Lost Woods project logs 5,570 Sussex trees — SkimNews
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- Lost Woods project volunteers have logged 5,570 ancient, veteran, and notable trees across a 121-sq-mile (314-sq-km) area from Lewes to Storrington since March 2024, surpassing what the project expected to find.
- Outreach adviser Bob Epsom called the tally a "milestone," noting that about 20 surveyors, each assigned one square kilometre, have created visible new clusters on the project map.
- Of the 5,570 trees recorded, 2,743 are veteran, 2,467 are notable, and 348 are ancient — the rarest category, representing trees in the third and final stage of life.
- Lost Woods is a partnership of four charities — Woodland Trust, Action in Rural Sussex, Sussex Wildlife Trust, and Small Woods Association — funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of a wider programme of 19 individual projects.
- Recordings feed the Ancient Tree Inventory, which has mapped the UK's oldest and most important trees for 20 years; Epsom said the mapping is "only the first step" toward ensuring the trees "can continue to support wildlife and communities for generations to come."
- Volunteers aim to find and record every ancient and veteran tree in the project area by next year, with Epsom acknowledging they still "have a reasonable amount to cover."
Why it matters: With only 348 of the 5,570 logged trees classified as truly ancient, the project is filling a granular gap in a 20-year national dataset that conservationists use to prioritise old trees for protection. Epsom said these veteran and ancient trees matter because of the fungi they host, making the Sussex inventory a direct input into which landscapes and biodiversity hotspots get safeguarding next.
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