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From The Sunday Times June 24, 2007
The wood samaritans
A lengthy campaign to protect Britain's dwindling orchards could finally be about to bear fruit
Peter Nalder likes to cycle round Northampton. It's the best way, he says, to find forgotten old orchards in need of rescue – and, right now, they need all the help they can get.
It is crunch time for Britain's old apple trees. In 1950, England had 268,739 acres of orchards; since then, 60% has been lost; in Wales, although there are no official figures, an estimated 94% of orchard acreage disappeared between 1958 and 1992. Development is one of the main threats, but the mass import of cheap apples from abroad, along with various agricultural advances, has undermined their economic viability.
“Orchards have been lost because they are often classified as brown field sites,” says Sue Clifford, director of Common Ground, a charity that supports biodiversity. “But tall trees with grass underneath have enormous potential for wildlife, and a lot of orchards have been untouched for generations, so creatures have had a long time to evolve.”
It has been some time coming, but campaigners hope that, within the next few months, orchards could finally be placed on the official conservation agenda. They were not included in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), a government programme published in 1994 to protect the nation's species and habitats, but discussion has been under way for the past two years on expanding its remit.
Natural England, a government-funded agency that advises on nature conservation, has recommended that traditional orchards be added to the list of priority habitats recognised by the scheme. This wouldn't mean automatic protection, but it would constitute an important step forward by recognising their importance to our landscape.
“When a habitat is given BAP status, an action plan is drawn up and targets are set, then reviewed after five or 10 years,” says Heather Robertson, a lowland farmland ecologist with Natural England. “It would get orchards onto the planning radar, acting as a red flag to developers.
“There's a terrific genetic diversity in traditional orchards, and some farmers with uneconomic orchards already receive funding from the government's agri-environment scheme. BAP status would mean we could get coordinated action across the country.”
Up and down Britain, meanwhile, campaigners such as Nalder, 63, are doing their bit. In 1993, the former maths lecturer and folk singer turned ecologist set up South Court Environmental – a cooperative that tries to involve the local community in wildlife conservation. A revived orchard, open to the public and run by volunteers, would have been perfect.
Two years later, during one of his bicycle rides through Northampton, Nalder came across Wilsons' Orchard, which occupies a nine-acre plot that was part of a larger site owned by a house builder. It hadn't been touched since the 1950s, and was an overgrown mass of more than 200 fruit trees and rotting vegetation.
With planning permission for residential development, the plot had a potential value of £9m, but it had a protective covenant requiring it to be maintained as an orchard. It took five years, but the house builder eventually agreed to let Nalder's group take it off its hands for nothing. “It's the largest extant traditional orchard in Northamptonshire,” Nalder says. “The trees were old, some dying, some falling over, so we had to deal with health-and-safety issues before opening to the public. We've also planted new trees: cherry, medlar, quince, hazelnut, walnut, plum, as well as apple.”
It's not just fruit that thrives in traditional orchards. Rotting wood provides a home to any number of invertebrates, while ancient bark can host ecosystems unique to just one tree. There are also valuable old seed banks to consider, as well as lichens, fungi, liverworts and mosses, mistletoe, dormice, grass snakes, great crested newts, lizards and slowworms, even endangered birds. Orchards, in short, are biodiversity made manifest.
Even when they are saved, there is still the problem of what to do with them: orchards need a lot of looking after. With this in mind, Common Ground has instigated an annual Apple Day (actually held over several days around October 21) – with apple-bobbing, cider-drinking, longest-peel competitions, that sort of thing.
“Britain imports a huge amount of fruit that could be grown here, and Common Ground supports small-scale producers selling apples for cider and to local markets,” says Clifford. “We also encourage community orchards, which can be a place of refuge, another form of park or nature reserve with help from local authorities. They are like open-air classrooms, where people can learn to graft, prune, plant, care for trees and pick fruit.”
There's still a way to go: Debbie Bryce has been a lobbyist and adviser on old orchards for two years. “When orchards get UK priority habitat, it will raise their profile,” she says. “It will be a wonderful starting point to get some protection.
“At present, when local authorities get a planning application, they don't have to be told there is an orchard on site. How can they protect something if they don't know it's there? And many trees that deserve tree-protection orders do not get them; even the original bramley, planted in the early 19th century in a garden in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, is unprotected.”
In the meantime, house builders remain disinclined to hand out plots to workers' cooperatives, even for the sake of biodiversity, so Nalder, with three other paid part-timers, is making the most of what he's got. “We think holistically,” he says. “We have a children's play area, we have juicing sessions and we organise May Day festivals.” Money is raised through contracts to manage orchards for landowners and householders, and they work with volunteers, many with disabilities. “That, with the community involvement, is important as a basis for grant money.”
Nalder is optimistic about the future: “Britain is coming up with people with the will and the nous to get things done more than ever before. Nothing's safe, and it's still possible that Wilsons' Orchard may get built on, but it's not over until the concrete is poured.”
www.scenorthampton.org.uk www.commonground.org.uk
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