How Burrator Forest in Devon Protects Young Trees

If you picture a forest as a place that simply grows on its own, Burrator Forest tells a different story. The 353-hectare site sits beside Burrator Reservoir on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in Devon. It is owned by South West Water and managed by South West Lakes Trust, which looks after more than 50 sites across south-west England, many of them with woodland. That makes Burrator a useful case study for you and for us. Its woods hold a mix of native and non-native species, so every decision has to weigh up public access, wildlife, farming and the long-term health of the trees.

One of the biggest problems is surprisingly ordinary: animals wandering through the wrong gate. Local people have common land rights to graze animals on the moor, and there are no fences separating that land from some of the areas managed by South West Lakes Trust. Livestock from nearby farms can also stray into the forest. This usually happens when visitors leave gates open or when fencing is damaged or vandalised. Gates and stiles are there to help people get around the site, but if access points are not where people want them to be, barriers can end up broken or even cut. **What this means:** public access and nature protection are not enemies, but they do need careful planning to work side by side.

Once livestock get into young woodland, the damage can be quick and costly. Unprotected trees can be grazed, bark can be stripped, and months of planting work can be undone in a short time. Between 2024 and 2025, Burrator Forest lost around £5,500 worth of conifer trees to livestock grazing over an 18-month period. That figure helps explain why South West Lakes Trust has had to rethink how it protects new planting. The Trust says it does not use tree guards unless it really has to. But when ponies or cattle get inside a fenced woodland area, getting them back out can be difficult, especially when thick vegetation gives them plenty of places to hide.

The first response has been practical. South West Lakes Trust has started fitting self-closing mechanisms to existing gates at Burrator and plans to keep using them in future. Volunteers also patrol the fences and carry out regular checks so problems can be spotted before they grow. There is an important money lesson here too. Across the Trust's wider estate, annual fencing maintenance costs run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. So the question is not just how to build more barriers. It is how to protect the most vulnerable places without wasting time and money on fixes that do not last.

This is where the technology comes in. Through the Water Industry National Environment Programme, South West Water is working with tenant farmers to trial Nofence collars, which use GPS to create virtual fencing for cattle. In 2024, 50 collars were fitted without reported problems, and another 50 were bought the following year. The real value is in the data. The information from the collars is being analysed to show where cattle prefer to graze and when they are most active. That should help the Trust take a more targeted approach by putting small enclosures around young trees and other sensitive areas. Put simply, the aim is to fence the trees in rather than fence the cattle out.

Livestock are only part of the challenge. South West Lakes Trust also works with Artemis Land Management Services to survey and manage deer and grey squirrels. Artemis keeps a regular presence on site, adds fencing where needed and carries out selective culling when that is judged necessary. Grey squirrel plans are still being developed with Artemis, British Red Squirrel and other local organisations because bark stripping can reduce the value of commercial timber. Some of the newer ideas are much lower-tech. The Trust plans to trial sheep's fleece mulch mats around the base of individual trees to deter deer and smaller mammals such as voles. Nicola, drawing on experience from sheep farms, has found that raw fleece can help, although animal by-products used away from the farm need treatment and a licence. The Trust has also noticed that heavier footfall in some places appears to keep deer away, and that sheep grazing nearby can reduce the damage deer cause in surrounding woodland.

Then there is the twist in the story: not every animal browsing in woodland is a problem. At other South West Lakes Trust sites, Eurasian beavers have proved helpful. By feeding on willow, they are reducing the need for expensive thinning work, and around reservoirs they are improving conditions for recreation such as angling by stopping vegetation from taking over the banks. That does not mean every species is harmless, or that one answer will solve everything. But Burrator Forest shows you something important about conservation in real life. Good woodland management depends on evidence gathered on the ground, patient observation and a willingness to change course when animals behave differently from what people expected. Protecting nature is rarely about one fence, one species or one gadget. It is about choosing the right mix of tools, then checking honestly whether they work.