About the project

The Devon Woods project provides free support for the creation of new woodlands and wetlands, and aims to improve water quality, create habitat for wildlife, sequester carbon, and reduce flood risk. The project area covers much of Devon but is focused on target waterbody catchments where the opportunity for improving water quality status is the greatest: including most of the Tamar, Torridge, Taw, Teign, Exe, Culm, Clyst, Otter, and Axe catchments, but sites in other catchments will also be considered. 

The Devon Woods team can help develop woodland designs, complete grant applications, obtain permits and consents, and find contractors and suppliers. In some circumstances we may also be able to match-fund the creation of wetlands or other relevant works which fall outside of the main grant schemes.

So far, we have supported dozens of woodland creation projects - creating hundreds of hectares of new woodland habitat and planting hundreds of thousands of trees. We have also helped to create several new wetlands, install leaky woody dams and other Natural Flood Management features, and protected many kilometres of watercourses.

We work closely with farmers, smallholders, councils, tourism businesses and other land managers to find the right locations for woodlands, ensuring that they achieve the best environmental outcomes whilst complementing future land use. The woodlands are designed to meet the land managers needs but also to be as valuable as possible for biodiversity and to be resilient to climate change. Our woodland designs usually incorporate a wide range of tree and shrub species to create diverse woods, copses, and shelter belts, along with areas of natural colonisation and networks of rides and glades. 

Building on the success of the Woods4Water project, the Devon Woods project began in 2021 and is expected to run until 2027. It is funded by the Environment Agency through the Water Environment Improvement Fund. We are currently working on several exciting woodland creation projects but are always looking for more landowners to work with. 

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How to get involved

If you are interested in creating woodland and wetlands on your land and would like some free support, you can contact the team using the details below. Unfortunately, we do have a minimum project size of 0.5 ha (1.2 acres) of woodland creation. Our target catchments are shown on the map, but if your land falls outside these areas please feel free to get in touch anyway as we may still be able to help or suggest others who can.

Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01392 388835