A PLEA has been made for landowners and farmers to leave some dead and decaying trees and branches where they are.

So many are being removed that it is having an impact on wildlife.

Now the Forestry Commission has adopted a deadwood policy across all of its 55,000 acres of land in North Yorkshire.

It involves leaving 20ft tall tree stumps on cleared sites to act as perches for birds of prey and nesting sites for woodpeckers.

And as they rot down they provide habitats for bugs and beetles.

Andrew Smith, North York Moors district manager for the Forestry Commission, said practices since the Seventies had been too hygienic. Much wood had been removed to prevent beetles or fungus spreading to healthy trees.

"Now things have turned full circle and we are trying to mimic a natural forest cycle," said Mr Smith.

The policy will be explained at a seminar on the Duncombe Estate, Helmsley, next month where a long-term conservation plan has been introduced for the 500 year-old oaks in the deer park.

The plan lets death play its part with dead branches left on otherwise living oaks being particularly important for birds and beetles. A similar policy has been adopted elsewhere on conifer clearfell sites.