Celtic broadleaf forests

The Celtic broadleaf forests are a terrestrial ecoregion native to western Great Britain and most of the island of Ireland. The Celtic broadleaf forests occupy the eastern part of Ireland; the majority of Wales; the southwest of England, including Cornwall and Devon; central and northern parts England; and southern Scotland extending along the North Sea coast through most of Aberdeenshire and Moray. The forest is part of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome of Western Europe.

Habitat status

Ninety percent of the Celtic forest habitat has been destroyed, generally over the last few thousand years, due to agriculture, fire-wood use and general deforestation. The outcome is an ecoregion which has not only lost most of its pristine cover, but which has been heavily degraded by fragmentation. The forests today are in a critical status, with the majority of the land having become the rolling pasture-hills typically associated with England.

Fauna and flora

Animals known to inhabit the forests are as follows;

• European otter
• European badger
• Red deer
• Roe deer
• Stoat
• Weasel
• Greater horseshoe bat
• Lesser horseshoe bat
• European hedgehog
• Red fox

Many other species once inhabited the forest; however, due to exploitation of natural resources, deforestation and hunting, many animals have becomelocally extinct. Many of these animals were once numerous across the British isles, including the grey wolf, wild boar, lynx and European beaver.

Flora include many broadleafed deciduous trees including common ash, silver birch, European aspen, common elm and various oak trees.

Climate

The climate of the forest is oceanic, leading to frequent precipitation, high precipitation days, high moisture and low sunshine levels; temperature extremes are rare. The combination of moisture and low evaporation (low sunshine amounts) leads to high dampness levels.

Prehistory

This ecoregion is relatively young with regard to human settlement due to glacialation (glaciation?)during the last glacial maximum, making it unsuitable for human settlement. Mesolithic peoples were certainly in evidence, circa 9000 to 8000 years ago, throughout the present day English portion of the ecoregion, as well as in the Welsh, Irish and eastern Scotland areas of the Celtic broadleaf forests.

As the Roman Empire expanded, the Roman peoples arrived, beginning "recorded" history within the ecoregion, with major Roman urban settlements commencing in the first century AD, although evidence shows indigenous towns such as York had existed for a millennium prior. Viking settlement in coastal areas of western Scotland, Wales and eastern Ireland was widespread from at least the ninth century AD.