the middle of summer, Alex Lack finds himself surprised by the buzz in Bradfield Woods , the forest he manages in Suffolk, a county in eastern England. Standing in a glade on a warm summer day, insects flit busily between shrubs and wildflowers. Hundreds of red admiral, peacock and brimstone butterflies float through the air. “There’s a constant hum of things flying around,” says Lack, who works with Suffolk Wildlife Trust. “It’s extraordinary.” Today, woodlands cover only 13 percent of the U.K.’s land area . But for centuries, much of Britain would have looked like Bradfield Woods — and hosted a similar melange of invertebrates, small mammals and plants of all sizes. “Half the countryside must have been like this at some point,” Lack says. Eery 2…